Q&A: Tanya Morgan's Von Pea Shares His High School Memories of Fabolous, Biggie, and Jay-Z

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​Boys & Girls High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn--once home to both the Notorious B.I.G. and Fabolous--has long since become a legendary spot for New York hip-hop. Von Pea, one third of the indie rap group Tanya Morgan, also attended its hallowed halls--a move which inspired his new back-to-school concept album, Pea's Gotta Have It, which the rapper wrote after he stumbled across his old high school journal. Here he looks back on eating in the same cafeteria Biggie chowed down in, talks about Fab getting kicked out of class, and casts an envious glance towards the lunchroom battles between Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes that went down at nearby Westinghouse Information Technology High School.

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The Ten Most Exploitative Posthumous Rap Projects

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​Being a dead rap artist isn't much fun. Whether The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, or J Dilla, death has never seemed to do much to alleviate the constant pressure on artists to muster up new recordings to satisfy the bulging posthumous rap retail market. (In the hip-hop world, possessing a heart that no longer beats is no excuse for failing to produce music.) This week sees the latest addition to the ghostly sub-genre, with the release of Definitive Jux associate Camu Tao's debut solo album. But while that project, King Of Hearts, is a fittingly respectful one, pieced together from unfinished recordings by his friend and label boss El-P, most other notable up-from-the-grave albums are less honorable in intention and execution. Here's a rundown of the ten most prominent.

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The 50 Worst Songs of the '00s, F2K No. 22: The Notorious B.I.G. ft. Bob Marley, "Hold Ya Head"

F2K is a countdown of the 50 worst songs of the decade. Track our progress here.



It's a shame the legacy of impossibly gifted MC Notorious B.I.G. is limited to two classic albums and one decent-enough comp--but, hey, better than the Pollard-style recording jags that Tupac has mysteriously maintained over the last decade from his bunker in Afghanistan. Still, Bad Boy needed to wring one more paycheck out of Big Poppa for Duets: The Final Chapter, the 73-minute coal-in-your-stocking-stuffer pegged to Christmas 2005. Executive produced by Diddy on a five minute conference call held between his Broadway run and inventing Danity Kane, the concept was simple: Glue a bunch of random Biggie bullshit together, scribble the word "Notorious" on a CD cover, cash lots of checks. All the Biggie songs that changed your life--now with 100 percent more Korn! Featuring Juelz Santana! And some guy from Boyz N Da Hood!

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Good Morning Biggie, Tupac, and Redman

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​That right there is three people in happier times. [Alexander Richter via Eskay]

Good Morning, Blasphemous Biggie Smalls-Related Ad Campaign

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​That right there is an apparently unlicensed and semi urban community-targeted (for corroboration, check out the Kool & the Gang version) advertisement for Edy's ice cream, who apparently have little to no qualms about taking the names of dead rappers in vain. Why not just go all in and say that if Biggie were alive, he'd eat all the ice cream in this photo, and then come back for seconds? Or just have a picture of Big Pun's enormous bloated corpse with a few containers of mint chocolate chip slowly melting nearby? [AnimalNY]

'Cause the Greatest Rapper of All Time Died on March 9th

March 9th, always a black day. It was on this date in 1997 that Biggie Smalls was gunned down in LA, a murder that is unsolved and will probably remain so. By way of homage, a mixtape tribute by DJ Drama & Cookin' Soul is floating around today, featuring various rappers going in over flipped Biggie samples and beats. Noz posts Big's last freestyle, recorded on March 3rd. And, of course, there's always the legendary street-corner freestyle, featuring a 17-year-old Christopher Wallace, and the absolutely heartbreaking footage of Biggie's hearse rolling through Brooklyn, above.

Biggie's Kids Push Things Forward

Someday, if things break your way, "Brooklyn" will no longer be the thing you desperately hustle to escape from but the name of the fluffy white dog your two endearing children talk about incessantly over futuristic video-chat technology. [Via Sandra Rose]

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