His work with Uptown’s artists helped develop a new aesthetic niche in hip hop-influenced R&B-one which stood in contrast to the popular New Jack Swing of the time by swapping out frenetic bawdiness for mature sultriness.
Beginning as an intern under Andre Harrell at Uptown Records, he quickly became an executive, shepherding the careers of R&B stars Jodeci and Mary J. īy the time 24-year old Sean “Puffy” Combs unveiled Bad Boy Records, he had already achieved a remarkable amount of success within the music industry. Through “Unsigned Hype,” Biggie Smalls caught the attention of a young entrepreneur on the cusp of launching his own label. Cee passed “Microphone Murderer” to Matteo Capoluongo, a writer for The Source who, in turn, championed Biggie Smalls in “Unsigned Hype,” a column that spotlighted talented rappers without label deals. Shortly after the recording session, 50 Grand got the demo into the hands of longtime hip-hop advocate Mister Cee, a famous radio personality from the neighborhood. The Honey Drippers’ funky breakbeat makes the track swing, evoking a relaxed confidence in Biggie that helps the 20-year-old sound like an authority figure. That track, “Microphone Murderer,” showcases Biggie’s lyrical prowess, but it is more striking for the unique way he patterns his baritone voice in a heavy, dancehall-like lilt, providing a counter-rhythm that knocks harder than the beat itself. Wallace, who took the name “Biggie Smalls” after a gangster character from the 1975 Sidney Portier/Bill Cosby comedy Let’s Do It Again, recorded four songs that day, but it was the one featuring the “Impeach the President” break that 50 Grand began to pass around.
#TAKE YOUR SHIRT OFF SWING IT LIKE A HELICOPTER LYRICS SERIES#
He couldn’t even afford to book a studio to cut his own demo tape, but as the breakbeat looped, Wallace unleashed a series of intricate rhymes that would ultimately land him a record deal and set in motion a sequence that would reconstruct the idea of wealth itself in hip-hop music. At that point, though, Cristopher Wallace was a cock-eyed, overweight, low-level crack-dealer-known only for winning a few freestyle rap battles in his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. 50 Grand couldn’t have known it then, but the rapper in his basement on that day in 1991 would eventually become known for possessing one of the greatest-if not the greatest-lyrical flows of all time. The breakbeat rose to popularity in the mid-1980s at a time when rappers were experimenting with different types of syncopation in their rhymes and pushing the boundaries of lyrical density. The song opens with a supple, lolling beat featuring a snare drum that provides a useful metronome for even the most inexperienced rappers. Recorded in 1973 by The Honey Drippers (a group of high school kids from Jamaica, Queens led by southern singer Roy Charles Hammond) in an attempt to capitalize on the Watergate scandal, “Impeach the President” had long since outgrown its novelty and become a crucial part of hip-hop’s musical backbone. In a basement on Lexington Avenue in Brooklyn, DJ Hitman 50 Grand spun the “Impeach the President” break for a young MC he’d met earlier that day.
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