as their knights of the realm, the pair were regarded as heroes in their native New York, and enemies in Los Angeles as the fabled feud between the two sides of America commenced. We were a match made in heaven, like Sonny and Cher or Ashford and Simpson.”ĭropping their respective debut albums on the same day, something Kim referred to as a “double date”, the duo would work as the King and Queen of East Coast hip hop. I think I inspired him to want to do different things and be different. “He knew I would be the biggest female rapper.
I was his biggest fan,” Kim told Entertainment Weekly in 2016. “He became my friend, my lover, my everything. Soon enough, despite Biggie’s marriage to Faith Evans, the pair started dating, and their lives would be forever entwined. In fact, they first met when Biggie caught Kim rapping in their home neighbourhood and immediately asked her to join his group.
#THE NOTORIOUS BIG ANOTHER SERIES#
However, before she hit the airwaves, Kim proved herself with a series of performances for Big. The Brooklyn icon gave Kim her big break with a series of singles supported by Bad Boy Records. I was sexy with the rough edge but I knew I was different from both of them completely.”ĭespite having many different influences, there’s no getting away from the fact that Kim owes a great deal to her one-time boyfriend The Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls. But Salt-N-Pepa had everything I kinda was. “See, MC Lyte was always rough - she didn’t really care to be nothing else, but like look ‘I’m just a rough chick with a pretty face.’ That’s who she was and wanted to be. “Salt-N-Pepa had the sexiness I knew I had,” she once said about her musical influences to Talib Kweli on Uproxx.