Netflix just shared an exclusive clip from its new documentary Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell, which focuses on late hip-hop icon the Notorious B.I.G.
Directed by Emmett Malloy and written by Sam Sweet, the documentary promises to take a look at Biggie’s ascent to stardom. Among the key figures featured in the doc, which debuts on Netflix on March 1, is his mother Voletta Wallace, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Faith Evans, and Lil’ Cease of Junior M.A.F.I.A., among others. The clip released today, however, features an interview with jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison, who lived on the same block as Biggie during his childhood.
“I was initially trying to groom Chris to be a jazz artist, because he was so talented,” says Harrison in the new clip. “One of the things that we worked on was putting a snare drum be-bop drumming into the rhythm of a rhyme.” Harrison would show Biggie all these different jazz artists, such as drummer Max Roach, and he revealed just how much those rhythms influenced his complex rhyming schemes.
He said that his rhyming would often exude the qualities of a drum solo, forgoing tried-and-true rhyming schemes for something more innovative. The full documentary arrives next week on Netflix on March 1, and is expected to feature never-before-seen footage of Biggie from his pre-fame days.
Check out the exclusive preview above.
