“Juicy” by The Notorious B.I.G.
This track has been accurately described as a rags-to-riches’ tale relayed by The Notorious B.I.G. The rapper depicts himself as someone who used to be “dead broke” and has come from an economically-challenged upbringing. But now in the present day, he is living the wealthy life comparable to the rich and famous individuals Robin Leach used to celebrate on TV. And in a sense “Juicy” proved to be somewhat prophetic, as it was indeed the song which established Biggie as a rap music superstar.
Facts about “Juicy”
“Juicy” holds the distinction of being the lead single from The Notorious B.I.G.’s famous maiden album, “Ready to Die”. And it was released as such, via the collaborative efforts of Bad Boy Entertainment and Arista Records, on 9 August 1994. (And interesting to note is that Biggie had just married Faith Evans a few days prior.)
The track was produced by Poke alongside P. Diddy. And they sampled Mtume’s classic slow jam “Juicy Fruit” (1983) into the instrumental.
As such James Mtume, who wrote that song, is credited as a co-writer of “Juicy”, as are Poke, P. Diddy and of course Biggie himself.
In this song, Biggie drops the line “time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade”. This is actually a reference to the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, which left behind minimal damage as opposed to 9/11 itself.
Renowned old school hip-hop producer Pete Rock did an official remix of this jam. However, he has also alleged that P. Diddy stole the original instrumental from him.
“Juicy” topped Billboard’s US Hot Rap Singles chart and also appeared on the Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart, as well as numerous other important charts. The track also went on to be certified Platinum in the United Kingdom.
However, even those impressive showings don’t properly do the song’s legacy justice. For instance, as recently as 2019 the BBC itself ranked “Juicy” as ‘The Greatest Hip-Hop Song of All Time’. And it has been held in comparable regards by the likes of VH1, The Source and many others.
Moreover in 2011, Rolling Stone placed this track on its universally-regarded “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list.
Another fact that is interesting to point out is that Biggie Small’s mother, Voletta Wallace, later stated that Notorious did not grow up as poor as this song depicts. Rather she attributes him coming off as such as being “part of an alter ego”, i.e. a character he portrayed.
Official Singles of “Ready to Die”
In addition to “Juicy”, two other songs were released as official singles from Biggie’s debut album. These songs are “Big Poppa” and “One More Chance”.
