There's a reason fans like me look at people like B.I.G., 'Pac, and J.M.J. as martyrs of some sort. Very few artists these days display any redeeming qualities other than their talent for making hits. Very few are moving forward and changing the game. It's hard these days to say what separates one cat from the next because everyone sounds alike now.

When Biggie rhymed, you felt like he was sitting right across from you, telling you how his day went. He was personable, and his conversational humor made you feel right at home. We related to this guy. He wasn't a pretty boy; by his own account he wasn't very attractive at all. But you can imagine with the amount of charisma he had why any woman would want to be by his side.

People outside of hip-hop just don't get it. To them, he was just another rapper that lived by the sword and died by it. But every culture, every generation has someone that just speaks to them. He laid his flaws on the table, let everyone know how he felt about the game, made me understand that as a black youth, I was valid, no matter what anyone else would have me believe. He talked about struggling. Me and a lot of people I know are struggling right now, hustling in our own ways to get by. That's why Biggie matters to us, that's why we broke down when we lost him. He was our voice. Not necessarily the face of our culture, but a damn good representative of how a lot of us felt.

I remember Notorious B.I.G. as "Biggie Smalls," a name that he was no longer able to use after his career exploded due to someone else copyrighting the name. I've never been really able to call him by his now trademarked name. When "Juicy" first dropped, I remember the atmosphere in East Coast hip hop at the time was one of fun, no matter what camp you pitched your tent: the angry, yelling Oynx-type cats, the Black Moon-type backpackers, the funk-influenced Redman-types, or the jazz-influenced ATCQ/Pete Rock & CL Smooth peoples.

What was so interesting about Biggie is that he seemingly came out of nowhere, even if you were involved in the music business, his initial presence was like a tsunami. One day no one knew his name, and the next day everyone's talking about this new cat Biggie Smalls. To his credit and by his own admission, he was not the most attractive dude, but he could flow very, very well, and the beats that accompanied his music were unparalleled. Ready To Die is still one of my favorite albums to this day, in part because of the good times I was having when the album dropped. I was young, in college, and partying too much for my own good. Biggie often narrarated those times when I was in full party mode. 

Sadly, the way I viewed Biggie from that point on completely changed. "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems" was right. From the beef he had with his-then wife Faith Evans and how it played out on wax on the collabo he had with Jay-Z on "Brooklyn's Finest" ("She'll probably have 2 Pacs/ Get it?/ Two? Pacs?") was disgusting to me. I furthermore tuned out the madness when the East Coast/West Coast rap war played out in the media with the unfortunate but, let's face it, expected result: two Black men slain. 

The day Biggie died, I have to say I wasn't really sad. I was moreso angry than anything that someone's child, husband, and father had died over words. Hip hop lyrics at that. Especially because the reason hip hop culture came into being was to squash beefs with words and not with gunplay. What I remember most about Biggie's death are the shots of what seemed to be all of Brooklyn following Biggie's casket as it was led down the streets in the funeral procession. That and Lil' Kim crying and being held up by Mary J. Blige. It's sad to think about his murder still being unsolved 11 years later as well. It's still such a shame.