EURweb.com - THE FILM STRIP: Exclusive interview with The Notorious B.I.G before his death.

*Just before “Notorious” opened Christmas day, in selected markets, The Film Strip did a story on Jamal Woolard, who stars as The Notorious B.I.G. in the film. “Notorious” opens nationwide this week and I thought it would be interesting for moviegoers to compare the film with a real life chat I had with Biggie in 1994 after the release of his first album, “Ready to Die.” He talks about his music, goals, his mom as a role model, dealing drugs, death, Puffy and mentions Tupac.

The Tillman interview mirrors much of what Biggie talked about.

MARIE MOORE: TALK ABOUT HOW YOUR RECORDING CAREER STARTED AND YOUR HOOKING UP WITH PUFFY?

NOTORIOUS B.I.G: I was in my man's basement just drinking, you know, smokin’ or whatever and we made some tapes and like everything we did my DJ would tape. Every time I rhymed over an instrumental beat or something, he would tape it and he let DJ Mister Cee hear it from Big Daddy Cane. Then Cee let this guy from the Source Matty C, he let him hear it and then Matty got us in the Unsigned Hype column in Source Magazine’s Unsigned Artists. Then Matty saw Puff [Sean Combs] in a club. Puff said he wanted some hardcore artists for Uptown Records and Mat let him hear my tape and he was like, ‘aright, that’s what I want.’

MM: NOW THAT YOU’RE DOING VERY WELL, ANY REGRETS ABOUT SELLING DRUGS?

NG: No. I mean it was just a life experience, you know. It was something that I did and it’s over with. I don’t do it no more so it was just something that I learned, you know.

MM: WHO CAME UP WITH ALBUM TITLE, ‘READY TO DIE’?

NB: Me

MM; IS THAT SAYING SOMETHING WITH RESPECT TO LIFE?

NB: No, no. Not like that. It just means like at the time when I wrote the song I was just thinking about the way we used to live, not and getting up every morning, not going to school, hustling,’ watching out for the police, stickup man, that you gotta watch your product, you know. Doing that everyday, risking your life every day and not caring. Knowing that you could die, knowing that you can go to jail for life and you still did it meant that you were ready to die. If you could just risk your life everyday with ease, you’re ready to die. So that’s what I did and that’s why I called it that.

MM: WHO SELECTED THE FIRST SINGLE?

NB: Oh ‘Juicy,’ that was Puffy. I mean learning and being with Puff I understand there are certain ways to go about the game, you know, and one way is to make radio happy. You gotta make a radio song. You gotta make a song that you know the radios are gonna pump. You want them to respect your music and pump your album, so I made a radio song. I didn’t think it was gonna come out first, but Puffy was like, ‘Yo, let’s drop it first. It’s a hot joint, it’s hot now. Let’s pump it for the summer, get some money.’ So f$*k it, let’s do it!

MM: WHO WERE SOME OF THE COLLABORATORS YOU BROUGHT IN?

NB: Easy Mo Bee, he did most of the album. That’s my man. He lives two blocks away from me. Lord Finesse, these guys called Hi Class, the Blues Brothers, Chuckie, Track Masters, Premiere, another Brooklyn resident, Puff, that’s about it.

MM: ANY DISAGREEMENTS ALONG THE WAY?

NB: No, I mean we did one song that was just too much. Puffy was like, Nah, you over did it. Mobee was like, ‘No, you’re not putting that on my tape, no. So I just said, ‘f#*ck it.’ So I just did another joint.

MM: WHY WAS IT TOO MUCH?

NB: I over did it. I over did it, definitely. But, I know that’s what niggaz be wantin’ to hear. So I just be wantin’ to do it. I just wanna represent, you know, but I guess I crossed that line. whatever[laughs].

MM: TELL ME ABOUT THE LOVE SONG?

NB: Oh, ‘Me and My Bitch.’

MM: Yeah.

NB: That’s my jam.

MM: NO QUALMS ABOUT OFFENDING SOME SISTERS?

NB: I call my bitch, bitch. That’s my bitch. I f#*ks with her like that. I mean I didn’t call her mother a bitch. I didn’t call her friends bitches. I said that’s my bitch. I also said we cry together and I hope we die together. And, I called her my best friend, too. So if they could look at it all, they can see that I definitely loved her.

MM: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOLUT ALL THE TITLES THEY PUT ON RAP AND ALL THAT’S SAID ABOUT IT?

