Jadakiss, who rapped alongside Biggie on several tracks in the earlier part of his career, says meeting B.I.G. was a pivotal moment for him.
“Meeting The Notorious B.I.G. and him telling me and my group, ‘You guys have what it takes to make it in the industry,'” Jadakiss says when asked when he felt he made it in Rap on ESPN’s Highly Questionable. “That was the battery in my back that I needed. That was the motivational speech or whatever that got me still going to this day.”
While speaking about Biggie, Jada was also asked about who B.I.G.’s “I Got A Story To Tell” is about.
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“Big wouldn’t tell me,” Jada says. “I was doing my own investigation. He was saying 6’5″. Trying to figure out what Knick was 6’5″. He threw you off, though, because he also said ‘rained out.’ A basketball game can’t get rained out. So, Big was trying to mess with you a little bit on there, too.”
Jada was also asked if he thinks John Starks was the man referenced in the song, something Starks has denied.
“I don’t know,” ‘Kiss says. “Got a chance. It could have been Starks, baby.”
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But Starks isn’t the only player that Jadakiss thinks the song could have been about.
“Out of my candidates, it would have to [Anthony] Mason, Larry Johnson, maybe Derek Harper,” he says. “Could have been any of that team. Those were the crazy Knicks back then.”
While Biggie was a mentor of sorts early in his career, Jada would also go on to work with another prominent emcee, DMX, someone he was scared to ride in a car with.
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“If you ever get in a car with X, try to bring your own seatbelt besides the ones that they put in the vehicle already,” he explains. “He’s gonna step on the gas like never before, scare you half to death.”
He continued by saying he was most scared when the two went for a ride with X’s pit bull Boomer.
“One time he asked me to ride somewhere with him,” ‘Kiss adds. “When he’s there, its cool, but he got out for something, to go get a cigarette or whatever it was. I’m just in the back seat with Boomer. He’s growling, he drooling on me. I’m begging for X to come back. He’s taking forever to come back. I’m trying to get out of the car. Boomer won’t let me, though. Right when I thought he was gonna bite me, X came back to save me.”
