Tupac or Biggie

does ned prefer biggie or tupac?

^^^prior reading

big

amazing that this poll hasn't been done

biggie.

i used to say 2pac but now i say biggie

Tupac is the man and all of you that do not like that you suck my dick and if you are at it you can suck pac dick to bicth and i will not ever say biggie is anygood all he was is a fat ass tupac and all. Michael A.K.A That nigga

shit ain't even a question imo

pac rapped his ass off but often as not wasn't sayin shit worth hearing whereas biggie was a writer imo

I know Biggie will win this, and probably with an 80/20 split. I wanna talk about why though... it kinda strikes me that BIG's critical rep has never been higher than it is now, while Tupac's has never been lower. Is this due to any fluctuation in Actual Rap Nowadays, or is it just swings and roundabouts?

2pac's obnoxious death cultists ruined his crit rep imo. I respect Big's skills of course, but I never straight up connected w/ him like I did with Pac.

Yah 2pac currently = Jim Morrison of Hip Hop = can't be heard for noise of pontification.

Still voted Biggie cos I think he's formally stronger rapper but I reckon this is absolutely about how old you were in 1996.

i think now that the decade-long trickle posthumous Pac albums and cash-in projects has stopped there'll finally be some breathing room and in the future people can just kind of appreciating at how big his catalog is and rediscovering songs or giving certain albums a second look. Big's definitely been helped by contemporary rap resembling his stuff more and the ubiquity of guys like Jay constantly reminding people about him, plus there's not as much mythology, really he was just an extremely lovable guy who made some hugely appealing records, whereas people don't really bump any Pac at parties besides "California Love" now it seems like.

You don't live on the west coast.

haha yeah i was gonna mention the regional schism but never got around to it

Yeah, there are at least 5-10 Pac joints that your are liable to hear all the fucking time here.

i think like... after big died and this KING OF NEW YORK thing became a big deal it really made a point out of everyone's reverence to big, and everyone fighting to be big's "successor" kind of kept this story line going forever whereas you never really hear or heard about someone being the next pac or someone taking over "pac's crown" or whatever, i guess probably because dre and snoop and whoever are still around

well, 50 was definitely set up in many ways as the successor of Pac (in a much more deliberate "legacy" sense than Ja Rule just jacking a bunch of Pac moves and everyone noticing pretty quickly), before 50 became way too goofy to think of in those terms.

also i think in this regard, pac's big discography probably hurts him. like big released three albums worth of music and there are maybe two not good songs out of all that, plus duets which is whatever but everyone forgot about it. whereas pac has a huge discography so he has more weak tracks but not maybe more great ones, and he has a bunch of posthumous stuff and also tons of ppl still think he's alive

i think the jay/nas beef had a huge part in inflating big's legacy

yeah definitely. although it's kind of funny to think that at the heigh of that, in 01/02, was the one time when both Jay and Nas both talked up Pac a lot.

im not totally in position to say shit here but the problem i have with pac occasionally is on his "ballads" ("brenda's got a baby" for example) he tends to walk the line between real, heart-wrenching emotion and insipidity, and i'm not sure it always works in his favor. i just never connected with his lyrics in the same way as big, i dunno. also, i'm from new york state, so maybe there's this subconscious bias going on. dude could definitely spit tho

xpost good point j0rdan

pac's negative baggage used to put me off but it kind of insulated him from gettin overplayed like biggie for me. pac, for now.

pac's more important & has had a much longer-lasting impression on rap, just at a sub-critical level, i think.

rappers ive seen ... its like they respect BIG but they wanna be pac.

or something. there's a certain emotional tenor that BIG as a technical peak of the form didnt quite reach. im sure ethan could talk about it better. hes been much more into him than i am. but pac was unafraid to go for that raw emotional gut reading in his lyrics, where BIG always maintained this detached writer's affectation. like for Pac it was a performance, for BIG it was a recitation. the emotion came thru BIG's lyrics, the emotion Pac expressed came through his vocal tenor -- big Scarface influence there -- & yeah it meant sometimes it was more likely to border on mawkish/sentimental, but it also feels like he was taking a bigger risk

i guess right now im more likely to pull out Pac's stuff just because I went through a phase where I was burnt out or something. rev. otm about the death cult stuff. But like someone said there's so little raw Biggie material out there, at a certain point you just cant go any further

i havent decided who im voting for yet. In '94-'95-'96, Pac resonated a lot more to me. then my backpacker phase i was way more into BIG. As much rap as ive listened to Pac just feels more important, but that doesnt mean I like him more. I dunno

