Biggie Smalls would have been 48 yesterday.
The great rapper didn’t have much connection to the NBA -- not that that’s stopped today’s Brooklyn Nets from ruthlessly exploiting him -- but had one famous tie-in through his classic song, I Got a Story to Tell.
The song is rapped in narrative form, of an (apparently completely true) mix up with a player on the Knicks, who returned home while Biggie was … with ... his girlfriend. In the song, between verses, someone asks Biggie who the player was. Biggie responds by saying:
“I don’t know, one of them six-five ******”
In 2016, rapper Fat Joe revealed who it was: Poor Anthony Mason, who passed away in 2015. Once he said that, the story blew up, and everyone -- Fat Joe included -- felt bad about it. Still, it’s a legendary story and song by a larger-than-life human. Listen here.
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