Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know: Charting the Similarities Between Lord Byron and The Notorious B.I.G.

“I been in this game for years,
its made me an animal.
There’s rules to this shit,
I wrote me a manual”
-Ten Crack Commandments

I began writing this paper with the intention of using Biggie Smalls as a means by which to demonstrate the impact of the Byronic Hero on our culture. The more I considered things, however, the more I recognized that such an argument is ultimately erroneous and even insulting. The attributes of the Byronic Hero which so clearly apply to the creative entity known the Notorious B.I.G. (also known as Biggie Smalls, also known as the Black Frank White, also known as Christopher George Latore Wallace) all generated spontaneously as a result of Christopher Wallace’s upbringing in the grimiest sections of Brooklyn, NYC rather than through the process of cultural distillation and dilution which has brought those same qualities to something like, say, Batman. As I doubt that Christopher Wallace ever laid his hands on a copy of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage it seems only fitting that Biggie be regarded as peer rather than as a product of.



What I now propose to do is simply explicate just a handful of both personal and artistic similarities between the Bad Boy of the English Romantic movement and the Bad Boy of Bad Boy records. I will be using Byron’s Manfred and Childe Harold as my primary sources by which to examine several of tracks off of Biggie’s gangsta rap masterpieces “Ready to Die” and “Life after Death”. Ideally, this will provide us with a contemporary link to our cultural past as well as provide some footing for the creative legitimacy of Biggie Smalls and maybe even Hip Hop in general.

To pull the camera back a little bit, Hip Hop is the dominant means by which metered, poetic verse is ingested not only in the states but in the world. at large with a listenership numbering in the billions (somewhere around 3 actually). Still, there are those people both in and out of academia who seem to simply pretend the Hip Hop scene either does not exist or that it is not worthy of dignifying with any critical response other than laughter or disgusted grunts. I hate those people.

But keep in mind, I do not wish to dub Hip Hop as some sort of new Romantic movement since A)that would be as cheesy as it is pretentious and B) that would be somewhat redundant as, in actuality, everybody seems at least a little Romantic these days. What I am actually inferring is that Hip Hop seems to hold many of the values of the Romantic movement, most notably Keats principle of “Truth is Beauty” and the Wordsworthian predilection towards “common” language.

But I digress.

Biggie’s personal legacy is a troubled one. Though canonical in the Hip Hop community, academic recognition of Biggie’s poetic contributions are few and far between, his mainstream credibility is dogged by Tipper Gore-esque attacks upon his subject matter and “message” and even the self-billed “intellectual elite” of rap culture have thrown snobbish critical obstacles at Wallace which seem to eerily echo those leveled at Byron himself. I can practically hear Carlyle commanding “Close thy Biggie; open thy Q-Tip”.

To conclude this somewhat gargantuan introduction, I feel I should note that it is of the utmost importance that this piece not regarded so much as a Romantic paper as a Hip Hop paper. Such a perspective seems to me the key to keeping this joint fresh.

“All I do is separate the game from the truth.”
One More Chance

The trajectories of the two mens lives and careers seem to begin even in their modest yet disparate creative launches, with poetry relegated to mere diversion while they engaged in more profitable pursuits, Gordon studying at trinity college and Wallace selling crack.. However, the place which seems most appropriate for us to begin is the pair’s adoption of commercial personas, personas which eventually became indistinguishable and indivisible from the original and ostensibly authentic entities of George Gordon and Chris Wallace. Perhaps the only real difference is that Byron was born into his MC name whereas Biggie grew into his in the most literal sense.

The general attitude toward Byron today is that his overwhelming success came as the result of clever branding in tandem with poetic genius. People who bought Byron’s work were enamored of him or, rather, the literary figures which he would make intrinsically linked to himself. Peter J. Manning described the allure as a sort of cultural usurpation of focus in his article “Childe Harolde in the Marketplace”. Manning states that “...the intensely present Byron of 1812 and afterwards validates the fictions, making his own career the authorizing source of value, a present-day demonstration of heroic grandeur.” and then goes on to say that “Byron’s revolution thus consisted of vacating the order of chivalry and replacing it simultaneously with himself.” (180) Though Byron would downplay the relationship between he and his characters it seems clear that (as when he named Childe Harolde Childe Burun in an early version of the Pilgrimage) that such a connection was, even if unintended, still very much there.

