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Get Money: Let’s Cut Quan Some Slack

I suggest we cut Rich Homie Quan a little slack. Did he break your heart yesterday and epically fudge up a performance of “Get Money?” Yes — but, before he has a chance to [maybe] come up with an excuse, let me offer up a theory: Biggie doesn’t mean that much to him! There. I know, it’s hard for some of us to stomach — the idea that perhaps someone doesn’t love Biggie Smalls, the king of NYC. Consider, though, that Quan is 26 years old; he was 8 when Biggie Smalls was tragically murdered. He was also living in the south and was admittedly artistically influenced by artists like Outkast and Jeezy. I’m sure Quan is aware of who Biggie is and what he represents to people, but — understandably — he hasn’t played a very memorable role in his personal experience. Listen, if you didn’t experience Biggie during his apex, then it’s hard to feel the same affinity towards him that [we] do. Timeless is a subjective term.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this — VH1 has a history of trying to get a new generation of artists to pay homage to artists that don’t have any real “role” in their personal relationship with hip-hop [Note, VH1 puts this together, not the other way around]. They tried this with Lupe when he dropped the ball during a Tribe Called Quest tribute. He admittedly hadn’t even listened to Midnight Marauders — luckily [although far from unnoticed] Twitter hadn’t reached it’s current Super Sayan form yet, so no memes. Quan, though, wasn’t so lucky.

It’s not an excuse; these artists [Quan and Lupe] were paid to perform, and did terrible jobs at it. We can maybe understand why the lyrics may not be emblazoned into their brains, though. To the same effect, I don’t know every word to “Friends” by Whodini. Also, is “Get Money” really one of the essentially “must-know” Biggie verses by casual listeners/fans? He may have nailed “Juicy,” or “Mo Money Mo Problems,” for example.

Look, this was a terrible idea all around. Quan takes an L for not memorizing the words, but VH1 takes a massive L for dressing him like Biggie and expecting it to be ok. I get what they were going for, but it didn’t work out. Maybe next year they’ll have Lil’ Yachty perform 2Pac’s verse from Digital Underground’s “Same Song.” SMH!

RIP Biggie.

https://youtu.be/ktTc_ENe_40

Riley About Author

Riley here — father, artist, videographer, professional writer and SERIOUS hip-hop head. I'm a member of the Universal Zulu Nation, and I think everything is better on vinyl. Add me on Twitter! @specialdesigns