NOTORIOUS

So I went and saw the new Notorious movie. There are many things to be said about Biggie Smalls, the rapper officially known as the Notorious B.I.G or Christoper Wallace, who was gunned down on Wilshire Boulevard in 1997.  But the one that fits best on his frame is a slight one: it's called FLOW.

Flow was there in his ryhmes, a hypnotic seduction of words weaving and teasing around you.

And it is there in Jamal Woolard, the young rapper who plays him in "Notorious" a performance that goes a long way toward saving a movie that has fallen obsessively in love with its subject.

The sheer weight of all the bits and pieces of Biggie's journey from the drug soaked ghetto of Bed-Stuy to artistic rap powerhouse and finally to the deadly streets of his newly minted manhood threaten at times to drown this film.  

'Notorious" begins at the end.  Biggie has come to Los Angeles as a man and a metaphor, attempting to defy the East Coast/West Coast rap war that has been continuing across the country.  In a world where the industry heavyweights and record labels such as Bad Boy and Death Row were at odds, maybe this is the way the story was to unfold.

Angela Bassett, plays Wallace's strong single mother.  She tried to keep him on a tight leash, but finds out he is dealing with drugs and orders him out of the house.

"Notorious" is both helped and hurt by its visual narrative- transitions in Biggie's life are captured in a collage of images that feed like a hungry barracuda off the energy of the music.

Through it all are the ryhmes and the music, highly enjoyable in their own right, and the long, large shadow of Biggie lives on..... 

xoxo RitzyNina