Biggie Smalls: Rap Phenomenon

Directed by April Maiya

To kick off the 2009 year, hip hop was granted one of its many wishes: a biopic about Notorious B.I.G. Unfortunately, Notorious [read review] was greatly underachieving with a variety of flaws, misled information, and bad casting. It wasn’t the movie everyone was expecting and sadly, it just wasn’t a good movie (let alone a biopic). Enter April Maiya, a saving grace to those still hungry for a proper visual Christopher Wallace homage. She presents the world with a sixty minute documentary on his hip hop life: the art of his rhyme, concert footage, quotables, and his persona. It’s an important film, and Maiya does a great job of bringing the audience along on a ride where they can actually connect with Biggie, much more than the aforementioned feature film.

First and foremost, April gets real live footage from D-Roc, Big’s best friend. This amplifies the excitement of the atmosphere at a concert, and centralizes on the actual personality of Biggie away from the stage, but still within the hip hop world. Ever wondered what it felt like to rock “Gimme The Loot” on stage with Biggie? Well here’s your chance. See why it literally paid to be in the front row of a Notorious live show. The live footage is the star of the documentary and is sure to move even the shyest hip hop fan .

One great thing about this piece is the added concern on the artist, rather than the person. Biggie in a hip hop state of mind was simply marvelous, a gem. He was simple, yet complex. As many of the interviewees stated (including Jadakiss and Styles P who were high as hell), Biggie just had this ability to create something so simple that it appealed to the mainstream, but so complex that the real heads knew that he was deep. And this is true. Some of the most intriguing bits of information came from D-Dot, the most important member of Puffy’s production team, and R.A The Rugged Man, who was close friends with Christopher.

The documentary points out that Wallace was a funny kid, always joking any chance he got. He was as vicious as ever on the microphone and in videos he had this particular image, but away from all of that, he was a clown. We have to sit back and think, as the interviewees mention, this is the same guy that made “Suicidal Thoughts” and then went on to do “Juicy” and “Sky’s the Limit.” Sure, he was diverse lyrically, he could flow on anything, but he’d also been through quite a bit and was a whirlwind of emotions at times.

With that said the viewer gets all they need to know from this piece. Granted, it doesn’t go into great detail about his relationship with his mother, or Lil’ Kim, or Faith Evans, but it does go into great detail about his relationship with D-Roc (a relationship that was retardedly dumbed down in Notorious). There is still some left to desire, but it’s a quick educational fix into the hip hop world of Biggie Smalls, the motherf*cking Rap Phenomenon.

85/100