Christopher Wallace moved through similar avenues with similar commercial success. Please forgive me as I attempt to add some context: Wallace was living in a post-N.W.A. creative space. N.W.A. had set the tone for the grimy theatrics of gangster rap and had profited immensely off of their hardcore affectations. Their most brilliant move was their creation of characters from which Andre Young or Eric Wright would never break. This dynamic has remained steady in much of Hip Hop though it has become infinitely more meta with some artists taking on multiple characters and releasing whole catalogs under these guises, for example Kool Keith’s outstanding tenure as the alien gynecologist Dr. Octagon or MF DOOM’s alternate but equally cerebral outlet Viktor Vaughn (and it boggles my mind to even consider the number of nom de plume permutations the members of the Wu-Tang Clan have.)

Of course, all of this talk about general Hip Hop history must lead us somewhere. That place is the genesis of The Notorious B.I.G. persona which had the same edge over so much of the influx of gangster rap as Guns N Roses did over the artificial hair bands of the same era. Christopher Wallace was essentially the real deal: a crack dealing, purse stealing gangsta who had excelled in school during the times he actually went and who also just happened to spit red hot fire with an unheard of flow. Whereas the gangsters before him fronted completely, Biggie was essentially the Platonic Christopher Wallace, exaggerated in all the right places to be a lyrical atom bomb and a commercial product with tremendous viability. Listening again to Eazy-E’s“Boyz in tha Hood” after hearing Biggie’s “Things Done Changed” sees the former piece rendered ludicrous in the face of reality bent to perfect fiction.

“All I want is bitches,
big booty bitches.”
Machine Gun Funk

But, the similarities stretch deeper into their creative and personal psyches than simply this readiness to commodify themselves. An example of particular interest is the pairs considerable sexual appetites which fed directly into their creative output. It always seems best to get the more lurid, fun things out of the way early and this topic serves another, more selfish purpose as well: The cries of misogyny leveled at Biggie’s verses are overpowering, earsplitting and often very, very true. This being noted I feel that when his sexual consumption is placed into context next to Byron’s we might be able to move past politics and address the art itself. Art first, politics second, etcetera, etcetera.

Though I fear creating a straw man to batter, we might begin with Biggie’s much maligned embrace of the “bitches”. However, his use of the word and concept might pale to some in comparison to the use of the word in the boy’s schools of the eighteenth century as David Sprague Neff details compellingly in his article “Bitches, Mollies, and Tommies: Byron, Masculinity, and the History of Sexualities”. During that period, a common sexual practice was the adoption of the more beautiful, younger boys by the older students for sexual satisfaction. These younger boys were known as “bitches”. While it was unknown as to whether Byron was himself ever one of these “bitches”, there has been plentiful evidence to demonstrate that he himself was something of connoisseur of bitches. He would go on to employ and enjoy the same sexual power dynamic when we he traveled abroad to Greece and then continually throughout his life.

Now, let it be recognized that there is no judgment being made in regards to EITHER man’s sexual proclivities, his bitches or otherwise. And let it be further recognized that the last sentence was not some Seinfeld-esque copout. I wish only to establish recognition of culturally acceptable sexual practices and terminology which have found disfavor. And, also, to demonstrate that both Byron and Biggie were very fond of the bitches indeed. Yes, both men were cut of the same libidinal cloth, their appetites excessive to the point of a sort of dazzling ferocity and only differentiated by the common practices of the day. It also seems safe enough to link this sexual veracity with their creative output as Byron claimed to have slept with over 200 women within the same year and half in which he completed Manfred, Canto 4 of Childe Harold... and began what is widely considered his masterpiece, Don Juan.

