This chorus, sung by female rap group Total, successfully functions to disrupt the specificity of Notorious’ narration, create an intimate bond with the listener, and ultimately deliver the songs desired message. In addition to the three verse structure in which Biggy recounts his comic rise, “Juicy” is comprised of a refrain. Additionally, “Juicy” includes more abstract juxtapositions of his “negative” and new “positive” life such as, “I made the change from a common thief/ To up close and personal with Robin Leach,” and “Thinkin’ back on my one-room shack/ Now my mom pimps a Ac’ with minks on her back.” Through both lines, Notorious paints his old life, then contrasts it to his modern life by mentioning celebrities, television series, and products equated with luxury.
From declaring “Now I’m in the limelight,” “Now honies play me close,” and “I went from negative to positive,” Notorious explicitly describes the immense change that he has undergone from shadow to light, sexually unattractive to magnetic, in debt to financially stable. As his lyrics progress, Biggie continuously emphasizes the pinnacle of life that he has reached.
In the opening lines of “Juicy,” Notorious states, “It was all a dream/ I used to read Word Up magazine… hangin’ pictures on my wall.” In these words, he briefly sums up his sheer idolization of rap artists and his desire to become famous like those in hip hop media. As his lyrics elucidate, the only viable escape young Wallace saw was a career as a hip hop artist. In the first verse of “Juicy,” Notorious recounts, “Born sinner, the opposite of a winner…Remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner.” Through these words, Biggie rhythmically illustrates how he had been born into a gripping cycle of poverty with only the cheapest meals available to eat. Growing up in a neighborhood permeated by drugs and crime, he had a rough childhood marred by arrest.
Through a narrative format, a lucid refrain, and various poetic techniques, “Juicy” manifests the truth in the American Dream and prompts youth to pursue their aspirations.īy chronicling his rise out of the Brooklyn, New York poverty and into a new positive lifestyle, Biggie sets a template to the audience for how to obtain one’s dream. The reason behind Notorious’ song’s prestige has not been due to entrancing instrumentals, but rather its ability to linguistically convey an inspirational message to over a decade of American youth. The album’s debut single, “Juicy,” propelled Wallace’s career into stardom and since then has been named the eighth best rap song in the genre’s history (Bernard, “50 Greatest Hip Hop Songs of All Time”). After releasing his first album, Ready to Die, in 1994, The Notorious B.I.G, or Biggie Smalls, launched a furor in the hip hop community. Dre, the Wu-Tang Clan, Jay-Z, and Nas heralded in the era through their acclaimed albums, Christopher Wallace, known as The Notorious B.I.G., truly “reinvented East Coast rap… for the age” (“The Notorious B.I.G Biography”). This new style, characterized by “lyrical dexterity,” was further “revolutionized” in the early 1990’s (Adaso, “East Coast Hip Hop”).
In the late 1980’s, an innovative genre of rap music dubbed East Coast Hip-Hop, or New York Rap, emerged in America’s pop landscape. This article was written by a GoPeer tutor who is passionate about the intersections between music, poetry, and historyĪ Literary Analysis of Notorious BIG’s Hit Song “Juicy”