Message of Hope in Rap? The three-year anniversary of Notorious B.I.G's murder is fast approaching and many people still rave about his music. What made him so special was the connection he had with his listeners. He found many ways to incorporate his life stories into his music that relates to every other "thug" growing up in the streets from New York City to Los Angeles. The perfect example of this is his double CD, "Life after Death" where most of his songs are about death and how people deal with it. Its quite ironic how he sort of predicted his own death in the album but by doing so, it helped his fans and family deal with his death better. To understand his songs, you have to understand the life he grew up in. Raised in the ghettos of New York City, he like many others had difficult time surviving. In order to survive he took up drug dealing and other illegal activities to support his daughter and his wife. Yea we all know drug dealing is not the way to go, but you have to understand the environment he grew up in. Most of his friends were either dead or in jail and it was either dealing drugs or letting his family die. Even though he sold drugs, he knew he would have to stop to look after his child and he was given that opportunity when he began rapping. Now that you understand his childhood, you can understand his music much clearly. His music isn't about killing cops or raping a girl, but of hope for people like him out they're selling drugs to survive. He gives the clear message of hope to everyone who makes the effort and realizes that drugs isn't the way to go and to never give up on life and to live life to the fullest. The best example of this is in his song, "Sky's The Limit" featuring 112. He starts of the song saying how poor he used to be and how he had only two pairs of jeans and so he led the life of stealing and robbing people just to eat a meal a day but then portrays the life of being a rap star...
