In Memory of Big L: Why the “Devil’s Son” deserves to Rest in Peace
On the ten-year anniversary of the slaying of rapper Big L on the streets of Harlem in New York City, Jeff Gore explains why this lyrical genius is still mourned, despite his darker side.
By Jeff Gore on Sunday, February 15th, 2009 - 1,435 words.
Ten years ago today, a young man named Lamont Coleman was shot dead on the corner of 139th Street and Lenox Avenue in New York City. Lamont, known to most of the world by his rap moniker “Big L,” stood on this same corner in the cover photo of his debut album, Lifestyles ov da Poor and Dangerous. He was only 24 years old when he died, but by then, he was already a Harlem hip-hop legend.
Those familiar with the East Coast hip-hop scene know that Big L is widely regarded as one of its titans — an originator, one that raised the bar to a level that few have been able to touch since. Although L was one of the most talented rappers in New York, he had nowhere near the fame of household names like Tupac Shakur of the Notorious B.I.G.* The biggest break of his career, a deal with Jay-Z’s Rock-a-Fella record label, was set to happen less than a week after he died.**
Big L’s legendary status is well deserved: in his songs, each syllable connected to one another so well that the whole song became one flowing, charged rope of expression. His rhymes were clever, original, and hilarious; his delivery brimmed with confidence and power that seized you by the windpipe and made you listen. When he shared the mic with a group of fellow rappers, he utterly dominated it – I imagine members of his crew had to draw straws to decide who would have to go after L. Not to mention that L was blessed with having a vocal timbre that seemed made for hip-hop.
To try and do justice to L’s cleverness and flow, I’ve included a few lyrical excerpts below:
I’ll bend a rapper like a fender
I’m slender
But far from tender
Killing niggaz like a Klan member
Breakin’ in cribs with a crow-bar
I wasn’t poor, I was ‘po’
I couldn’t afford the ‘o-r”
I’m so ahead of my time,
My parents haven’t met yet
Although L’s prose was a breath of fresh air, the subject matter of his songs was pretty standard rap fare – growing up on the mean city streets, being wary of gold-digging women, trying to “get money.” There was one exception, early in his career. Many rappers claimed to be violent, but L was radically so, widening the arena of violence past the traditional boundaries of standard street-thug warfare to the realm of macabre “Satanic shit.” L was one of the early proponents of “horrorcore” school of rap; his song “Devil’s Son” was the epitome of this demented phase:
I’m a stone villain known for killing and raping nuns
Hey yo I even kill handicapped and crippled bitches
Look at my scalp real close and you’ll see triple sixes
Of course, his streaks of downright evil were not limited to “Devil’s Son” – they permeated his whole debut album, including the track “Danger Zone”:
Im takin’ lives for a great price, I’m the type
To snap in heaven with a MAC-11 and rape ChristEvery minute, my style switches up, they said a real man
Won’t hit a girl, well I ain’t real cause I beat bitches up
Yet as early as 1995, when L was hardly 21 years old, he had told The Source magazine that he was already over the “horrorcore” stuff, which left L to join the ranks of countless East Coast rappers rapping about money, hos, and clothes. Although some rappers have used their memories of poverty and violence to forge revolutionary, political lyrics, L was part of the much larger class of rappers that tried to obliterate any remnants of their deprived, dangerous childhoods with the endless pursuit and boasting of wealth (“We don’t buy luggage, we go shoppin’ when the plane lands”). He was typical in many ways of a rapper coming up in the 90s: materialistic, misogynistic, homophobic, and violent. It was in this way that L was a product of his environment.
As many others had before him, L rose through the hip-hop ranks as a formidable freestyle battler. Thus, his recorded songs tended to follow the tried-and-true self-aggrandizing, chest-thumping rap formula: package all the rivals you’ve ever known or will know into a “you,” and then relentlessly attack this “you” until he is a pathetic, shriveled, humiliated husk quivering under your Nikes. And yet he rapped about all of this immature, closed-minded stuff in a manner so fresh and confident that you could find yourself actually singing along to the part where he states that he “beat[s] white cops ’till they life stops.”
