New York (AFP)
Dead for nearly a quarter of a century at just 24, New York rapper Notorious BIG continues to fascinate;
with the documentary "Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell", Netflix delivers a portrait of "Big Poppa" by those close to him.
The film, which will be uploaded on March 1 on the platform, was co-produced by his mother, Voletta Wallace, and his former producer, P. Diddy, and was able to draw from the video archives of Damien Butler, aka "D- Roc ", Biggie's childhood friend.
No revelation in this portrait, but pieces of life, anecdotes helping to better understand who was Christopher Wallace, whose real name was, a child of Brooklyn with legendary charisma, whose image now covers several walls of the new neighborhood. Yorker.
"His life had a major impact," said P. Diddy, Sean Combs civil, about the rapper he accompanied to the top.
An existence mown down in the early hours of March 9, 1997 by the bullets of a gunman never formally identified to date, in a street of Los Angeles, after a party.
The craziest theories still circulate on the motive of this crime.
The recent, well-documented "Slow Burn" podcast linked the murder of sulphurous Californian producer Suge Knight and the rivalry between his record label, Death Row Records, and Sean Combs's, Bad Boy Records.
- A talent that saves lives -
Going back to the origins, the documentary examines the youth of Biggie, in the neighborhoods of Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant, in Brooklyn, but also, every summer, in Jamaica.
One of his friends, Hubert Same, says that Christopher Wallace was returning from his stays in Trelawny, where his mother was born, nourished by various influences, reggae, country and funk, which fueled his musical culture.
Over the years, the teenager developed his style, taking more than his turn the microphone in an improvised way for freestyles, with his deep voice, in the streets of Brooklyn, as evidenced by striking archive footage.
His former neighbor saxophonist Donald Harrison, one of his mentors, remembers his thirst for musical knowledge and having familiarized him with some jazz giants, Charlie Parker or Cannonball Adderley.
For him, the inimitable "flow" of Christopher Wallace, capable of methodically accompanying the rhythm while allowing itself great freedom, "is equivalent to the finest qualities of a bepop drum solo", a flagship movement of 1950s jazz. .
If it clearly values the image of Biggie, the film also evokes at length the darker aspects of the character, in particular his brief career as a drug dealer.
It was during this period that he lost one of his closest friends, Olie, shot dead, a disappearance that will mark him forever.
Long questioned for the documentary, his mother describes the tensions that drugs have created between her son and her, before he announces one day to her that he intends to give up and devote himself solely to music.
"You can't do both," traffic and music, remembers P. Diddy, who called himself Puff Daddy at the time, before he gave up the streets.
"Biggie exploded all of a sudden," recalls the producer.
"We don't know which rap planet he came from."
Notorious BIG will have released only one album during his lifetime, "Ready To Die", his second album, "Life After Death", having been released 16 days after his death.
The documentary shows this imposing figure of nearly 1.90 m, weighing more than 150 kg, as a generous man, eager to share his success with those around him.
"He had a talent that saved the lives of a lot of people," recalls rapper Lil 'Cease, a relative, "but not his."
© 2021 AFP