Notorious B.I.G. Rises As Born Again Debuts At #1
The Notorious B.I.G. continues to emerge as a major influence on hip-hop
nearly three years after his death.
Born Again, an LP featuring unreleased vocals by the slain rapper,
remixed tracks and posthumous "collaborations" with Snoop Dogg, Juvenile,
Lil' Kim, Eminem and others, will debut at #1 on this week's Billboard
200 albums chart, ousting Celine Dion's All the Way: A Decade of Song,
which will fall to #2. Born Again sold 485,005 copies for the week
ending Dec. 12, according to SoundScan data released Wednesday (Dec. 15).
The rest of this week's top 10 finds pop continuing to sell well in the
holiday shopping season. The Backstreet Boys' Millennium will finish
at #3. That album is followed by Britney Spears'
One More Time at #4; Santana's Supernatural at #5; Christina
Aguilera's self-titled debut at #6; Kenny G's Faith: A Holiday Album
at #7; country singer Shania Twain's Come On Over at #8; the hits
compilation Now That's What I Call Music 3 at #9; and rapper Will
Smith's Willennium at #10.
Now That's What I Call Music 3 is the week's other top-10 debut.
It features hits in recent months from artists signed to labels in the
Universal Music Group. Songs include Smash Mouth's "All Star"
excerpt).
The B.I.G. album is the first hip-hop record in three months to reach the
top spot. The most recent was Eve's Let There Be ... Eve — Ruff
Ryders' First Lady, in September.
A remix of the Born Again single "Dead Wrong" (RealAudio
excerpt) , produced by Mary J. Blige cohort Chucky Thompson, unites
B.I.G. with Eminem, who was an unestablished artist when B.I.G. (born
Christopher Wallace) was shot and killed March 4, 1997, as he left a Los
Angeles party.
Though "Dead Wrong" includes the line, "I bust in her e-y-e," Voletta
Wallace, B.I.G.'s mother, said she's glad to hear her son's voice, despite
the sometimes violent or sexual content of his lyrics.
"I like the beat on it," she said last month. "The lyrics might be a little
bit explicit, but the beat, I can sit and relax to."
Another hip-hop album, Funkmaster Flex and Big Kap's mix disc The
Tunnel, also will score a high debut, coming in at #35. Flex and Kap
are New York club DJs famous for their shows at the Tunnel in Manhattan.
The record mainly is a collection of new songs recorded by artists with
whom the two have worked at the club throughout the years, including Dr.
Dre, Kool G Rap and Method Man.
Former Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee also will return to the
chart this week, debuting at #71, with a self-titled disc from his new
industrial/hip-hop project, Methods of Mayhem. Lee left Mötley Crüe
in the spring to concentrate on the new music, which includes "Get Naked"
excerpt), a song on which Lee, Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst and
Lil' Kim rap.
"What's bizarre is that most rap artists, all those motherf---ers want
to be rock stars," Lee said in April. "Those guys love f---ing heavy
guitars, they love f---ing big beats, there's so many things about metal
that they love."
Other debuts this week will include teen-pop singer Mandy Moore's So
Real at #77 and Sheryl Crow and Friends' Live in Central Park
at #107. The Crow performance was taped in September and featured Chrissie
Hynde, Dixie Chicks, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards.
Albums released last year by Dave Matthews Band, Jay-Z and DMX will
reappear in the top 200 for the first time in months this week in what
might be another holiday-friendly chart boost. Dave Matthews Band's
Before These Crowded Streets (#188), Jay-Z's Vol. 2
Hard Knock Life (#190) and DMX's It's Dark and Hell Is Hot
(#198) all are platinum sellers. The Jay-Z and DMX albums helped make
each a hip-hop star.