Though Biggie never placed a number on his conquests, his own sexual proclivities were on display for everyone to see and experience. Anyone at all could realize that when Smalls, the man who claimed to have “the cleanest, meanest penis”, crowed “I don’t chase ‘em, I replace ‘em” in “One More Chance” it was a safe bet not to doubt him. Such sexual claims rendered poetically have placed him in the same commercial echelon of Michael Jackson, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles in terms of sales. And that is certainly not to say that Byron’s sexual revelry was kept more subtly hidden in his work (a claim so naive might be worthy of academic battery) . In only the second stanza of Canto 1 we learn that Childe Harold, the former Childe Burun spent much of his time cavorting with “...concubines and carnal companie,/ and flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.”(618)

However, deeper inspection of the pair’s work reveals that this sexuality, when placed into the grander scope of their experiences, is regarded as futile. Childe Harold’s exploits are revealed to be heartbreaking in stanza 6 of Canto 1 where Harold “...from his fellow bacchanals would flee;” and that then “...at times the sullen tear would start.”(619)(though, of course, “...Pride congealed the drop within his ee;” ). In “Suicidal Thoughts”, Biggie places his sexual binging in the ugliest context possible juxtaposing his desire to “get his dick licked” with the image of his mother, whose love he feels is only a shadow of what it was when he was a child as she tenderly nursed him, unaware of the ruthlessness and grime the baby would become capable of it when it grew into the often malignant entity The Notorious B.I.G.

(not to mention the revelation that he impregnated a pair of sisters, a fact which is treated as gruesome and shocking, perhaps bearing a stamp of incest as it was understood around the 17th century and, as such, echoing Manfred’s relation to Astarte).

So then, the sexual avarice was not, in reality, unabashed. That the “real” Byron and Biggie would go into a sort of sexual stasis, embracing a simpler sexual lifestyle (relatively speaking) after their biggest critical and commercial successes says a great deal about the toll which such rampant carnality played on their poets souls. Both men were clearly looking for something purer and more glorious of which sex might only have been a side effect, some sort of Platonic ideal.

“Now I’m in the limelight cause I rhyme tight.
Time to get paid,
blow up like the World Trade”
Juicy

This ideal conveniently brings us to the issue of “Nature” or perhaps Nature qua Nature. One would be hard-pressed to find references to nature in the same vein of Byron in the verses of Smalls (though his work still oozes with the imagery afforded him by his modest upbringing, the hard, grimy Brooklyn streets circa the crack boom, if the Romantics created “poetry of the country” it was because such an option existed for them). Instead, Byron’s references to the awesomeness of nature are, in fact, replaced by illustrations of material success. This materialism is yet another target for though who wish to keep Hip Hop illegitimate though assertions seem ignorant to the modern social, economic and cultural conditions.

In order to explain what I mean, I feel that it would be best to leave the ouevre of both men and turn to the words of a third artist, Biggie’s unquestionable successor to the NYC Hip Hop throne and current cultural and commercial Demi-God, Jay-Z. It is simply that no one could possibly explain Hip Hop’s common, (but far from universal) preoccupation with wealth better than he did in his absolutely incendiary single “99 Problems”.

“....critics, they say he's Money Cash Hoes
I'm from the hood stupid, what type of facts are those
If you grew up with holes in ya zappatos
You would celebrate the minute you was havin' dough”

Clearly, the materialism which seems so crass to so many is really an affirmation of Power by a historically disempowered people. Once this is understood to be the underlying drive of gangster Hip Hop, it seems more than reasonable to equate something like a Mercedes-Benz automobile to a mountain or stars or strong winds or a Chamois as all are, in the context of the artists being discussed, physical representations or approximations of power. Biggie simply cannot be blamed for the either the circumstances he came from or the post-Lyotardian concept of the postmodern sublime.

And that is the concept I have been dancing around for some time now: the sublime. Both men’s work was almost exclusively concerned with the aesthetic mode of the Sublime as was the bulk of their respective artistic communities, namely the English Romantic and the 90's East Coast Gangster Rap scene. In fact, even at their most delicate, either man was still essentially concerned with the awe and power of the Sublime (The triumphant victory lap that is “Juicy” is only separated from Biggie’s grimier work by a more uplifting beat and references to Super Nintendo’s rather than Glocks and Manfred’s love for Astarte brings the reader to place of unidentifiable terror rather than a warm, fuzzy feeling)

When one considers their sublime one will realize that the pair’s major concern when employing the sublime, the aesthetification of power, was themselves. The way to Biggie’s mastery over the sale of crack cocaine as described in a track like “The Ten Crack Commandments” is equatable to Manfred’s ability to conjure spirits: Both figures essentially exerting a power that is at least the approximation of something divine through the sheer strength of will. That is to say, they make something from nothing and exert power over their surroundings.

