Memories Hypnotize - Chris "Preach" Smith
Friday, March 9, 2012 at 11:25AM 
Fifteen Years.
When you mark time with tragedy as a milestone, you feel that pain
heavily at first. Then it fades until the numbers get larger. I thought
about that late last night when I saw all of the quotes and thoughts
about The Notorious B.I.G. aka Biggie Smalls begin to pop up here
and there prior to the anniversary of his murder.
All that time gone by. You start replaying key moments that have
gone by since B.I.G.’s death. More than anything, it becomes a giant
case of the ‘what ifs’, like that Marvel Comics series. I found myself
detailing all of these scenarios in my head, like I’ve done each year
since 1997. Like everyone else has. With Biggie gone, you realize
with each year that a cross-section of the hip hop pushed at you, if
you want to get all Ghostface and make food comparisons, is nothing
more than Crown Fried Chicken and a Tropical Fantasy. You can’t feed
of off that and expect your message to be natural. Biggie was an MC
that you KNEW read a lot, consumed a lot of knowledge. You could
tell by how he laid an entire track down. You could tell by his narrative.
‘Everyday Struggle’ plays just as well today as it did back in 1993.
Can we say the same about a Meek Mills song years down the line?
In addition, you could tell Biggie was an avid reader by his flow.
These days, you got MC’s not even speaking about their favorite books,
taking the Sarah Palin route. What part of the game is that?!!
I could sit here and spin fairytales of how if B.I.G. was still here, the
game wouldn’t be what we see it as today. But you’ve got eyes. You’ve
got heart. You KNOW I don’t have to go down that road. Instead, I
hope you’re doing what I’m doing; playing every single song Biggie
ever did, looking at YouTube clips, reading every article on him ever
written. And then passing that on to the younger set. They need to
know that sometimes, even though the impact of someone’s death
can match their life, it will never surpass it.
We’ll always love the King of Brooklyn. The Notorious B.I.G.
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