Content
The song is a "rags-to-riches chronicle". [3] The Notorious B.I.G. chronicles his childhood years living in poverty, his initial dreams of becoming a rapper, early musical influences, his time dealing drugs, criminal involvement, and his eventual success in the music industry and current lavish lifestyle.
One of the song's lines reads, "Time to get paid, blow up like the World Trade," referencing the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. [4] [5] [6] This lyric was intended as a metaphor of the "explosive" growth of the Notorious B.I.G.'s wealth to the "explosion" of the World Trade Center (a financial hub) which happened around the same time. [7] The Notorious B.I.G. was shot and killed in 1997, four years before the 9/11 attacks in 2001 that fully destroyed the buildings (the 1993 attacks only caused minor damage). [8] In the aftermath of 9/11, radio stations (most notably WQHT "Hot 97" which was near the World Trade Center) altered their copies of "Juicy" to remove the words "World Trade" from the song, to avoid causing post traumatic stress disorder in 9/11 survivors (several media items were also altered around this time to prevent unintentionally recalling 9/11 due to general sensitivity around the attacks in the early 2000s). [9] [10] Because the Notorious B.I.G. died before 9/11 and because the 1993 attacks fell into obscurity due to the dramatic destruction and death toll of 9/11, conspiracy theories eventually came due to people unaware of the 1993 attacks believing that the Notorious B.I.G. had prior knowledge of 9/11 years before it happened and used this knowledge in the previously mentioned line of the song. [11] [12]
The editing of the song was inconsistent between mediums, affecting only radio stations while leaving the lyrics on the album, music video and download intact. [13] Although many 9/11-related edits were reverted in the late 2000s and the early 2010s after enough distance of time of 9/11 had passed, the edit to "Juicy" remained in place by mistake. [14] [15] This resulted in people hearing "Juicy" on the radio with the edit, then playing the song on a CD or on the internet and hearing the lyrics intact, which can left people wonder why it was censored. This has led to the conspiracy theories as well as two different about how the Notorious B.I.G. supposedly know about 9/11 despite the fact he died years before it happened. One version claims that the Notorious B.I.G. had powers of prophecy similar to the mystic Nostradamus which allowed him to see into the future and thus make an accurate prediction as a prophet. [16] [17] The other is that the Notorious B.I.G. was in fact a co-conspirator in the 9/11 attacks, having helped in some manner in planning the attacks, which according to the conspiracy theorists took years to plan and carry out, also claiming that the Notorious B.I.G.'s murder was part of the plan to keep the attacks secret before it happened. [18] In 2017, Billboard Magazine publicly called for radio stations to remove their edit to "Juicy" and revert it to the original version where the words "World Trade" is heard, not only to remove the censorship but also to revive public awareness of the 1993 attacks. [19]
Production controversy
Producer Pete Rock alleged that Combs stole the idea for the original song's beat after hearing it at Rock's house. [20] In an interview with Wax Poetics , he said:
I did the original version, didn't get credit for it. They came to my house, heard the beat going on the drum machine, it's the same story. You come downstairs at my crib, you hear music. He heard that shit and the next thing you know it comes out. They had me do a remix, but I tell people, and I will fight it to the end, that I did the original version of that. I'm not mad at anybody, I just want the correct credit. [20]
Pete Rock's remix of "Juicy" uses the same sample as the original. During an appearance on the Juan Epstein Podcast, Rock said that he has no hard feelings about how "Juicy" came about, but wished he had gotten the proper credit, although he did admit to harboring some ill feelings at the time. [21]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
