The 50 Best Notorious B.I.G. Songs

There’s a scene in the 2009 biopic Notorious where a producer, after hours of bar-crammed takes, tells Biggie’s character, “That’s fire!” once he hones a radio-friendly hook. And on this tribute to his fallen friends, B.I.G. exhibits his dominance as a legit song crafter. His admission that “I swear for three days I cried” still makes you shed a thug tear. And his recitable verses made this elegy a heart-rendering hit. —W.D.

Centered around Biggie’s classic verse from “Notorious Thugs” and remixed by Swizz Beatz for Duets: The Final Chapter, “Spit Your Game” is one of his better posthumous tracks. The video remix finds Krayzie Bone from Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Twista and 8Ball & MJG garlanding the track with Southern and Midwest flows, while Killer Mike, Sleepy Brown, Layzie Bone, Wish Bone, and R&B singer Cheri Dennis make cameos. “Don’t really wanna show you what a G I be/I’d rather be sipping Remy in the VIP/We can hear the music, it’ll be by me/Twista with the legendary nigga BIG,” raps Twista in a tongue-twisting homage. —M.R.

Da Brat was barely off her debut on a Kriss Kross cut when this promo 12” dropped featuring Biggie, still a relatively new artist at the time. He was post-”Juicy” but new enough that Dupri refers to him as “the Big,” which remains jarring. Yet the handclaps and slickly, sickly syncopated congas courtesy of a Gap Band sample are a perfect bed for Frank White’s flow. Prophetic verse: “No human being, Korean or European, be seein’ what Big be seein’.” —J.G.

“The Wickedest Freestyle” is just straight bars of pure pain, with some of the former horror-core-adjacent MC’s most punishing lines. On this 1994 session, from Funkmaster Flex’s Hot 97 radio show, Biggie compares his mic prowess to at least three STDs (“Herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia, gettin’ rid of ya”) before boasting that “MCs break fast like flapjacks and bacon” any time he steps near a booth. No one’s measured up since. —W.D.

On “Realest Niggas,” 50 Cent and producers Red Spyda and DJ Whoo Kid revive verses from Biggie’s “Niggas,” a track released on the 1999 posthumous album Born Again. It dropped at the tail end of 2002, just as 50 Cent was emerging as a superstar, and was subsequently included in the 2003 Bad Boys II soundtrack. Biggie’s style here hearkens to his protean “Party and Bullshit” phase as he kicks hardcore verses about smoking trees, flipping keys, and making crazy cheese. “Damn, a nigga’s style is unorthodox,” he brags. —M.R.

B.I.G. kept it gully on every cameo he blessed. And, far from compromising, he added the most gutter verse to 1995’s sexiest single, with such finesse, that you couldn’t locate the joints. Who else but B.I.G. could slip an ominous threat (“My rap lines is like land mines/One step, ka-boom! Black suits fill the room”) into a bashful hit about longing? Undoubtedly, we could all see he was the greatest. —W.D.

Leave it to B.I.G. to somehow get off references to Audio 2’s “Top Billin’” and Pablo Escobar in a song about the virtues of monogamy. But on this 1996 slow jam, the undisputed King of New York proved once more why he’s the realest to ever do it. His street credibility fuels everything here, making this remix one of the hottest songs of that spring. —W.D.

Biggie’s 1991 demo presented a fully formed MC. Though he rapped in a hyper, high-pitched register, the confidence and impeccable cadence were already evident at this early stage. “Biggie Smalls Got That Hype Shit” shows signs of B.I.G.’s burgeoning greatness. When he boasts, “I thought you knew the pedigree of the B.I.G/Cut emcees like lumberjacks cutting trees,” over Mister Cee’s bass-heavy track, he sounds destined to conquer the world. —W.D.

This is mostly a Lox joint and Puff takes up too much space, but B.I.G.’s rock-solid, prime-era verse talks products (“Crystal pops I’m sippin’ it, mob hats and lizard shit”) and product (“Stashin’ keys, hidin’ Gs overseas”) and Trump (“I treat my bitches like Ivana” — welp). His verse was later recycled for the extremely posthumous 2005 track “Hustler’s Story.” —J.G.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and on this cinematic yarn, Biggie delivered a full course of icy vindictiveness. His matter-of-fact admission that “If I go, you got to go” — as if he were arranging a dinner reservation — still sends goosebumps up your spine. Nobody but B.I.G. could make the most grisly crimes sound perfectly palatable to the mainstream. By the song’s dramatic denouement, it’s clear why he’s rap’s Alfred Hitchcock. —W.D.

While it’s impossible to say who bested whom on this third and final collaboration with Jay-Z, B.I.G.’s verse stands out as an example of why he was the pride of his borough. Here, he floats over the track with a flow that goes down as smooth as a bodega quarter water. Though he makes a funereal demand to “dress my body in linen by Armani,” on this sleeper he was still rap’s OG Teflon Don. —W.D.

