Get the latest gossip
The Biggie We Never Saw
A new film from dream hampton provides a fresh angle on a rapper whose image has been scanned and refashioned ad nauseam.
The digital rough-grain filter of her handheld camera pulls us back to a time when rap was on the precipice of transitioning from a grassroots, underground art form to a corporate cultural institution worth billions. It’s extremely funny, but it also serves as a commentary on the militant “keep it real” wing of hip-hop, then embodied by fellow Brooklyn native Jeru the Damaja, who had engaged in a cold war of sublims with Big. The film appears to occur during the moment Raekwon and Ghostface took a cheap shot at Biggie on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, when Ghost called out what he saw as the similarities between Illmatic ’s album cover and Ready to Die ’s.
Or read this on VULTURE