Why Jay-Z once felt threatened by Biggie Smalls: “Big wasn’t afraid to tell that”
Jay-Z and Biggie Smalls are two of Brooklyn’s biggest rappers. The pair grew up around each other, and although there was never bad blood between them, at one point, Hov was threatened by the quality of Biggie’s music.
The Ready To Die emcee was raised in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, the same area where Jay-Z was born, and the two friends began rapping at the same time in the early 1990s. However, unlike Biggie, Jay didn’t achieve success immediately. Still, they often pushed each other to be better.
Like many MCs in the 1980s and 1990s, both lyricists got their first paypackets as crack dealers on the streets of Brooklyn during the height of the devastating epidemic. Still, that money went straight into the recording of demos and Biggie’s was quickly picked up by Source magazine and then Bad Boy founder Diddy Combs who helped the young emcee release his groundbreaking debut album Ready to Die.
Although they knew each other in passing from the area, Biggie Smalls older than Jay and in an interview with Smoke DZA, Lil Cease explained how the two artists became close over time, recalling, “Big met [Jay-Z] at the Palladium and they bonded just on some G s*** because they respected each other as men and they respected each other as artists.”
He continued, “Big wasn’t afraid to tell that; Big thought he was doper than him. Big used to say, ‘Yo, that n**** nicer than me.'” The two cultivated a friendship, and independently, in 1996, Jay released his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, which featured a guest appearance from Biggie.
While Jay was working on Reasonable Doubt the ‘Hypnotise’ artist was working on his sophomore project Life After Death and for the 2022 Justin Tinsley book It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him, Jay-Z revealed what he thought when he first heard the songs on the album.
Reflecting on the year 1996, Jay told Tinsley, “I remember when he was doing Life After Death and he sent me four songs in the demo stage. I was like, ‘Oh my God! We got a problem!’ I was happy for him and I was upset for myself. I was a little worried about myself as an artist.”
Jay admitted that he was threatened by Biggie’s talent and began feeling small as an emcee and as a figure in hip-hop. Sadly, Biggie died on March 9th, 1997, in LA, just two weeks before Life After Death hit the shelves of stores worldwide.
Jay-Z released his sophomore album, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, later the same year to critical acclaim. However, to this day, many say that Jay was right to feel threatened, as Biggie was much better than him. Some still argue that if the ‘Who Shot Ya’ lyricist hadn’t died that year, Hov would have never become as successful as he has.