Because Big L left a vast repertoire of Godless, gratuitously violent lyrics behind him, it leaves me in the awkward position of justifying my writing a memorial for him – and probably leaves you, the reader, scratching your head. After all, the man explicitly said he was going to hell numerous times — with plenty of good reasons (he’d need all the lyrical skill he could muster to coax the gates of heaven open after that Earthly performance.) And who better to write a memorial than a liberal white male who couldn’t hurt a fly!
Wait, why is that? Why am I compelled to devote so much time to make sure that this dead rapper, who bragged about doing so many fucked-up things and whose values ran contrary to my own, is remembered and even commemorated?
I won’t deflect the question by suggesting that Mr. Lamont Coleman was really a hella nice guy in real life, because I never met him or any of his acquaintances. So my only exposure to Lamont Coleman is through the records of Big L, and thus this memorial is for Big L, the artist, not Lamont Coleman, the man. Besides, I tend to take the existentialist view on legacies of artists. As Sartre said, “In life, a man commits himself, draws his own portrait and there is nothing but that portrait,” and so for most of us what is left of Big L is the music he left behind, and only that.
So why have I been slobbering all over this morally deprived rap jock, this self-professed bad guy? Let me answer that question with another question: why do we sometimes root for the bad guy? Note the qualifying adverb: sometimes. For instance, I’m inclined to root for the Joker in the newest Batman flick, but I wouldn’t in a million years hope that the 312th Horde of Faceless Grey Men would actually be successful in defeating the Power Rangers.
Now you see where I’m going. The Joker has oodles of personality, a wicked sense of humor, a bag of tricks as diverse as the gadgets in Batman’s utility belt; The Power Rangers’ group of Colorless Cannon Fodder does not. The Joker has a past filled with struggles, an ego in pursuit of gratification, a psyche riddled with all the small contradictions of a real-life person – in short, he was an incredibly interesting character.
And so it was with Big L – funny and dark, playful and serious. He could tickle your funny bone and your “Oh, shit” bone at the same time. He was a man that bragged about committing crimes, but accurately described why a life of crime had a certain allure – because the alternative was worse:
My moms told me to get a job, fuck that
Aiyo, picture me getting a job
Taking orders from Bob,
Selling corn on the cob?
Yo, how the hell I’ma make ends meet
Making about 120 dollars a week?
With all that said, I’d like to add my own Rest in Peace to the pile for Big L, not because he was a great guy, but because he was a dynamic character forever etched in my memory, a colorful individual, a likable villain. He had personality, something so sorely lacking in the carefully constructed holograms of today’s musicians.
***
*For those of you who were wondering, Big L’s death had nothing to do with the famed East Coast-West Coast hip-hop rivalry of the 90s. By 1999, Biggie and 2Pac were both cold in the ground and the battle was thankfully over. L was believed to have been killed by a childhood friend, Gerard Woodley, who was freed on insufficient evidence. Even the official Big L website confesses that the reasons for L’s death are unknown.
**Although Jay-Z had plenty of business savvy, his actual rhyming skills, in this writer’s opinion, paled in comparison to L’s. I point to the 7 Minute Freestyle as the irrefutable proof of my position.