or something. there's a certain emotional tenor that BIG as a technical peak of the form didnt quite reach. im sure ethan could talk about it better. hes been much more into him than i am. but pac was unafraid to go for that raw emotional gut reading in his lyrics, where BIG always maintained this detached writer's affectation. like for Pac it was a performance, for BIG it was a recitation. the emotion came thru BIG's lyrics, the emotion Pac expressed came through his vocal tenor -- big Scarface influence there -- & yeah it meant sometimes it was more likely to border on mawkish/sentimental, but it also feels like he was taking a bigger risk

not to go too off topic here but what you say about pac here is what i think of boosie

yeah actually boosie = pac gucci = big is kinda an on point comparison i think

although gucci's got his own thing going on too & his sorta recklessness is very pac like

Biggie, no question.

^^^how it's broken down to an extent

Or, as Ned would put it, "Monsieur Smalls"

Pac for the reasons deej states - I agree with Big as better writer on a technical level (like, easily) but Pac records are, just to set myself up here, more emotionally complex for me - I relate to them. I stand in awe of Big's writing but do I feel like I know him from his lyrics? Not too well. 2Pac manages to really make you feel like he's breaking the fourth wall and showing himself to you. Which is obviously also a performance. Which is completely awesome to me.

but yeah Biggie's gonna walk this poll but but but but if a day comes when you feel like it's enemies everywhere and no hope and everything closing in you, I'll give you odds that All Eyez On Me is gonna be yr joint on that day

Let me go ahead and totally invalidate my opinion. As I have boringly mentioned before, I had a strange upbringing that resulted in being totally disconnected to pop culture until the late 90s. By the time I started paying attention, Biggie and 2pac were both dead. The first music magazine I ever bought was a Spin that was dedicated to Biggie's death, and I was like "who the fuck is that, where's Pink Floyd?"

I mention this because I think that when I listen to them, I don't have any baggage or weird nostalgia to interfere. They were both deserving of all the praise they got and still get, but c'mon, Biggie, no question.

for "Suicidal Thoughts" alone

Deej and J0hn get at what I was saying about not connecting with Biggie. He always seeemed kind of clinical to me.

All my life I been considered as the worst
Lyin to my mother, even stealin out her purse
Crime after crime, from drugs to extortion
I know my mother wished she got a fuckin abortion
She dont even love me like she did when I was younger
Suckin on her chest just to stop my fuckin hunger
I wonder if I died, would tears come to her eyes?
Forgive me for my disrespect, forgive me for my lies

= not clinical

Biggie's poetry is awesome and is some of the best I know! 2Pac manages to convince me that I'm hearing a guy spilling out his blood just so I can feel what he feels. For lack of a better term, it's the realness. That's the difference. Biggie's a master craftsman and a line like "I know my mother wished she got a fuckin' abortion," I wince just like I know the author means me to. That's not anything against the author; it's praise! But with 2Pac, it's like, when he goes off, I feel like "that is an enraged human being. Fuck, I know exactly what that feels like, to be that pissed off and just want to kill everybody within a eight city blocks of you."

Chino XL, fuck you too

Yeah, it's his delivery I find clinical, not his lyrics.

Pac would have totally sold that shit.

yah j0hn and rev ar rasing a good point which is straight up lyrics vs the emotion derived therefrom. idk...on a techincal level it's biggie and thats my answer...maybe i need to spin a pac record in the near future and see if it does anything for me

biggie, cuz he has got a cat in that picture.

srsly though, if tupac has an album as good as "ready to die" i'd love to hear it kthx bye

biggie to beat pac like ike beat tina

I will say the arguments made on this thread have made me dig out All Eyez On Me & Me Against the World again.

btw people mad underrate Strictly 4 My Niggaz

lol my copy of 2pacalypse now is still in the shrink wrap

don't like that one as much but I've always liked how "If My Homey Calls" and "I Ain't Mad at Cha" are takes from the opposite sides of the same situation

Big's not just a better writer he's a better rapper --- rhyme schemes, phrasing, all the offbeat shit and little pregnant pauses --- I like Pac more than I used to, screwed & chopped version of all eyez kind of sold me, dialed down the spaz factor & helped me listen--- but I seriously think the only reason they get mentioned together all the time is cause of the tragedy narrative not cause it's a stumper to figure out who's better. If you really want to weigh things coastally i'd say biggie vs too short is a more balanced match up

