musical #tbt: May 30
Today, we decided to ignore the other historical happenings and focus on an oft ignored icon. A lyrical legend. A rap pillar. Yes, it’s Cee-Lo’s birthday, but today we pay respects to a fallen phenom. Happy Birthday to the inimitable Big L.
I’ll never forget the first time I heard Big L. I walked down Vassar Street and crossed Woodhead to my buddy Matt’s house to check out the new Guerilla Foco Clan song. The boys were bumping some 90s New York rap. I was fourteen and my rap diet consisted of a strict regimen of Houston and Memphis rap. If it wasn’t Screw, Trae, Three6, 8Ball & MJG, then it was probably something on the other side of the spectrum like Folie a Deux. My New York rap knowledge consisted of Wu-Tang, Biggie, and Jay. Then I walked into Matt’s room and heard the first verse of Put It On.
The next week was of my life turned into an immersive education on one of the most prolific and short lived names in hip hop history. After making noise as a feature on Lord Finesse’s “Yes You May (Remix),” and blowing minds when he and Jay-Z stopped into a radio show for a now-legendary freestyle, Big L released his debut album, Lifestylez of da Poor & Dangerous, in 1995. The album, released on Columbia, hit Billboard’s Hip/Hop chart at #22, delivering hard hitting lyrical lacerations with hits like “Da Graveyard,” “MVP” and yes, “Put it On.” More importantly, it established L as a force to be reckoned with on the exploding post-1994 hip hop scene.
But Big L was more than just a wildly gifted poet. In 1998 he founded his own label, Flamboyant Entertainment, through which he pushed perhaps his most commercially popular song, Ebonics. He was at work on his second studio album in 1999 when L was gunned down in Harlem in a drive by shooting, allegedly by childhood friend Gerard Woodley. The old friend was arrested in connection with the crime and later released. Woodley was shot to death on the same street in 2016.
Give Big L a play today and keep him alive for another 2:09 at a time.