How Big L stole and returned a Rolex while on tour in Japan
Big L was a legendary New York lyricist and one of the only MCs representing Harlem during the 1990s. As part of the Bronx-based crew Diggin’ In The Crates, alongside figures such as Fat Joe and Lord Finesse, Big L quickly became one of the hottest MCs to appear on the radar of East Coast hip-hop lovers.
However, when the crew dissipated in the mid-’90s, Big L created his own Manhattan-based crew, Children Of The Corn. Comprised of him Cam’Ron, Ma$e, Herb McGruff, and Bloodshed, the crew began to turn heads toward the end of the decade.
Big L formed the collective following the release of his debut album, Life Ov Da Poor & Dangerous, which helped him gain some notoriety in his city. Recorded at Powerplay studios in Queens and released by Columbia Records, with acts such as the Wu-Tang Clan and Nas ruling the charts, Big L’s debut failed to enter the top 100 albums, peaking at number 149 on the Billboard 200.
Irrespective of the statistics of the music business, Big L was a legend prior to his 1999 murder on West 139th Street in Harlem; he was loved as one of the most skilled young East Coast lyricists. That said, in a 2020 interview with 247HH, New York emcee O.C. explained how Big L was a psychological genius and, while reminiscing about the rhymer, told an intriguing story about how the ‘No Endz, No Skinz’ musician almost got a Japanese kid to give him his Rolex watch.
Speaking about Big L’s demeanour and ability to play mind games, O.C. detailed, “With him, you couldn’t tell if he was dead serious sometimes or if he was joking ‘cause he might have a straight face or he might make you feel inadequate about yourself—like, dude was a genius. He was a genius in psychology, and [although] he was the youngest he could get in your psyche!”
O.C. then reflected on when the Diggin In The Crates crew began to tour internationally and recounted a moment when Big L got a Japanese kid to hand over his Rolex through conniving psychological pressure.
Telling 247HH about the memorable moment, O.C. vividly recounted, “I’ll never forget this kid had a Rolex on, and L offered this kid a shirt or whatever, and L was like ‘Yo, let me get that!’ And dude spoke English up until that point he asked him for the watch. So he’s looking at everyone, and L’s like, ‘Yeah, the watch, let me see that!’”
O.C. continued, “So L walked around with this kid’s watch for a whole day! I remember the promoter asking L, ‘Yo, what’s going on with [the kid’s] watch?’. L was like, ‘I thought it was customary for us to do this swap.’ But he walked around with this kid’s watch until we left Japan, and he finally gave him his watch back at the airport!”
You can listen to O.C. reminiscing about the strange yet hilarious Big L story in the video below.