Beefin', Bullyin' and Biggie

Beefin', Bullyin' and Biggie:
The Drama Continues

TRUTH Minista Paul Scott


"You're nobody 'til somebody kills you"

Notorious BIG



In today's news, there was a double homicide in the Bronx, yesterday, involving two fifth grade students at PS 187. After heated words, gunfire was exchanged leaving both children mortally wounded. Though first thought to be a result of bullying , it was later discovered that the killings were a result of an argument over who was the greatest rapper of all time; Tupac Shakur or Biggie Smalls. More news at 11:00...


On March 9, 1997, the murder of Christopher Wallace aka The Notorious BIG sent shock waves across a Hip Hop nation still mourning the death of rival rapper Tupac Shakur, months earlier. Wallace's death was followed by pledges to stop the violence, not only in Hip Hop, but in 'hoods across America. There were numerous conferences and rallies with people declaring that never again would a life so full of promise be wasted.

The final outcome fifteen years later... epic fail.

The senseless violence that plagued this country during the 90's is still prevalent and many will argue that the problem has gotten progressively worst. With the growing popularity of social media (Twitter, Youtube, etc) the 'net is flooded with videos of people beatin' each other's brains in. In 2012, every kid with an IPhone can become a ghetto Don King.

Although the focus in the media today is on "bullying," this term does not, adequately, address the drama that is going on in the streets. While it is popular to do a psycho-analysis of Lil Billy from the 'burbs who was picked on so much that he marched into his school cafeteria, one day, and started blastin', rarely do we ask what makes Lil Tyrone from Compton carry a gloc and shoot up the block on the regular. This type of behavior is just accepted as a cultural norm, especially in the world of Hip Hop. Like Cyprus Hill said back in the day , "Here is something you can't understand/ how I can just kill a man."

There have been rivalries in Hip Hop since the beginning. Many can remember the classic battles between Kool Moe Dee and Busy Bee or the Cold Crush Brothers and Dr. Rock and the Force MC's. Even during the era of "Hip Hop unity" there were ideological rifts between KRS One and members of the X-Clan and Ice Cube and Common. However, except for instances such as BDP throwin' that PM Dawn dude off the stage, these rivalries rarely led to violence.

However, by the mid 90's, the entertainment and other industries began to realize that beefs were extremely profitable for selling, not only murda music, but on a deeper level, guns and ammunition. Not to mention supplying the prison industrial complex with an endless source of funding. This is why many people consider the East Coast/West Coast beef that resulted (at least on the surface) in the deaths of Hip Hop legends Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls the result of a well thought out marketing scheme that went right.

This is not , merely, some some conspiracy theory, either.

In his autobiography, "My Infamous Life," Prodigy of Mobb Deep claimed that an associate once told him that the infamous shooting of Tupac at a NY recording studio that kicked off the deadly East Coast /West Coast beef was an attempt by Shakur "to start controversy" and use "Biggie and Puff" to "turn his gunshot wounds into marketing and promotion."

More recently, R@B legend Chaka Khan told CNN that a manager once told her that she was "worth more dead to him than alive." If this can be said about a musical icon, think about how much more dispensable are the lives of Hip Hop artists who are viewed as easily replaceable common street thugs.

Since, Hip Hop is dominated by African American males, the stereotype of Black youth as violence prone animals only heightens the folklore and commercial appeal of "beefs."

Although Biggie once defined "beef" as " when you need two gats to go to sleep" that ain't necessarily so. In the bigger scheme of things real "beef" is bombing a country while they're sleep" But if your world view extends no further than your block , then the ultimate example of beef is Black men killing other Black men in the streets.

This is especially destructive when this ideology becomes embedded in the psyche of the youth.

According to Dr. Amos Wilson in his classic work "Black on Black Violence: The Psycho-dynamics of Black Self-Annihilation in the Service of White Domination," the Black on Black violent criminal hates in other Blacks those characteristics that he hates most in himself" and he "commits homicide to keep from committing suicide."

This is the type of logic (or lack thereof) that flows throughout Notorious BIG's cds "Ready to Die" and "Life After Death," as he weaved tales of murdering other Black men with lyrics about being "black and ugly as ever" and how teachers told him that he would "never amount to nuthin'"

So the question after seeing all the death and destruction in our communities over the last fifteen years is; why do we still glamorize this nihilistic mentality? Why are we more concerned with creating another "Frank White" than we are saving a "Christopher Wallace?"

As Dr. Na'im Akbar wrote in "Visions for Black Men," "if we spend all of our time studying the destitute, desecrated and destroyed then we'll end up with a destitute, desecrated and destroyed image of the Black man." He urged that "if we want to know how to survive, let's look at the image of those who did survive."

An example of survival is the one time lifer, Durham NC's, Mike "Poetic Mike" Anderson who went from serving a life sentence in prison to founding "Polished Souls," a movement to save young people from the streets.

However, for every Poetic Mike, there are hundreds of Christopher Wallaces who don't get second chances but wind up six feet under.

Whether you call it beefin', bullyin' or Black on Black violence, the cycle of self destruction in the 'hood must end.

