notorious BIG

1027. ‘Nasty Girl’, by Notorious B.I.G. ft. Diddy, Nelly, Jagged Edge & Avery Storm

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In 2005, we had a belated, posthumous #1 for 2Pac. In early 2006, another famous, and very dead, nineties rapper makes their first and only appearance on top of the charts: the Notorious B.I.G.

Nasty Girl, by Notorious B.I.G. (his 1st and only #1) ft. Diddy (his 3rd and final #1), Nelly (his 4th and final #1), Jagged Edge & Avery Storm

2 weeks, from 29th January – 12th February 2006

It’s fitting, in more ways than one, that six months elapsed between their turns at number one, as that’s how long passed between their deaths. 2Pac’s murder came in September 1996, before Biggie was slain in March 1997 in a similar drive-by shooting. Rumours abound that their deaths were related, given the feud between the two that had gone on since 1994.

Unlike 2Pac, whose ‘Ghetto Gospel’ was hard-hitting social commentary, ‘Nasty Girl’ doesn’t have such worthy ambitions. The title gives a big hint, and yes, this is filth. I remember the soulful groove, and the catchy chorus from the time (this was my 20th birthday #1), but I don’t remember it being so dirty. I must have been hearing the radio edit…

B.I.G. delivers the first verse, a sample from a song of his originally called ‘Nasty Boy’. Fingers in your mouth, Open up your blouse, Pull your g-string down south… is one of the cleaner lines, but it’s my favourite of the three main verses. Biggie has a brilliantly languorous flow, that makes him sound like he’s rapping direct from the bedroom, presumably in a silk nightgown.

Plus, he’s not Diddy – topping the charts for the third time under a third different name – whose verse makes for pretty icky listening knowing what we know now. Women wantin’ to bone Sean Combs… he brags. Nelly does the third, and again he can’t match the effortless smut of their dead partner. Both these men were appearing on their final chart-toppers.

Elsewhere in the credits – the longest for a number one single up to this point – we have vocal group Jagged Edge, who sing the chorus, while R&B singer Avery Storm gets to harmonise in the background. This makes it one more act than Christina Aguilera et al and their version of ‘Lady Marmalade’.

The video is even more stacked with luminaries: Usher, Pharrell Williams, Fat Joe, Naomi Campbell, and surely many more I don’t recognise, dancing in a club in honour of Biggie. I assumed that William’s must have been involved in the record’s production, as the beat sounds very Neptunes, but he wasn’t.

I do like this song, as despite the vulgarity it’s silly enough, and it does have a very danceable, disco-soul beat. It probably goes on a minute too long, though. It was from an album called ‘Duets: The Final Chapter’, B.I.G.’s second posthumous album. Like 2Pac, he wasn’t short of people making a buck off his legacy, in this case P. Diddy himself, who was the project’s executive producer. Some complained that the rappers he was ‘duetting’ with on the album were people Biggie didn’t care for in real life, but obviously he had no say. Diddy, whose career breakthrough had come thanks to his tribute for Biggie (‘I’ll Be Missing You’), had no qualms.

It’s worth noting that ‘Nasty Girl’ was not a big seller, and in its second week at #1 it recorded sales of fewer than 25,000. Just a month after Shayne Ward selling three quarters of a million to make Christmas number one, we’re on our way to hitting a record sales low…

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770. ‘I’ll Be Missing You’, by Puff Daddy & Faith Evans ft. 112

/ UK #1s blog / 12 Comments

And so we meet the year’s third now-problematic chart-topper. I have to admit that I’m not quite up on what Sean Combs has/hasn’t been accused of*, while I think a lawyer would advise me to mention that he’s not been found guilty of anything. It seems, though, he’s quickly heading the way of R. Kelly and Michael Jackson.

I’ll Be Missing You, by Puff Daddy (his 1st of three #1s) & Faith Evans ft. 112

3 weeks, from 22nd June – 13th July 1997 / 3 weeks from 20th July – 10th August 1997 (6 weeks total)

Back in 1997, Combs was head of his own label, Bad Boy Records. He’d signed the rapper Notorious B.I.G., and had produced for acts like Usher, TLC, Mariah Carey, even Aretha Franklin. That March, B.I.G. had been shot dead just as Combs had been preparing his own debut album. ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ is a hastily-recorded tribute to his dead pal, featuring fellow Bad Boy artists 112, and Faith Evan’s (Biggie’s widow).

So, on the one hand, it feels churlish to criticise a tribute to a recently deceased man. On the other… there’s just so much to criticise. Reviews at the time called it ‘maudlin’, and ‘turgid’, and it’s hard to disagree. The lyrics – which I once knew word-for-word – are extremely clunky. It’s kinda hard with you not around, Know you’re in heaven smiling down… Watchin’ us while we pray for you, Every day we pray for you…

It’s main hook is that it’s based around ‘Every Breath You Take’, by The Police, as well as the hymn ‘I’ll Fly Away’. In earlier posts I bemoaned not knowing the difference between a sample and an interpolation, so imagine my joy to discover that ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ features both! So blatant is it that Sting and Co., who hadn’t been asked permission, sued for 100% of the royalties (and won).

The clear highlight of this saccharine number is Evans, whose voice soars above the sentimentalism, especially in her middle-eight: Somebody tell me why… Other than that, it is catchy, and it is heartfelt. But I can’t help but see something cynical in the way it goes for the heartstrings so remorselessly. It reminds me of Wiz Khalifa’s ‘See You Again’, another rap/pop crossover about a dead man, which I think is one of the sickliest pieces of music ever recorded (sorry, spoilers, but it’s a while before we’ll come to it…)

Thing is, though, I loved this song as an eleven year old. Like I said, I knew all the words. If I’d been eleven when ‘See You Again’ came out, I’d probably have felt the same about it. But that’s the song’s problem: it lacks nuance, depth, and relies too much on simplistic lyrics about turning back the hands of time, and living life after death. If this record helps a kid process their emotions following a loved one’s death, then great. But as an adult I would need something a little more substantial.

Though maybe I’m in the minority on this, as ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ stayed at number one for six weeks in total (an impressive feat, as chart turnover was ever increasing) and would have been 1997’s biggest-seller, if it weren’t for the small matter of the most succesful record ever released coming along a few weeks later: another tribute to a dead person. It remains the 23rd highest-selling record in the UK, and the country’s biggest-ever hip-hop song. Sean Combs, AKA Puff Daddy, AKA P. Diddy, AKA Diddy (I believe he’s the only artist to have topped the charts under three different stage names) will return to this countdown eventually, though with nothing resembling the success of his first big hit.

*Long before the current accusations against him, there was a rumour that Diddy had put the hit out on the Notorious B.I.G. himself.