When B.I.G. describes the tattoos etched around a villain’s bullet wounds on this suspense-filled deep cut, it’s a gripping example of his mastery of narrative. His progression as a storyteller is evidenced here in his granular descriptions. Biggie’s “Warning,” for all its anecdotal force, doesn’t give us a character as memorable as Arizona Ron. And the goons hiding in the showers with MAC-millis are Scorsesean in their pictorial authenticity. —W.D.

When “Runnin’ (Dying to Live)” peaked at Number 19 on the Billboard singles chart, it was the culmination of a long and tortured history. The original recording session took place during the two’s famously brief friendship and included members of Dramacydal, Randy “Stretch” Walker of Live Squad, and former Interscope artist Radio. Verses from the session eventually appeared on the 1995 One Million Strong compilation as “Runnin’.” But the collaboration earned lasting fame when producer Eminem repurposed the material into the lead single for the 2003 documentary Tupac Resurrection. Here, Biggie’s memorable opener — “I grew up a fuckin’ screw-up/Got introduced to the game, got an ounce and fuckin’ blew up” — becomes an elegy for two lives tragically interrupted. —M.R.

In the midst of the so-called East Coast/West Coast feud, rapping over Easy Mo Bee’s chopped-up sample of g-funk icons Zapp, Biggie offered a peace offering of sorts: “Y’all niggas is a mess/Thinkin’ I’m gonna stop givin’ L.A. props/All I got is beef with those that violate me.” Then, of course, he added, “I shall annihilate thee,” and the chamber of the gun kept spinning. —C.A.

With singer Diana King providing a fierce dancehall chorus (and vocal nod to our hero’s Jamaican roots), Biggie runs down his life story, from the womb (“Ten months in this gut, what the fuck?”) to teenage conflicts with Mom (“School I didn’t show up/it fucked my flow up/Mom said that I should grow up”) and rap success in ‘94 (“Not the same deranged child stuck up in the game”). A funny, smart autobiography. —J.G.

This covertly weird song hit Number Two on the Billboard pop singles chart behind the immovable “Candle in Wind 1997.” Over a Marc Solomon guitar hook, Puff, the Lox, and Kim spit about ruling all the cash around them, but a smart Jackson Five sample turns the spare music lush for a sharp closing guns-n-girls verse from “Francis, the praying mantis.” Except for a reference to Hebrews in Jadakiss’ verse, it’s aged oddly well. —J.G.

Post-war hoods drowned their sorrows to the Rat Pack toe-tapper “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You.” Biggie had more darkly ornate visions, especially about the value of black life in a world where brand names, crackheads, deceased friends, and Lear jets, all represent a doomed existence. He was dead before the song’s release. —C.A.

If Puff’s “I’ll Be Missing You” is a benediction, “Victory” is his howl of rage: background wailing, an unhinged-sounding Busta, and Puff sobbing for everyone when he screams “It’s all fucked up now.” Over a relentless loop built from Bill Conti’s “Rocky” soundtrack, “VIctory” belongs to Biggie, his verses recorded days before his death. A spectral presence, flickering in and out of focus, B.I.G. is a fallen Viking, ripping some of his all-time hardest verses direct from Valhalla: “I’m in your mama crib waitin’/Duct tapin’, your fam’ destiny/Lays in my hands, gat lays in my waist.” The most melodramatic hip-hop song of a melodramatic rap moment, “Victory” is the fury of life after death. —J.G.

Which is more stupider [sic]? Reading pop-music lyrics literally? Or defending a seemingly misogynistic line like, “The wine is right, I treat you right/You talk slick, I beat you right”? This brash, habitually line-steppin’, tragic-comic vignette views Biggie’s ultimate romantic and criminal co-conspirator as his equal, his “best friend,” and a victim of his lifestyle. He’s bitter, salty, heartbroken. Perhaps the song is not so easily parsed because the song is so exceptional. —C.A.

The closing track on Heavy D and the Boyz’ Blue Funk album not only marked an early appearance for the artist then known as Biggie Smalls, but also epitomized Heavy D’s mentoring influence at Uptown Records on a new generation of hip-hoppers. “It was a unit, everybody was family up there,” Lil Cease remembered to XXL in 2011, citing Uptown acts like Mary J. Blige and Jodeci as well as Biggie, who was briefly signed to the label. Despite competing in a stacked cipher, Biggie acquits himself well on the Jesse West-produced track as he drops bombs: “I bring drama like you spit on my mama/Cannibalistic like that nigga Jeffrey Dahmer.” —M.R.

Talk about humble beginnings: Biggie made his wax debut on the fourth of six remixes on Jamaican deejay Super Cat’s “Dolly My Baby” 12,” his verse coming fifth after four other featured artists (even behind Puff). But it’s all here: the confidence, the flow, and the immortal words “I love it when you call me Big Poppa.” —J.G.