NB: People are either gonna criticize it badly or they gonna respect it. One of the two. I mean they’re gonna be like, ‘well he’s always sayin’ bitches and hos too much and he’s talking about smokin’ blunts and guns.’ Or they gonna be, like, ‘wow, we never did that before. I wonder if he’s telling the truth. I wonder if his life was that rough?’ Those are the people that were never involved in it, and the people that were involved, they just shake my hand and be like, ‘thank you,’ you know what I’m saying? ‘You finally did an album that niggers could really say, this is how it really is.’ I mean gangsta rap, I don’t know what that is. I’m a reality rapper. I just talk about shit I’ve been through. That’s all I could do.

MM: WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE TRACK ON THE ALBUM?

NB: Yeah, my favorite track on the album is ‘Everyday Struggle.’

MM: WHY THAT ONE?

NB: ‘Cause that was my sh*t. That’s me. That’s how I was, waking up f#*ked up, pockets broke as hell and another rock to sell. That’s just how I was on it everyday and a lot of my niggaz dead and alive, they know it. That’s how it is. So that’s like my little theme song right there.

MM: WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS RIGHT NOW?

NB: Well I got my group. I had a group signed to Big Beat at Atlantic, doing the tour and just working on the next album. I don’t really want to flood it up too much. I was a freshman in the game so I did a lot of songs with different people, Da Brat and Tupac and a whole bunch of different other people. But like, being a freshman you want to be in everything, you just want to make yourself known and I think I did that. I got a certain amount of respect in the industry. That’s what I really wanted. Now it’s time to like start taking it to other levels and sh*t.

MM: DID YOU EVER THINK THAT IN 1994 YOU WOULD BE ONE OF THE BEST SELLING RAPPERS OUT HERE?

NB: I always knew that I was gonna get here but I never knew that it was gonna happen so quickly. I mean with the album being out for what, a month, a month and a half and it’s gold. No, no. I know a lot of people who struggled for like seven months, eight months that were really dope MCs just to get to gold. Meaning, doing it in a month is good. I mean I didn’t think it was gonna happen that fast but I knew it was gonna happen because I knew that I had the heart. I knew I kept it real. So I knew somethin’ was gonna come out of it. I just didn’t know how soon. And the work, I didn’t know it was this much work, waking up 8 o’clock in the morning. I didn’t wake up eight o’clock in the mornin’ since a long time ago [laughs].

MM: NEXT SINGLE?

NB: ‘Big Poppa,’ that’s the next single. We just shot the video the other day.

MM: DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE TO YOUNG PEOPLE?

NB: Young people coming up today?

MM: YEAH, SOME SAY YOUR LYRICS GLORIFY DRUGS, GUNS AND PROMOTE GENOCIDE?

NB: I mean I couldn’t really see myself you know, telling somebody to do something that I didn’t do even if it’s right or wrong. I could never really be like, ‘stay in school’ and ‘don’t use drugs’ because I smoke weed, you know what I’m sayin’? I dropped out of high school and really ain’t got no plans of going back. So I would feel like I’m contradicting myself. The only thing I could tell people to do is to think about things before you do it. I notice every time I wanna do something rash, if somebody holds me down and says like, ‘Yo, B.I.G, just calm down for a couple of minutes and I calm down for a little while and just think about the situation, usually I may not wanna do what I had originally planned to do. All I do is just tell people just think about what you do before you do it. Just analyze the situation and everything should go smooth. I mean nobody’s stupid. We’re all blessed with common sense. We all got that. You just need to think about it and just weigh the pros and the cons. I’m just 20 years old and like I’m not stupid. I know what’s wrong and what’s right and if I don’t, if I just chill for a little while and think about it, I could really figure it out. I figure everybody else can do the same thing. And if you have goals, and if you really know you wanna do something, and you really know you got your heart set on it, just keep trying. That’s all.

MM: ANY RAPPERS OR ARTISTS YOU LOOK UP TO?

NB: Nah, not really. Not no rappers. I just really like looking up to my moms because she was a single parent working and going to school, you know. My moms got her Masters in psychology, and it was a struggle for her. And it’s still a struggle in every sense, you know. Not in just the hustling sense, in the working sense, in the scholastic sense, everything. You just gotta keep trying and keep trying until you finally get what you want. And she still ain’t got what she wants and she’s damn near 50! You know?

MM: DO YOU FEEL RAPPERS CAN BE ROLE MODELS?

