Birthdays were the best days. Well, at least some of them. Yesterday was Notorious B.I.G.’s birthday and whether you knew him personally or not, everyone who loved him commemorated the occasion in their own way. One of Big’s closest confidants, Lil Cease went to Paper Box in Brooklyn to not big up Big, but to support the one year anniversary of Notoriouss clothing, a line founded and run by Big’s daughter T’Yanna Wallace. Contrary to what you may think, Cease said the best Biggie birthday was some dress extravaganza worthy of a Big Poppa, but rather his fondest recollection is cooling with Big on his born day in the hood. Here, Cease tells his favorite memory of celebrating a Birthday with the late, great Frank White.
One day we was on his roof. We had a bunch of burners, guns, weed. We kids [at this time]. People gotta understand when B.I.G. died, he was 24 years-old. We talking about a B.I.G., 19 years old. [maybe] 18. We sitting… When he first got his deal, we was sitting on his roof with 22s, two fives, nine millimeters, a ounce of weed. St. Ides, Old E. [English], Jack Daniels, on his roof. Ms. Wallace is on the third floor, we on the roof and he got a bunch of teenagers up there, kids. 11, 12 years old, Straight out of Sarah J. Hale high school. We up there, pinning our ears [closed with our fingers], shit going off ‘bong, bong bong, bong.’ Everybody, that was their way of celebrating. We didn’t look at it like it was nothing wrong. We on his roof on 226. Niggas out here lighting up all type of shit. That’s when I knew we made it, we Big. We wasn’t out there shooting at people, or doing no crazy shit. That’s was our way of celebrating. We didn’t know what we was doing. We didn’t know we was going to be monumental. We ain’t know we was gonna be this big to where we talking about Big 20 years from now . [At that time], we thinking he’s gonna be a dope artist, we gonna rise and he gonna do his hip-hop thing. [Perform in] hole in the wall spots and just rise. We ain’t think 20 years later arenas gonna be reciting this nigga’s lyrics and we headlining Summer Jams. And 20 years later, this is totally something different.