“Notorious Thugs” not only exemplifies the Notorious B.I.G.’s ability to conquer any style, even the melodic chopper flow made famous by Cleveland group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, it also marks his ambition to be an artist who resonated globally. Despite his reputation as the king of New York, he admired scenes in the South and the Midwest as well. “He was marveling off of us. And we were telling him how much love we had for him,” Layzie Bone told XXL in 2003. Still, a studio session between Bone and Biggie forced the latter to contemplate how he could equal Bone’s superior performance. “He really wanted to sit there and master that shit,” added Lil Cease in the XXL story. —M.R.

A mid-Nineties, glasses-in-the-air classic. Biggie’s verse starts out a little seductive, then switches to vengeance (which has aged poorly) on a squeeze who ratted him to the feds. Lil’ Kim, on the other hand, is back and as dirty as ever. Like many Clinton-era hip-hop smashes, the clean version, with a combination of word substitutions and whole phrases vanished, is just as dope and much weirder. —J.G.

It’s one of the iconic scenes from Bad Boy’s takeover of the music industry: Puff Daddy getting his Tiger Woods on, putting in a final shot to win a golf tournament just as Diana Ross’ joyously uninhibited chorus from “I’m Coming Out” sparks the beginning of “Mo Money Mo Problems.” But that video as well as the campaign surrounding the chart-topping single was tinged with melancholy. Despite a closing verse from “B-I-G P-O-P-P-A” boasting of his aim to reach the cover of the Fortune “5-double-O,” he didn’t live to enjoy the song’s massive pop success. —M.R. 

Jay-Z and the Notorious B.I.G.’s smooth mic-passing routines on “Brooklyn’s Finest” make this song one of the standout moments from Jay’s classic Reasonable Doubt. “Brooklyn’s Finest” was also a major look for a then-independent artist who had begun to make waves with buzz singles like “In My Lifetime.” Ironically, neither man knew each other at the time, though they became friends afterward; Biggie wanted Clark Kent’s flip of the Ohio Players’ “Ecstasy,” but when the latter insisted that it was for Jay, Biggie settled by offering to jump on the track. Puff Daddy nearly derailed their plans by blocking the release of their collaboration, but to everyone’s benefit he eventually relented. —M.R.

Over a silky, snaky guitar snipped from ’70s funk band Black Heat (Easy Mo Bee again!), Biggie goes full tilt, his voice engulfing every inch of the track, a human subwoofer, clear as a bell on a pitch-black night, hurling quick-fire barbs that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and run away. —C.A.

It’s easy to forget how shocking Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s debut single sounded on first blush, opening as it did with its rather direct chorus. Biggie sounds exhausted as he semi-sings about which body parts to fondle if you love hip-hop or Big Poppa, respectively. “Surrounded by criminals, heavy rollers, even the shiesty individuals,” Biggie also reminds that these are all metaphors: “My mind’s my nine, my pen’s my mack-10.” “Player’s Anthem” also introduced the world to Lil’ Kim. —J.G.  

Wu-Tang Clan’s raspy, grimy rising star, yet to release his debut solo album, goes head-up with New York’s other fastest rising star on his debut album. Highlights: The Biggie line “Excuse me, flows just grow through me/Like trees to branches, cliffs to avalanches” is still a startling poetic aside. And Method Man’s boast, “I’ve got more Glocks and TECs than you/I make it hot, niggas won’t even stand next to you,” was actually written by Big. —C.A.

According to producer DJ Clark Kent, the beat for “Sky’s the Limit” passed through several rappers, including Jay-Z and LL Cool J, before the Notorious B.I.G. secured it for Life After Death. “When he heard ‘Sky’s the Limit,’ I was like, well this track is for Akinyele, so you can’t have it. He’s like, ‘Nah, I need that’,” the producer told BET in 2017. Peaking at Number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100, “Sky’s the Limit” finds Biggie reminiscing about his pre-stardom hustler days over a soulful groove lifted from Bobby Caldwell’s “My Flame.” But it’s mostly famous for Spike Jonze’s imaginative video, where young children were cast in the roles of Biggie, 112, Lil Kim, Puff Daddy, and Mase. —M.R.

The supposed feud with Death Row Records was working Biggie’s last nerve; rappers posing like they were eager to start a shootout with any and everybody was laughable. So he tried to give some perspective. Hip-hop, like all art, is an imaginative shading of reality, and the studio does not protect you from life outside, which our antihero explained using a series of torture metaphors. Unfortunately, 2Pac, as we know, did not give a fuck. —C.A.

What Biggie brings to Lil’ Kim’s hit is an anchoring earworm of a hook that takes it over the top. B.I.G., whose appearance on the track isn’t credited, comes through with the most mellow voice you hear. And it works like a charm. His playful overtures seem to harmonize with the lush chords (lifted from Jeff Lorber’s 1979 single, “Rain Dance”), making this flirt fest the aural equivalent to a “Do you like me? Check yes or no” note. —W.D.