& big showed a lot more class during the whole "rivalry" too

I mean a baby screaming for its mother has a lot of emotion in it's voice but I don't want to listen to a record of that shit

I guess prime short dog is several years earlier than biggie though so that's off a little

Too Short vs. Big Daddy Kane?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/HarlemWorld.jpg

STFU with the MATW / TRD shit

and dont you mean RTD

FOH with your STFUs LOLz.

if anyone is wondering what biggie would be doing right now, here's a hint, from the xxl piece on LAD

The crazy thing was Big singing. He wanted to do a whole album of ballads. He wanted to call it Big Ballads.

rest in peace but i dont think the world was ready for that

i think passantino should take over that project, could still keep the title of course

"Player Hater" is good for the lolz, but ugh

b.i.g.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The suspense builds.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

holy shit

Correctamundo!

srs question for big pac fans -- are any of the posthumous albums as good as the ones he made while alive?

cot damn

its a old day

damn, I missed this one. I think I listen more to both these fine fellas now than I did when they were around. god rest their souls.

who doesnt?

Me! Liked Tupac when he was around, never much cared for Biggie, haven't listened to either in a dogs age. This poll makes me want to dig out some Tupac from the old crates.

srs question for big pac fans -- are any of the posthumous albums as good as the ones he made while alive?

Suggest Ban Permalink
― Mr. Hater (some dude), Saturday, February 28, 2009 4:22 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dunno, avoided them. unless you are including 7 Day Theory, in which case, almost

bangin out 2 "me against the world" rite now drink in hand sayin

FUCK
THIS
THREAD

how i break it down

Pac just showed up on OG Ron C's F-Action 54 giving some real sensible advice about how to treat the ladies ---

I was listening to "you're nobody till somebody kills you" the other day thinking, shit, this goes deep & you really can't complain about biggie being dead (even if it does kinda seem like he was done in by a pin-up with a chip on his shoulder re: being gangsta) -----

basically who the hell knows & who am I to rank other mens lives? I take it all back.

didn't realize there was a chopped & screwed version of all eyez but I guess that's not really surprising. listening now.

"no more pain" is serious.

and what, did you vote big or pac

Landslide!

and what, did you vote big or pac

― Cindy Sherman I'm Your #1 Fan (J0hn D.), Thursday, March 5, 2009 10:16 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

eazy

This thread...it's like he knew what was coming.

d-damn...

http://fc06.deviantart.com/fs12/i/2006/308/1/3/2pac__changes_by_kbirgoren.gif

I think the winner here is p obv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USOe9HQVjUc&feature=player_embedded

i thought they were both pretty good in that clip

i always feel like now people think *actual* freestyling sounds bad, because for so long now "freestyles" have just been kicking written shit on 108 and park over some new hot beat

Yeah, they were. I just thought Biggie was a little bit better.

yeah def, but i guess i was actually surprised by how good pac was, never really figured him for a freestyle type guy

I'm for Pac all day but I think Big completely destroys him in that one, Pac's delivery is great but Big is just next level there

feel like Big's "freestyle" there is more like some verses he had in reserve in case somebody put him on the spot. like "I'd rather make a buck, drive a fat ass truck/grab the nine, two clips and run amok" - if that's freestyling it's fuckin God level, when the camera pulls back you can see Pac laughing with appreciation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gccimMIyu6s

biggie memorized all his shit xp

knew I had heard that 'puttin tags on toes' line somewhere

both their voices sound so amazing on this, i think rap shows probably aren't as good as they used to be because motherfuckers used to YELL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2qaf0UhTY

that is awesome

when pac is ON it's like fuck what is wrong with people who get all caught him in his iconography and the stupid idea of him being overrated because he died or whatever

that vid seriously give me chills

music should have ended when big died

goddamn that video, rappers are so fuckin' lame now

THE RAPPERS THESE DAYS

lol @ u oldie oldersons

Not that you're wrong but still lol.

i'm happy to provide photographic evidence to the court

http://19.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ksxf35SWjS1qzbwkjo1_500.jpg

the prosecution rests

has there been a "1994 in rap" poll yet

here's the (incredible) biggie freestyle from that show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdKbVpNMLdE

trying to find the remix that puts that biggie verse over 'ante up'...

ha those "357 bitches" it's always funny how some references like that are probably total gibberish to a kid listening now

i have that on 12 inch somewhere...is shyheim on that?