Beyond this mastery of their environment comes both men’s claims to the exclusive right over their own souls. Of course, Byron seems to derive his sense of self-ownership from a variant-Cartesian outlook, Biggie has adopted a physical approach which leaves his perceived weakness of spiritual mandate in the dust. His disdain for the concept of the afterlife in a higher power are most expressly stated in the absolutely acidic “Suicidal Thoughts” where he declares “Hangin' with the goodie-goodies loungin' in paradise/fuck that shit, I wanna tote guns and shoot dice.”

Though the rejections of faith made by the pair end absolutely in these pieces with their own desired, self satisfied deaths, it would be unwise to count any sort of reliance on the idea of a morally righteous higher power. After all, Biggie calls himself “a piece of shit” and “the worst” with a mixture of both pride and guilt as he stares into infinity. The final lines of Manfred are not delivered by the titular character himself but instead by the Abbott who “...dread[s] tp think”(669) where Manfred’s soul might be going. When one considers that the schematic of the piece relies on the presentness or lack thereof of a higher power or powers in tandem with these last words, the spiritual picture is complicated immensely. It seems that Byron and Biggie will only pray at their own altars.

Fuck the world, fuck my moms and my girl,
My life is played out like a Jheri curl
I'm ready to die.
-Ready To Die

And, since they are the sole proprietors of their souls they are also the custodians of their deaths. Death is constantly on either’s mind, most typically their own but in that inspection of their own mortality they see and paint a larger picture of the infinity of death. The endings of Manfred and “Suicidal Thoughts” the Biggie track I feel best serves as the plays counterpart (though by no means being the only track from Biggie’s catalog which deals with the same concepts and reaches the same conclusions. It is only that this particular track employs a more elaborate set of dramatic tropes) end with uncanny similarity: Byron’s stand-in Manfred sneers his way out of his mortal coil (or whatever) shouting “Old man! ‘tis not so difficult to die!”(668), a line immediately followed by the stage direction [MANFRED expires](669). The rejection of life seems almost petulant. Smalls seems to asserts that he has come to a logical conclusion as he spits “I reach my Peak, I can't speak” three lines before his final line of “matter of fact, I'm sick of talkin'”, cutting off the friend he called, exerting ownership over every element of his life including his own demise. We then hear the gunshot which blasts him to perhaps the same eternity as the Notorious B.Y.R.O.N.

That question leaves us with my final point: Either man seems to essentially accept the possibility of eternal torment in the afterlife. Biggie even went so far as to open “Suicidal Thoughts”with the lines “When I die/fuck it/ I wanna go to hell.” Their mastery over their own fates, their taking responsibility for their own grimy action and their willingness to destroy themselves in order to create themselves all seems to prove they were two of a kind separated by a measly couple hundred years, two of the hardest G’s poetry has ever seen.

And if you don’t know,
now you know nigga.
-Juicy

Works Cited

Gordon, George. "Manfred." Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1 The Middle Ages through the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (Norton Anthology of English Literature). New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. 635-68. Print.

Gordon, George. "Childe Harolds Pilgrimage." Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1 The Middle Ages through the Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (Norton Anthology of English Literature). New York: W. W. Norton, 2005. 617-635. Print.

Manning, Peter J. "Childe Harold in the Marketplace: From Romaunt to Handbook." Modern Language Quarterly 52.2 (1991): 170-90.

Neff, David Sprague, “Bitches, Mollies, and Tommies: Byron, Masculinity, and the History of Sexualities” Journal of the History of Sexuality, Volume 11, Number 3, July 2002, pp. 395-438

The Notorious B.I.G. Life After Death. Sean "Puffy" Combs, 1997. CD

The Notorious B.I.G. Ready To DIe. Sean "Puffy" Combs, 1994. CD.