“Just Playing (Dreams)” by The Notorious B.I.G.

The full subtitle of this song, as illustrated in the chorus, is “dreams of f*****g a R&B b***h”. And accordingly the lyrics center on Notorious’s fantasies of sleeping with a number of popular female singers and actresses, including those who are older, younger and his age-mates. Also he manages to take a couple of jabs at singers who he is not particularly attracted to. But as the main title suggests, he is just jesting throughout. And if anything, the main sentiment of the song is based on Biggie bragging about his amazing bedroom prowess.

Facts about “Just Playing (Dreams)”

This is one of two bonus tracks found on Notorious’s debut album, “Ready to Die”. And it was released as part of that project on 13 September 1994.

The labels that put it out are Arista Records along with Bad Boy Records.

“Just Playing (Dreams)” was produced by one of Biggie’s regular collaborators, Tumblin’ Dice, who also helped Notorious write the song.

The artists whom B.I.G. mentions or references in this song, in chronological order, are as follows:

• Patti LaBelle
• Regina Belle
• Mariah Carey
• Mary J. Blige
• SWV
• TLC
• Chanté Moore
• RuPaul
• Xscape
• Raven-Symoné
• Zhané
• Whitney Houston
• Terri & Monica
• Chaka Khan
• Tina Turner
• Patra
• Toni Braxton

As far as Mariah Carey and Xscape were concerned, he did not necessarily mention them in a favorable light. Mariah went on to say that him referring to her as “kinda scary”, at least according to one “very-prominent rapper”, was according to that person meant to be a compliment. She also implied that she may have been on the verge of working with Biggie before his untimely passing. Meanwhile B.I.G. went on to apologize to Tiny Harris of Xscape. But apparently the girl band did not accept his apology at the time, which band member Kandi Burruss went on to regret since Notorious passed away shortly thereafter.

This song has been sampled by a vast number of artists. Most prominently would perhaps be Nicki Minaj’s 2018 hit “Barbie Dreams”, which not only interpolates “Just Playing” but also relied heavily on Biggie’s established theme, albeit from a female perspective.

As aforementioned, this track is intended to be humorous in nature. In fact Complex went on to place it at number 2 on their 2018 ranking of “The 50 Funniest Rap Songs”.