Notorious

Title: Notorious
Release Date: January 13, 2009
Record Label: Bad Boy Records

Christopher Wallace – he’s better known as The Notorious B.I.G. – is in the pantheon of hip-hop music. Biggie Smalls, the black Frank White is a legend. What I’ve found extraordinary is how his name and music has endured over the years since his passing – can you believe it’s been over a decade? Things done changed and a new generation of hip-hop aficionados has come up since the mid-nineties yet Biggie stays relevant – we have his ardent fans, reverent peers, loyal crew, family and record label home to thank for that.

The latest scheme to make sure his greatness registers with our fickle minds is the biopic Notorious. The complementary soundtrack is also an opportunity to score and add fans to the legion. It draws from Biggie albums (Ready To Die, Life After Death and Born Again) and has a few nuggets to entice those who’ve already been conquered.

This is not a best of. Besides “Hypnotize”, “Juicy” and “Notorious”, the songs picked wouldn’t fit on such a compilation. What they do is provide an accurate microcosm of Biggie’s catalogue. As such, it is a great starting point for someone who wants to delve in the works of The Notorious B.I.G.

The soundtrack also delights for the inclusion of rarities like “Party & Bullshit” and the “One More Chance” remix, which were hard to find in the pre-Napster days. The three demos in this opus were still hard to find up to this point. Old timers like me can find some value there: I never realized how influential Big Daddy Kane was to Biggie because the similarities are striking here.

What else? There’s a Jay-Z banger that’s most welcomed; a Jadakiss letter-in-rap to his fallen comrade that’s quite touching; a posthumous father-and-son rendition that is cute at best – it’s not really my cup of tea – and the movie’s theme composition that is thankfully as short as it is sweet.

Christopher had a very brief time in the limelight. He didn’t leave a big catalogue behind. How close this soundtrack befits the movie is up to you to determine. Thus far, it’s the best snapshot of his body of work.