Big L – Put it On
Big L – Devil’s Son
Big L — Ebonics
Big L – All Black
Big L and Jay-Z – 7-Minute Freestyle
Gang Starr – Full Clip
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Big L was a genius, I used to live just near his mural at 139 and lennox, I was on 145, another couple of lyrics that are amazing:
I got more papers than the New York Post
Packin toast, this host is quick to roast the mic, then I'm ghost
I'm not a soprano like that Italiano Sammy Gravano
MC's be gettin knocked off like Paulie Castellano
This little menace be guzzlin Hennessy
Props from here to Tennessee, police wanna finish me
Make sure my mic is loud and my production is tight
Better watch me round your girl if you ain't fucking her right
You damn playa haters never want to see me blow
Flamboyant Entertainment CEO
Yo the spotlight is mine, it ain't his no more
When Lee come home, niggas can't live no more
And … I'm straight, keep a Harlem World mindstate
I never lounge where you find Jake
Suprise niggas like a blind date, L rhyme great
And I'm a increase the crime rate for old time's sake
and this is funny:
Takin midget's sips
I run with the richest cliques
Fuck the thickest chicks
Plus drop the sickest hits
You know nuthin about L
So don't doubt L
What this motherfucking rap game without L
Yeah, that's like Jews without ice
That's like China without rice
Or the Holy Bible without Christ
Or the Bulls without Mike
Or crackheads without pipes
The Village without dykes
C'mon White Boy, give a brother a break. Stick to what you know
"C'mon White Boy, give a brother a break. Stick to what you know " classic
Yo i got slugs for snitches , no love for bitches , puttin thugs in ditches , when my trigger finger itches
I Only roll with originatorz , chicks stick to my dick like magnets to refrigaratorz
its not Jews without ice you muppet. what would that mean?? Jewels without ice.
nice article though
"I'm sitting making sure the money is right, sippin sunny delight, hittin every honey in sight"
ahaha, i didn't see that, i cut and pasted it from a website, they thought it was jews, but that's a bit racist init, and doesn't make sense really … unless he's saying jews are rich…..
So brilliant to see an article giving Big L some credit, most so called rap fans don't even know who he is! His natural freestyles are unbelievable and he actually seemed to have the ability to slow down and speed up his voice according to any beat .a.k.a a voice gearbox…just a shame he got killed before he could reach any kind of potential or recognition but as above he was a product of his environment and that environment all too often hates what it should love, kills what it creates.
R.I.P BIG L, the most underrated rapper of all time!
some of my favourite lyrics…
I got more riches than you, fuck more bitches than you
Only thing I havent got is more, stitches than you
Fuckin punk, you aint a +leader+ what? nobody +follow-ed+ you
You was never shit, your mother shoulda swallowed you
Turn your tux red, Im far from broke, got enough bread
And mad hoes, ask beavis I get nuttin butt-head!
"I smash mics like corn breads,
You can't kill me I was born dead!"
Why leave out the last line? "Or hockey games without fights" =)
Just to let yall know, I included that Gang Starr clip because the first five seconds of that song is how I heard about Big L. On a whim I looked him up and the rest is history: amazing how some of the most incredible rappers can be so easily overlooked.
Your not the only one Jeff, …so much knowledge i have attained from just wondering exactly who is being spoken of in the music filling our ears as we walk down the street. I learn't all the black history that is rarely taught in the British public school system this way.
The irony of thousands of pounds of school fees and what's the result, the best history teacher i ever had was Mos Def at the cost of a few albums.
Your not the only one Jeff, …so much knowledge i have attained from just wondering exactly who is being spoken of in the music filling our ears as we walk down the street. I learn't all the black history that is rarely taught in the British public school system this way.
The irony of thousands of pounds of school fees and what's the result, the best history teacher i ever had was Mos Def at the cost of a few albums.
