Throw your hands in the Aiyuh...

...If youza true playa.

Yes. Lyrics from the timeless classic "Big Poppa" by the late great Notorious B.I.G.

This was Biggie's first top 10 hit on U.S. Billboards Charts, released as a single in 1995... it transcended into mainstream media and into the bedrooms of white suburban youth across the country blah blah. Look it up on wikipedia if you're curious. Biggie was already a household name for many by that point.

Most importantly, it boasts a sample from the bedtime anthem "Between the Sheets" by the OG crooners of clandestine lovin, the Isley Bros., as well as the undeniably superlative lyrics:

Pull the truck up, front, and roll up the next blunt

So we can steam on the way to the telly go fill my belly

A t-bone steak, cheese eggs and Welch's grape

Conversate for a few, cause in a few,

we gon' do What we came to do, ain't that right boo

Truuuuuue.

Anywho, a Biggie biopic, Notorious, is set to premiere at some point in 2009! It stars Brooklyn native and relative unknown, Jamal Woolard in the title role, Derek Luke (aka Antwone Fisher) as Puff Daddy and Anthony Mackie as the late and wonderfully sexy and talented if (at times)misogynistic Tupac Shakur.

They've been filming the movie in my neighborhood, using the facade of my building for some of the shots! (Holla 230!) I was approached about being an extra one morning when I was on my way to work a few months ago, and since then, I was under the impression that filming had ceased.

Imagine my surprise when, last Thursday, I was leaving my apt at around 4 or 5 pm, trying to manuever the two extremely heavy doors in the foyer of my building whilst talking to my sister on my cell phone, I see a somewhat gargantuan young man entering the building as I exit. We shared eye contact and he didn't really bother to help me out with the doors or anything, and I had the thought "Hmm... that dude seems famil." But didn't think much of it.

Until I came outside. And there was a freaking camera in my face and i hear the director scream out "CUT!!! SHE WALKED INTO THE FRAME!!! CUT!!!!"

I gave them my winsome apology face and kept it moving. Maybe I make it to the blooper reel!

Check out the trailer, loves! (Also, download "Brooklyn, (We Go Hard)" by Jay Z feat. Wesleyan's own, Santogold, which appears on the soundtrack!)

The City is Mine

I just recently moved into an apartment in Brooklyn, and while it is in a neighborhood that I've been living in intermittently during summer breaks from Wesleyan and crashing at my sister's place (who bt dubs, now lives down the street), I'm realizing what a far cry adult city life is from youth in the 'burbs, and college in Middletown, CT.

Thinking about this city move, and spending hours on the train, unearthing crazy lost tunes on my ipod, has led me to re-encounter this gem from late 1998...



Its a single off of Jay-Z's second album, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, entitled "THE CITY IS MINE." Basically, it's Jay bigging himself up, with the choral contribution from one of my favorite brown boy (man?) groups, Blackstreet. Remember Teddy Riley? Anywho, the song uses elements of "You Belong to the City" by Glenn Frey to get its point across. That, and the little simultaneous and coordinated hand choreography by the group. I'm not sure that this song got a whole lot of airplay, in fact i'm sure it didn't (it's not exactly the prime example of hip hop), but it always holds a spot in my heart, for its catchiness, and for the memories of riding in the yellow cheese bus and all the junior high whack stars singing along...

also. check out the cameo by Michael Rapaport. he loves playing cops. and the only thing he loves more than playing cops, are people of color.