Despite what the Notorious BIG said on his first hit, "Juicy, " the stereotype of a Black male misunderstood" ain't all good.


TRUTH Minista Paul Scott's weekly column is "This Ain't Hip Hop, " a column for intelligent Hip Hop headz. He can be reached at info@nowarningshotsfired.com . His website is www.NoWarningShotsFired.com Follow him on Twitter @truthminista

Notoriously Overrated

Notoriously Overrated:
What Was so Big about Biggie Smalls?

Paul Scott




There's a new movie coming out, next month, called "Notorious." It's the story of a black kid who grew up on the mean city streets, became a Black Panther and dedicated his life to stopping police brutality and trying to organize street gangs into a revolutionary political movement. The story ends with him being murdered in his bed by the police as he slept next to his pregnant fiancee.

My bad, that was the Fred Hampton story. Wrong screenplay...

"Notorious" is about the life of a drug dealer turned rapper who released a CD, got into a beef with another rapper and was shot on the streets of LA while leaving an after party. The end.

If you ask any Hip Hop fan who are the greatest rappers of all time, dead or alive, he will, most likely, put Christopher "Notorious BIG" Wallace in the top five. Any omission of "Biggie Smalls" is considered Hip Hop blasphemy. Even highly educated college professors have made a career out of quoting Wallace's lyrics like "The 10 Crack Commandments" as if they were part of some sacred text. Even today, if you go to any Hip Hop clothing store in any city in America you can still buy the T-Shirt of The Notorious BIG with the crown on his head for 20 bucks.

However, as it is with most American icons, we never take a minute to ask, at the end of the day, what was this person's overall contribution to society that made him worthy of the accolades that we bestow upon him, posthumously.

The tragic story of the Notorious BIG is the cornerstone of the Hip Hop catechism and has been the subject of so many books, documentaries and magazine articles that I am not sure how much more light the film "Notorious" can shed on his life. I guess that the movie company, Fox Searchlight, is banking on the possibility that thousands of loyal Hip Hop fans will be willing to put down $8 a head just to pay homage to their dearly departed idol, even in the midst of a major Recession.

But the question remains, what makes a person like Christopher Wallace still relevant a decade after his death when many of our leaders who sacrificed their lives for black people are forgotten soon after their casket drops?

Most Hip Hop heads can run down in their sleep how Wallace sold drugs in Brooklyn, signed with Bad Boy, married Faith Evans and discovered Lil Kim. Who doesn't know about his infamous beef with Tupac Shakur during the mid 90's that had black folks debating who had the best rappers, the East or West Coast, during the same period when right wing conservatives were debating how to take away the few rights that black folks had.

Many of the faithful still get teary eyed when they recall the night that "Big" was murdered, a tragedy that made a black record label owner rich and a whole lot of multi-national white businessmen, richer.

Very few Hip Hop aficionados will debate the fact that many consider Wallace's first release, "Ready to Die," a Hip Hop classic. But one would be hard pressed to find anything even remotely political or intellectually, insightful in any of the lyrics on his CD's where every thing he rapped about could have taken place within a one mile radius of his own block. Besides tales of black on black homicide and suicidal thoughts based on either self hatred or major depression, there is little else to justify any of his work being held in the same light as a " It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" or "The Score."

Talid Kweli once rapped about how we have the uncanny ability to find beauty in the hideous. In the case of Biggie's lyrics, we also try to find depth in the shallow.

Maybe the reason lies within our "mis" educational system. We are trained since elementary school to accept what the text books teach us as the absolute, unadulterated truth. If the book says that Christopher Columbus "discovered" America, then Christopher Columbus discovered America. So as we get older, if a Hip Hop magazine says that Christopher Wallace was the greatest of all time , than Biggie Smalls was the illest. No questions asked.

Perhaps we just have a fascination with death. Especially the deaths of other black folks. I know people who can't start their day without checking the newspaper to see who got shot the night before. We also have the tendency to elevate people in death to levels that they would have never achieved in life.

In ancient Egyptian culture, when a pharaoh died he was worshiped as a god. So when rappers die violently, they are transformed into gods of war, leading their followers on a quest to seek revenge against all those that had beef with them when they were alive.

Holly'hood has also capitalized off of our necrophilia as, for the last 15 years, the plot of black men getting tragically caught up in the streets has been the theme of too many movies to name. No one wants to admit that although they say art imitates life, in the hood , life imitates art as the death of Christopher Wallace only helped to desensitize a generation of young black men to the finality of death. And with the upcoming release of "Notorious," we see that we still have not learned our lesson.

Sadly, although the Notorious BIG became even more famous beyond the grave, for the young brothers who followed in his footsteps, the only fame they received was a 15 second news flash on Channel 9.

Back in the day Kurtis Blow said that there were 8 million stories in the naked city. Unfortunately, most of our stories end the same way . No happily- ever- after. No pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Just black blood being spilled on city streets.

I guess the BIG man was right when he said that "You're nobody till somebody kills you."

Paul Scott, the Hip Hop TRUTH Minista's blog is http://www.nowarningshotsfired.com/ He can be reached at info@nowarningshotsfired.com (919) 451-8283