Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell’ on Netflix, A Tribute To The Life And Talent Of A Singular Hip-Hop Voice

Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell (Netflix) presents the life story of Christopher Wallace, aka The Notorious B.I.G., as told through a wealth of footage and recollections from those closest to the young rapper, including his mother, lifelong friends, and former producer Sean “P. Diddy” Combs.

BIGGIE: I GOT A STORY TO TELL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: He loves it when you call him Big Poppa. Widely hailed as one of rap’s best-ever talents, Christopher Wallace was a kid from Brooklyn who grew up the only son of Voletta, a hard working single mother and Jamacian immigrant, who went to Catholic school, caught the hip-hop bug in 1984 (“I grew up with that shit — my moms got me a radio for Christmas, and tapes from The Fat Boys and Run-DMC, that’s all I had…”), started hustling crack on the corner even as he explored his burgeoning talent on the mic, and eventually made a demo tape that showcased his groundbreaking sound and gained widespread industry notice. Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, then known as Puff Daddy, was his label boss, executive producer, and friend. In I Got a Story to Tell, Combs asserts that Biggie was actually more of an R&B writer and singer, in the way he exerted control over melodies. But as an MC, he was still a killer. “The cadence, rhythm, sound, approach, his confidence — you have no origins for what rap planet this guy came from.”

I Got A Story to Tell is full of moments like that, endorsements of a visceral talent that manifested in a deceptively laconic delivery. There was darkness in his raps, but also a flow that was ingenious. Of course, no one knows where that genius would have taken him, since The Notorious B.I.G. was murdered in 1997, two weeks before his second album was set to drop. He was just 24 years old. Story begins with that tragic end, Voletta receiving the call that he was dead, his funeral procession. But then it snaps back to Wallace’s childhood, his idyllic and inspiring Summer trips to his mom’s Jamaican hometown, and how he and his friends ended up operating inside the street life. And all along, there’s dynamic footage of Biggie and his crew out on the road in support of Ready to Die, doing shows in Detroit, Davenport, Iowa, Atlanta — greeted everywhere by fans absolutely losing their minds. That footage is largely the work of Damion “D Roc” Butler, Biggie’s childhood pal who became an essential part of his crew, documenting their exploits with his handycam. “They say a picture is worth a thousand words,” D Roc says. “I was like ‘Fuck, what would a video do?’ Whatever it is we were doing, I would just be recording it.” And Biggie, a perceptive performer, used that footage to get a sense of what was hitting with the crowds.

An insightful doc packed with pulsing performative moments and touched with a poignance for the lost soul at its center, Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell is enlightening and entertaining, but also an enlivening look at the hip-hop identity of New York City. Notorious B.I.G. was once crowned king of that city and its sound — ultimately, Story suggests that he still might be.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The Netflix series Hip-Hop Evolution is an episodic look at the genre’s vibrant history; the season two episode “New York State of Mind” covered the ’90s East Coast Rap explosion led by the Ready to Die album and The Notorious B.I.G. While not exclusive to hip-hop, Song Exploder on Netflix offers insight into the creative process of a cross-section of musicians, a process Biggie was considered a master of right out of the gate.

Performance Worth Watching: Notorious B.I.G. was a generational talent on the mic, and the moments that showcase that spirit burn here at a million watts. In quieter moments and even a few interviews with the press, Wallace is revealed to be a quick wit with an endearing shyness that acted as a counter to his explosive presence onstage or in the studio.

Memorable Quotes: Jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison lived on Wallace’s Brooklyn block when he was a young man and became a mentor, educating the would-be MC on jazz music, movies, art, and other creative endeavors. He equates the sound Biggie developed with that of the jazz masters. “If you slow one of those [Max Roach] ideas down, put some lyrics to that, you can hear that Notorious B.I.G. was accenting those notes and rhyming in a way that exudes all the finer qualities of a bebop drum solo. It’s incredible.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: On first impulse, it might be easy to consider I Got a Story to Tell as simple hagiography. But whenever it plunges headlong onto the stage with Biggie and his crew, D Roc’s handycam bobbing and panning at a vantage point from just behind the MC, his phrasing and cadences punctuated by the lyrics appearing in bold onscreen, it’s absolutely electrifying, and you see at work the creative verve that lived in him. Whether it’s his mother, Voletta, or P. Diddy, his wife Faith Evans, or any number of his longtime pals from the block, the testimonials are adoring but also respectful of how prodigiously talented Biggie really was. That sense is supported by its format, which takes an oral history approach from the ones who were there, each of their words compiling part of the overall narrative. But it’s that live footage, culled from D Roc’s real-time tapes, everything from huge outdoor shows in Atlanta and rabid club setups in London to the impromptu cypher at a Bedford Avenue street party that ultimately got Biggie into the pages of The Source, that is the real draw here. It either makes you a believer, or it helps you remember just how great an MC he really was.

Our Call: STREAM IT. I Got a Story to Tell is a must for anyone who came up in the 1990s, anyone who’d like to learn about hip-hop from that era, and anyone interested in learning about an artist who tragically went out right at the top of his game.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges

Watch Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell on Netflix