If you’re familiar with Talib Kweli’s Twitter account, you know the Black Star MC has no qualms with sharing his opinion on anything and everything. It was only a matter of time before someone offered him his own show.
Now, as the current host of UPROXX’s new People’s Party series, Kweli sits down with Hip Hop legends to discuss a myriad of topics.
For the inaugural episode, the Brooklyn Hip Hop luminary sat down with Houston powerhouse Bun B. The two vets ended up sharing stories about smoking weed with The Notorious B.I.G.
The UGK rapper says he and the late Pimp C were at the BMG offices in New York City sometime during the mid-90s. Craig Mack’s “Flava In Ya Ear” had just been certified gold by the RIAA. But Bun had Biggie on his mind and wound up learning about Biggie’s street smarts.
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“‘Juicy’ was still at 460K or 465K, something like that and so, everybody in the room is making a very big deal about Craig Mack,” he says around the 24-minute mark. “I’m a rapper. I remember the Ready To Die album leak. What was it? Like eight joints that had leaked before the album came out? But I want to meet Biggie Smalls.”
Bun says he introduced himself and Pimp C, and he was shocked when Big said he knew who they were, revealing he was a fan of “Pocket Full Of Stones.”
“He was like, ‘I fuck with y’all,'” he recalls. “We said, ‘We fuck with you, too.’ I said, ‘We finna go outside and smoke if you wanna smoke.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, cool I’ll come. I’ll smoke.’ So we go out to the car — and he’s a big dude. Pimp was in the driver’s seat and I’m in the passenger seat so I offer him the front passenger seat. He was like, ‘Nah, I’m gonna chill in the back.’
“I was like, ‘Yo, there’s a lot more room in the front.’ He’s like, ‘I’m good, I’m gonna sit in the back.’ He left the door open. We were like, ‘Yo, close the door. We’re gonna hot box.’ He’s like, ‘Nah, I need the air. I gotta keep the door open.'”
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Bun admits it took him a couple of hours to figure out what Big was doing.
“It wasn’t until later that I realized that he didn’t want to sit in the front seat because he didn’t want anybody sitting behind him,” he continues. “He didn’t want the door closed in case he needed to bounce because he didn’t know us like that. I had even more respect for him as a man outside of the music. Like OK, I see that man moves in a real way out there.
“We smoked and we chilled. He was just a very, very good rapper. There’s A lot of people are going to make rap music and rap songs but a lot of us aren’t going to be that good. Only a few us will be really really great at it. He’s one of the few guys that was really great at it … you know that dude was different.”
Kweli chimes in with his own memory of being at John Forté’s birthday party back in the day and having a Biggie encounter.
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“We were just smoking,” he says. “It was one of those things where I was let behind a velvet rope for a second and I was just sittin’ in the booth, as a kid, not even old enough to get in the club at that point. That’s my one memory of smoking with Big. For me, it was a New York privilege. ”
Elsewhere in the interview, Bun talks about the recent scare he had at his Houston home and his favorite H-Town restaurants.
Watch the full episode up top.