NB: I mean some rappers preach that good stuff. I mean some rappers can really be role models like Craig Mack. I think Craig Mack is like a role model. He’s a rapper that always pushes going to school and staying away from drugs and stuff like that you know. So like he’s more of a role model. I’m more of a reality check. I’m the person that you can look at and be like well, he was living a f#*ked up life and he checked himself and he did his sh*t straight and now his sh*t is alright. I look at myself and I don’t really be pumpin’ that role model sh*t too much cause I could flip at any time. You know, I’m a time bomb and I would hate to be the one that would be tellin’ somebody don’t do this and don’t do that and then turn around and I’m involved in somethin’ and it shatters kids dreams. I know kids that really look up to certain people and like when they see them do somethin’ wrong, it’s just terrible for them.

MM: WERE YOU BITTER WHEN UPTOWN LET PUFFY GO?

NB: No, but I would have bitter feelings if I saw Uptown was crazy large now and blowing up and I was like still broke. But Bad Boy is crushing Uptown. They don’t have nothing. Mary J [Blige] just came to Bad Boy for management. It’s on. I’m glad I’m off the label, definitely. Definitely because once Puffy left, the sh*t was looking shady [laughs hysterically].

MM: WHAT’S UP IN THE COMING YEAR?

NB: Ummm, Junior M.A.F.I.A. We’re droppin’ in 95 on Big Beat Atlantic. If you love ‘Ready to Die,’ you’re gonna love their joint. Just keepin’ it real. Just trying to keep flava and trying to represent my borough cause Brooklyn always had the look of a shyster town. When we used to go uptown and go to the Apollo and talk to girls, they’d be interested. But once we write down our numbers and they see that 718, they would be like, ‘you from Brooklyn’ and they start taking out their earrings and backing up. Brooklyn is a rich town. I’m trying to bring it back up so that everybody will be like, ‘yo, Brooklyn is the sh*t, you know what I’m trying to say? I’m trying to represent from my borough.

The Film Strip asked George Tillman (“Soul Food,” “Men of Honor”}, the director of “Notorious,” why it was important to bring Biggie’s life to the screen?

“I think it was important because,” he says, “for me, I just felt like there were so many connections. I wanted B.I.G. to have a small part in ‘Soul Food,’ my first film. And on the west coast I was talking to a casting director who said, ‘I wouldn’t do that because there are a lot of issues with B.I.G out on the west coast and that was the first time that it really hit me and that was late ‘95.

“And then there was the incident where I had to go to the hospital and my wife and I ended up with the doctor who was actually the one who tried to resuscitate B.I.G. the night he was shot. He tried massaging his heart. But I’m gonna be 40 this month and I think the most important thing is you’re looking at a young kid who faced obstacles having a daughter and at 23, 24 dealing with an east coast-west coast situation, a wife, dealing with two women and not wanting to be like his dad, just making mistakes along the way. That’s a great story. I’m interested in people who learn from mistakes and can look back and be like, you know what, I fu*ked up. Not until the late ‘90s early 2000 is when a lot of young men started really being father figures and being fathers for their kids and I just thought that was an interesting story.”

Tillman took on a no holds barred policy when presenting Biggie’s life to the public.

“With a film dealing with the sub-culture of hip hop, there’s always the negative vibe that people bring already to the table,” he explained. “And there’s also the realization that you can’t white wash it too much because you want it to be real. Like can you take out the scene of him selling crack to the pregnant woman? if you take that out, is it real? Is that for Hollywood’s sake, taking it out? These are the things that he did. You know what I mean? He would be in his den selling crack with people coming in and out of there. People there were smoking crack sometimes. So there’s the choice. That gives you the whole vibe and I felt more than any film that I have done, this is the one where it hits right on 100% where we needed to be. You don’t expect to have Biggie being like Heavy D. That doesn’t work. These are two different guys. When you look at these two individuals and what happened by the end of their lives, it’s all connected.”

No doubt Biggie was a ladies’ man. Another film opening this week is “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” starring Kevin James, another hefty ladies’ man. With the help of Will Smith in “Hitch,” Kevin lands a beautiful babe and as the star of the TV series “The King of Queens,” he had choice pickings there, too. So I asked him how is he able to always end up with the beautiful women?

“I don’t know,” he laughs. “Isn’t that sad? Something happened. I must’ve done something in a past life.

“Yeah, I know it’s very strange. I don’t know how it happens. I try to explain it to people, in ‘The King of Queens” I did pretty well. I gotta say, though, growing up I was pretty good with the ladies. I didn’t have any rap or anything like that or any game but I did alright, you know?”

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THE FILM STRIP: Exclusive interview with The Notorious B.I.G before his death.

‘Notorious’ director George Tillman talks about Biggie, the man who plays him and why it was important to do the film & Kevin James can’t explain why the fat guy gets the girls.