"Big L's the type of nigga who be gamin' with freaks
While you're out working hard, I'm in your spot staining your sheets"
A lyrical monster
"I chew chumps, like chew sticks, been known for rocking new hits,
I know you want me hoe, if I was you I'd want me too bitch"
One of the Greatest
RIP Big L
yo im telling jay z and rocafella has cold heartedly killed lamont coleman i really wouldnt be surprised if jay z stole big l ;s rhyme book cause no joke jay z is a fukin wak ass rapper that is only big because he is corporate america like p diddy and 50 cent
yo im telling you jayz killed big l, jay z knew if big l was in rocafella he would always sound like shit just like in the 7 minute freestyle plus jay z is scumbag type guy and hes sik fuk who shot his brother for borrowing jewelry he definately tied to the cops and yo straight up jay z is nto even loved in his own hood hes a fagot ass rapper that cant rhyme like l the jealous type and who eever signs to rocafela sells their soul or anhy other label this game is fuked up with snakes and big l was running with flamboyant not rocashitfella flamboyant still shits on rocafela with flamboyants few hits made jay z is a scumbag who will go to hell and in the end the whole world will know the truth of jay z that fake ass camel lookin punk
ja y z also bites rhymes i just wana pop those fukin lipss so he could shut up
Im 14 n i love BigL he was so young
Its true what they say God takes the best first
buts annoying that god takes the best
and leaves us with Lil Wayne n soulja boy> ?
lo l
rip harlems finest
R.I.P Big L best hip hop artist all times.
Now hip hop is missing men like pac , L , b.i.g. , pun, easy , odb , and many other real artists like them. R.I.P to all of them !
When they die , hip hop die wit them !
Now it's commercial garbage!
Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Middle class white boys wistfully gazing at 'da projects' wishing they were more street.
Or bopping in 4/4 comfortable in the knowledge they will never have to deal with the issues addressed by their rapping heroes…but hey they are socially aware.
Poverty and shit is so much more real through the sepia-tinted RayBans of the downwardly aspirant.
"Yo i got slugs for snitches, no love for bitches,
puttin thugs in ditches when my trigga finger itches.
I got a rep to make police sweat, known to get a priest wet
I never beg for pussy like Keith Sweat"
i keep the shotty smoken/ front and get half the bones in ur body broken (Big L R.I.P)
And everyone needs to down load that Live Big mixtape with Big L Biggie and Big Pun… Harlem on the rise 139 and lenox
Jeff Gore you ain't nothin' but a white whore,
Lies of gats and that in suburbia,
pretending to be a brotha now in arabia,
never seen da truth cause da truth is the one that lives it
I totally welcome critique of my work, so if anyone has any criticism that's NOT in the form of racist, poorly written rhymes, I'd appreciate hearing it.
Thanks,
-Jeff
fuck u u bitch ass big l waz a rap idol and he alwayz gonna have beta rymez den u and ya lil craka jack subberbz friendz iight cuz comin from a real nigga frum da streetz of ny like him he waz ill and u aint shit so shut ya face b4 i shut it for ya u bitch azz hoe
the best BIG L line (98 freestyle):
And mad hos, and axe beavis i get n uthin butt head
I like the article, I'm writing one about Big L for my blog too. Good work.
My favorite Big L line:
"Tracks I'm known to roast until the microphone is ghost, props I own the most I'm leavin n*ggas comatose. Front and get your brain pinched, Big L will have your whole gang lynched, I started smoking dust and been insane since. this rap shit was a great gift. the other night some snake riffed and got a hot lead face lift. All through high school I had braids, I kept mad blades, stabbing teachers to death that gave me bad grades."
“I’m sitting making sure the money is right, sippin sunny delight, hittin every honey in sight”
before i buck lead
turn ur tux red
im far from broke got enough bread
AND MAD HOES ASK BEEVUS I GET NUTIN BUT(T) HEAD ——–> best line in all of rap any where
Big L 98 freestyle
before i buck lead
make alot of blood shed
turn ur tux red
AND MAD HOES ASK BEEVUS I GET GET NUTIN BUT HEAD ——- BEST LINE IN RAP EVA
RIP Big L, the greatest.
JAY-Z KILLED BIG L CUZ HE NOTICED L WAS GETTIN BIG ND NICE SO HE HAD 2 STOP HIM SUM HOW …. JAY-Z IS A CORNY ASS RAPER …… R.I.P * . : BIG L : . * THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME PAST PRESENT ND THE FUTURE