(Netflix )īut Wallace was serious when it came to the work of learning music. Harrison remembers teaching Wallace about music and rhythm as a child. Juicy was the first single from Biggie's first album, Ready to Die, and it is not an overstatement to say it landed with a bang, cementing his status as a rap great and launching him into the hip hop firmament. It is still, more than 20 years later, the focus of best-of music lists, like when the BBC called it the greatest hip hop song of all time.Ī still from the new Netflix film about the life of Notorious B.I.G. 'Birthdays was the worst days, you know, and then he said, but now it's OK ,' he said. 'He was giving them hope that there could be a better day for them and that they were special. Harrison said those verses got to the heart of what Biggie was doing, which was 'giving hope to the hopeless,' the people 'who are always told that they're not special. We used to fuss when the landlord dissed us No heat, wonder why Christmas missed us Birthdays was the worst days Now we sip champagne when we thirsty That storytelling influence can be seen in the lyrics for songs like Juicy, when Biggie raps: One was to enunciate the words in his rapping, 'to put accents like a drummer, a jazz drummer ' and the other was 'to tell stories where you could visualize the scenes. Harrison gave Wallace two key pieces of advice, he says. to join Rock and Roll Hall of Fameīut before all that, he was Wallace, meeting up on his stoop with Harrison.

He had released only two albums before his death, Ready to Die and Life After Death. But he was so dominant as a lyricist and performer that his legacy is still going strong more than two decades later.

Harrison's relationship with Wallace is part of the new Netflix documentary Biggie: I Got A Story to Tell about the iconic rapper, who was shot and killed 24 years ago.īiggie was just 24 years old when he died on March 9, 1997, in Los Angeles. And he seemed like an adult, but he was in this little body,' said Harrison in an interview with Day 6 host Brent Bambury. He was a little kid and he saw me with a saxophone and he started asking me questions. 'I first met Chris on the stoop of his apartment building. started on a Brooklyn stoop when Biggie was still known only as little Christopher Wallace. Donald Harrison, a renowned jazz saxophonist, says his friendship with Notorious B.I.G.

Notorious big full free movie online