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Rest in Peace: Notorious B.I.G.: Chrisopher Wallace gunned down

© Steve Juon

This tragic event has already been well covered by the media, so there's little need for me to reiterate the facts of what happened this past weekend. You can check CNN for background if you'd like. What I'd like to address is what this latest slaying means to the hip-hop community, and what our collective response to it should be. My apoligies to those of you expecting web pages links or the usual BS, I'll return to that next time.

The artist formerly known as Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G., was beloved by fans around the world. His music had a platinum impact in the U.S. alone, and his "Moet and versace" style was imitated (weakened and watered down) by nearly every newjack MC since 1995. Camp-Lo, Foxxy Brown, and even protege Lil Kim have gotten famous off the style he made large. This is not to say Biggie was the pioneer of the style, as he no doubt was not. What he did do was present it with a style and flair many could relate to. Songs like "Big Poppa" and the remix of "One More Chance" had that smoothed out vibe that made you want to lounge and chill, while he had ruff cuts like "Machine Gun Funk" and "Warning" for the hardrock b-boys in Brooklyn. Biggie was one of those rare artists who had something for everybody.

When black on black crime kills people everyday, most people don't take notice. It takes a superstar of Biggie's caliber getting gunned down in front of a Soul Train party to catch attention; but on the real it's a tragedy that occurs routinely. What's shocking is that two of hip-hop's most successful artists have been gunned down in cold blood in six months. This is inducing a psychological terror into people's minds that hip-hop is either the cause of this war, or that the exaggerated East/West feud is somehow to blame. If we live in fear, then the people who caused this violence have achieved their goals. They want to stifle hip-hop by killing off it's success stories and in the process inspiring all kinds of conspiracy theories and further the division between East and West.

We have to stop this before it even starts. Take the time to mourn the loss of an artist who whether you loved him or hated him, lived to make music. This is a man who went from slanging crack in Bed-Stuy to slanging records in Sam Goody. It's a remarkable change of life, but some part of Biggie's past life still managed to catch up with him. We can't forget the reality of the violence that inspires people to escape, and we can't allow the terror of that violence to drive us apart. Artists make art, not war. America was violent before rap, and will be long after it's gone (I'm loosely paraphrasing KRS-One).

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