Some Brooklyn residents think he was too misogynistic and fat. Others are fighting to honor the Brooklyn-born performer who many consider the best rapper of all time.
According to Clinton Hill community board members, The Notorious B.I.G was a criminal, a misogynist, and too fat to get a Brooklyn street corner named after him, DNA info reports.
Brooklyn resident and Clinton Hill board member LeRoy McCarthy, 45, introduced an effort to rename the corner of St. James Place and Fulton Street, where Biggie Smalls grew up, "Christopher Wallace Way," after the rapper's birth name. But at a meeting this week, several committee members were unenthused, and rejected the proposal.
One woman looked up the rapper's history, and read her findings to the community board on Tuesday night.
He started selling drugs at 12, he was a school dropout at 17, he was arrested for drugs and weapons charge, he was arrested for parole violations, he was arrested in North Carolina for crack cocaine, in 1996 he was again arrested for assault, he had a violent death and physically the man is not exactly a role model for youth. I don't see how this guy was a role model and frankly it offends me.
Others complained about the rapper's derogatory attitude towards women.
"Hail Mary full of grace.. smack the bitch in the face, take her Gucci bag and the North Face," he raps in Dead Wrong, a song featuring Eminem that was released posthumously. A few versus later we hear lyrics that could be interpreted as being about rape. "Stab ya til you're gushy, so please don't push.. me. I'm using rubbers so they won't trace the semen. The black demon, got the little hookers screaming."
McCarthy defended his effort, saying that "there are many artists that share stories in a vernacular that their audiences understand. Biggie used the language from the streets he grew up in to convey what he wanted to say."
He also encouraged board members not to use Wallace's physical appearance or how he died against him.
http://www.brooklynexposed.com/arts-leisure/entry/15-photos-of-brooklyn-in-the-70s
