American rapper Jadakiss recently said that Jay-Z has surpassed Biggie a.k.a The Notorious B.I.G because the former has lived for "more years on earth."
In an interview via Brandon "Scoop" Robinson's YouTube channel on November 28, Jadakiss was asked whether Jay-Z has been able to catch up to the deceased Biggie in terms of lyrics, star power, and body of work. In response, the rapper said:
"Yeah, that's not like a crazy answer. He has more years of earth. So he’s able to, you know, he surpassed him. He used that energy he got from his brother to help him surpass him."
Fans took to X (formerly Twitter) to react to Jadakiss's comments, with many sharing their views on the overall careers of Jay-Z and Notorious B.I.G. One X user claimed the rapper's comments were "logical", writing:
"I mean it’s just logical."
"A long time ago I mean he only got two real albums," one person wrote.
"styles would never say ANYONE surpassed biggie," contradicted one netizen.
One X user compared the legacy of Jay and Nas with stalwarts like 2Pac and Notorious Big, opining:
"This is one of the reasons Jay-Z and Nas are over Pac and Big on my list. They’ve been able to survive many changes in music and still rap top tier till this day. We unfortunately do not have that with Pac and Big. Maybe they would have been able to do it too, but we can’t know that."
"Facts. Pac & Big will forever be in the tops of most rap lists, sadly tho their short lives and discographies can’t be compared with some rappers who’ve been around 20+ years in the game now," another person said.
Another netizen shared their take on the matter and added:
"Biggie was only 24. That why recently I have Nas & Jay Z move up my top 5 list and biggie slide from 2nd to 4th."
For those uninformed, the Notorious B.I.G. aka Biggie was murdered in a drive-in shooting in Los Angeles at the age of 24 on March 9, 1997. His death came six months after his fellow rapper, 2Pac's murder in Las Vegas in 1996. Notorious B.I.G's second studio album, Life After Death was released posthumously to tremendous success.
"I wrote like four songs that night" - When Jay-Z recalled how he first heard Biggie's track Who Shot Ya
In a May 2022 conversation on the occasion of the deceased Notorious B.I.G.'s 50th birthday, Jay-Z recalled the time when he first heard one of his most iconic tracks, Who Shot Ya.
In an X space titled TIDAL’s “A Toast To Biggie” hosted by Elliot Wilson, Jay-Z spoke about hearing Notorious B.I.G.'s song for the first time.
"Biggs gave me the ‘Who Shot Ya’ CD — he called me like it was like we had some kind of beef or something. He was like, ‘yo meet me on 120th right now.’ I jump in my car, I’m heavy. I’m like, ‘what’s going on with Biggs?’ I mean, I fly up there..."
"And I get out my car and get in his car and he plays the song and he was like, ‘yeah, you keep the uh,’ it was a cassette tape actually. He was like, ‘yeah you keep that.'”
Further, Jay-Z also recalled how Biggs' track inspired him to write "four songs", and added:
“I wrote like four songs that night. None of them was as good as ‘Who Shot Ya’ but it was still like four songs. It was just, again it was that friendly competition like just trying to push each other to be the best.”
Who Shot Ya is a track by Biggie which was released by Sean Combs' Bad Boy Records in February 1995. The song was released two months after rapper Tupac Shakur (2Pac) was injured through gunshot wounds outside a recording studio in New York. While Biggie never named 2Pac in his track, the latter allegedly responded to the rapper's song with his 1996 single, Hit Em Up.
Despite his short career, Biggie Smalls is widely considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. The rapper was best known for bringing back attention to East Coast hip-hop at the time of the rise of West Coast rap.
He was the first artist to sign for Puff Diddy's Bad Boy Records in 1993. His career came to an end after his untimely murder in 1997. He had recorded two studio albums, Ready to Die (1994) and Life After Death (1997).