A Biggie tale (chucky thompson edition)

I was at Daddy’s House to pick something up, and B.I.G. was in the other room. This was right after his car accident with Lil Cease. He sends someone over, and they say, “Hey Chuck, B.I.G. wants to holla at you real quick.”

Now I haven’t done anything, so I’m like, ah damn. I go see him, and he’s like, “Chuck, what’s real joe? You did one of the biggest records on my first album, and you didn’t do anything on this one? That looks crazy. So you gotta let me know what are we doing.”

I was actually working on my own artist, so I wasn’t around Bad Boy as much. I tell him, let me sit with Puff and see what it is. 

Puff played me a bunch of records. One of them was “I Gotta Story To Tell.” It had a sample they couldn’t clear. You can find the original online. Since I’m able to flip samples, that’s where I came in. 

Sometimes, when you are dealing with records, you’ll have two artists make the same track. Ramsey Lewis will do a song, and then Aretha Franklin will do a version, so when you get both records, it’s the same song but different instruments.

So in my brain, that’s what I was doing. Let me act like I’m another version of this record. So I rearranged some things. If you listen to the two of them, you can hear the difference. I kept the melodies but I changed the instruments. I inverted a bunch of stuff. That was a quick way to flip it. 

It had to be done that night. It was GRAMMYs night. I was in the studio with a bow tie on. 

Stuff happened so fast right after that. B.I.G was out in L.A. Naturally, I never really said a lot to Big about the East Coast vs. West Coast stuff because I felt like that was something personal. 

This music game and that other game are the same game. You’re dealing with money, and you’re dealing with niggas. A lot comes with that. If I could do it again, I would tell him: Make sure you have two people in front, two people on the side, and two people in the back―that way all eyes are covered. 

I figured that would get handled while he was out in L.A., and then I got the news. The crazy part is, I was building a studio in D.C. and had the whole Daddy’s House staff staying with me. We got that phone call at seven in the morning that he had gotten shot. We didn’t get the news about him passing until later. We were on pins and needles all morning. 

Even though my version of “I Gotta Story To Tell” made the Life After Death album, I never got a chance to rap with B.I.G. to see if he approved.