5 Reasons Why YOU’VE GOTTA See the Movie NOTORIOUS

Article written by: Jennifer D. Carroll
Posted on: February 6, 2009

By Jennifer D. Carroll

A few years ago, I started dating younger men.  This is in contrast to my previous dating record, as I have always been more drawn to men who were 5-10 years older than me. But as I hit my thirties a strange thing happened…those youngstas started getting kind of sexy.

Anyway, I guess what comes with the territory of dating someone younger is the fact that oftentimes, they are just not going to be hip to the obvious things about life that you just take for granted.

Examples:

Thriller is the best record of all time.

Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time.

and

Notorious B.I.G. aka Christopher Wallace is the greatest rapper of all time…

I actually had a blowout debate 3 years ago with my tenderoni at the time, because he REFUSED to believe this fact. In his mind, Tupac had no equal because he had more fans, he was both an actor and a rapper, and he represented that T.H.U.G. life mentality with which so many inner city males self-identify.  We ended up spending about 2.5 hours on the phone engrossed in this debate until finally he admitted that he hadn’t listened to many of Biggie’s songs outside of the radio-friendly cuts that everyone knows.

I told him to go do his homework and hit me up afterward.  A week later, the king was crowned.

For those of you that were not around when Big was living large or were too young to listen to him, here are my top 5 reasons why you have to go see NOTORIOUS, the Biggie bio pic.

1) Biggie is the greatest hip hop lyricist of our time.  I know, I know…there are a bunch of you who want to debate me, but upon closer inspection you will find what I am saying is true.

Biggie had genius, intuitive delivery. He took you into stories that provoked the listener into vividly imagining the scenes he was painting with words. In his song “Warning”, B.I.G. alternates between two different characters. He acts out his homeboy who is warning him of a plot to rob him initiated by some neighborhood cats.  In “Suicidal Thoughts” Biggie takes us on  an emotional voyage as he talks about  thoughts of  insecurity, remorse and pain.  His innovative delivery and wide range of styles made even the most ruthless sentiments sound dope.  In “Playa Hater” he channeled a Frank Sinatra-era lounge singer and sang:

“You know, we need this money
And you, yes baby you, should just roll with me
Let’s go off, together
On this robbin spree, we’ll make money”

‘Nuff said.

2) The movie NOTORIOUS takes you on a voyage back to the ’80s.  For those of you who were born sometime in the 80s or even (gasp) the ’90s, this movie gives you a unique glimpse into life as it truly was in Brooklyn, NY 25+ years ago. You’ll be transported to a time when B-boys walked around the streets with ghetto blasters on their shoulders and every other block had a hip hop cipher where MC’s could battle each other lyrically for street cred.

3) You get to see Derek Luke do his Puffy style minstrel dance.  If that isn’t worth the price of admission, I don’t know what is!

4) A lot of people are confused about the dynamic that existed between Biggie and Tupac, but this movie does a great job of breaking down the fact that they were boys before all of the east coast vs west coast drama broke out.  The movie highlights the event that caused their relationship to shatter and sheds an interesting light on how Biggie felt about the beef.

5) The movie shows us how we need to look beneath the surface in our dealings with others.  If you listened to Biggie’s lyrics someone might say that he was an angry, violent criminal. However, this movie reveals other sides of Biggie – his loving side, his life struggles and his challenges.

I think that we can all relate to having duplicity in our hearts and actions. We can be nice, mean, loving, hateful, vengeful, forgiving…all at the same time.  This movie provides a mirror that illustrates this very human behavior while entertaining us, all at the same time.

Check out Notorious and see what all the hype is about.