Background Noise Crew: T.Q.D's Corner

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of T.Q.D's Corner.  As the month of May winds down, we approach the birthday of Big L (the 30th).  If he were alive today, he'd be turning 37.  It's on this occasions.  He was killed in 1999 and the assumed reason most people accept is that his brother who was heavy in to illegal activities was on the run from rivals, and since he couldn't be found, Big L paid the cost instead.  While that is what everyone assumes, the case remains unsolved.

Big L was a member of the crew D.I.T.C. (stands for Diggin' In The Crates).  Other members of the crew were Showbiz, A.G., O.C., Lord Finesse, Diamond D, Buckwild, and Fat Joe.  Fat Joe is the only one to have any real commercial success over the years, but they're all put out critically acclaimed material.  Big L was also a part of a short lived group Children of the Corn with Cam'ron, Mase, and Cam'ron's cousin Bloodshed, who passed away in 1997.  Stylistically, he can most easily be traced back to Big Daddy Kane.

While he was alive, Big L made some guest appearances with some on his D.I.T.C. comrades, but otherwise didn't create a ton of material.  He released one album Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous and was apparently only half done with his second album, which was later pieced together to make The Big Picture.

His album Lifestylez Ov The Poor & Dangerous came out in 1995, supported by the singles "Put It On" (in my opinion, the album's best song) and a remix to the song "MVP".  The singles received a decent amount of airplay at the time and album received respectable ratings from critics, but hardly anyone bought it at the time.  As a result of lackluster sales, Big L was dropped from his  label.  It's a shame no one paid attention at the time.  I wouldn't call it a classic album in the least, but it was pretty good.

After taking some time to regroup, he started working on a follow up, established his own label, and was apparently in talks to join Roc-A-Fella Records, which never materialized for obvious reasons.  It all ended pretty quickly as he was killed in 1999 at the age of 24.

Three years after he died, the album The Big Picture was released in 2002.  As I mentioned earlier, it was put together using completed songs and some acapella tracks from what he was working on.  The album went gold in a month.  While the accomplishment was posthumous, it was nice to see him get some shine.

People have sense rewritten history to hold up Big L as an all time icon from the 1990s, but that is simply BS.  The fact is, Big L passed away relatively unknown and it didn't seem like most people got the memo (or even heard of him) until 3 years later when The Big Picture came out.  Big L is held up as an all time great in some circles, but I find that laughable.  He made one album...one.  And the second was pieced together and had to be filled out with guest appearances to make it complete.  While it is not his fault, he simply didn't have enough time.  No one is the best ever after one album.  I put Pun and Biggie (2 albums each) and this category too.  Yes, he was good, but projecting greatness based on 1.5 projects is simply unfair.

Regardless, Big L was a talented rapper and it's too bad he's whether he would've flamed out quickly, built a solid/respected body of work, or remain in obscurity, it would've been nice not to leave it to imagination.