Your uncle touches people with his trumpet.” He said, “Just do your thing - change the frame around the picture. George Harrison, Paul McCartney touched people. He said “Look man, there’s very few people in the world who can touch millions of people… as a kid, I worked and traveled with Ray Charles, and he touches people. And Billy said something to me in that hallway that really turned me around. A friend of mine was out in the hallway - Billy Preston, the keyboard player. That night I was at the old Record Plant studios on third street. So I was doing demos, and the A&R guy at A&M Records at the time said, “Would you want to do disco songs of Tijuana Brass things for your uncle?” And I said, “You know Chip, I don’t feel great about working with Herb.” And when I started to do it seriously, like I said, I changed my name, and I got my first job - which was to do demos for Columbia Records, for a group called Con Funk Shun. Back then I was 11, in ‘66, packing records in the shipping room, and I loved being around there. Herb and I were always close, family-wise, and as a kid, I always worked at A&M Records. I hated as a kid how everywhere I went, I’d tell them my name, and they’d go, “Oh, are you related to Herb?” So at that time, I was going into doing funk music, and I randomly picked the name - some girl was like, “Oh, you’re pretty badass.” And at that time, I was about 17, and I went “Boy, maybe I should call myself Randy Badazz.” And I did. But when I was about 18, I really wanted to be a musician, and at that time, Herb and A&M were giants. His words have been condensed and edited for clarity. Listen below to a hip hop legend, Biggie Smalls song ‘Hypnotize’.Here, Randy tells Billboard about his memories of composing and recording “Rise,” why “Hypnotize” was the first sample request that he actually cleared, and how Biggie’s song has helped his own song live on through the generations. Rather than be insulted, those within the procession began dancing and rejoicing to the track, turning it into a celebration of Biggie’s imperious life.
#HYPNOTIZE BIGGIE SMALLS FULL#
As the funeral procession for the hip hop legend made its way through the streets of his native Brooklyn, a nightclub blasted ‘Hypnotize’ through its speakers at full volume. The song will go down as a crucial part of Biggie’s legacy for another reason too. I still have that cassette demo, and it’s definitely a classic piece of rap history.” The nephew of Alpert also revealed that Biggie wrote the raps for all of the parts of the song, including the female leads: “When I first met Biggie before they recorded ‘Hypnotize’, he played me a demo version with him doing the girl’s part. Biggie’s version was released and charted its first week at number two and went to number one the second week.” The original ‘Rise’ record climbed the chart all summer and became number one around the end of October. I was sent a cassette from Puffy, and when I cranked it up, I not only immediately loved it, but my gut thought that this could be a number one record once again. When he first played the loop for Biggie, Biggie smiled and hugged him.”īadazz later confirmed that it wasn’t only Biggie who wanted to use the beat: “Over the years I was approached by Ice Cube, Easy E, Vanilla Ice, and maybe another 4-5 artists to use the song and I never said yes until I heard a rough version of Biggie’s recording. He had always remembered that summer and that song. He told me that in the summer of 1979, when he was, I think ten years old, the song was a huge hit everywhere in New York and ‘Rise’ along with Chic’s ‘Good Times’ were ‘The Songs’ that all the kids were dancing and roller skating to that summer. Its tireless beat and enviable flow encapsulate everything about his larger than life character in one song.ĭiddy sampled the music from Herb Alpert’s 1979 hit ‘Rise’, which was written by Andy Armer and Herb’s nephew, Randy Badazz Alpert, later recalled: “I asked Puffy, in 1996 when he first called me concerning using ‘Rise’ for ‘Hypnotize,’ why he chose the ‘Rise’ groove. The track is a magical effort that is unarguably one of the classic Biggie Smalls songs. ‘Hypnotize’ became just the fifth track to reach number one in the charts posthumously following the tragic murder of Biggie, aka Christopher Wallace.
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