In lyrics, women are frequently treated as intellectually inferior (Big Sean's "IDFWU") or gold diggers (Kanye West's "Gold digger") or sex objects (Nelly's "Tip Drill"), and violence against women is often condoned (as in Eminem's "Kim"). It's competitive, and not the most feminist atmosphere. Hip-hop is not an easy game to break into, especially for women. The last song on the album is a track called "It Was Worth It," a lullaby-like ballad reminiscing about what it felt like when they first met, the fights they had, and how there is "no time to apologize." "His spirit and his being has maintained in my life personally," Evans says. I think it's something he'll be proud of even when I'm not here anymore." I know I can feel proud, of not only what I accomplished but also my extension of his legacy. I've felt that feeling once or twice since then. I was like, 'I think Big just told me to come over and hug you, he's proud.' And I started crying. "Towards the end of one recording, I went over and gave a hug to one of the writers I was working with. "He told me a few times he is proud of what I did," she says. He is still just a powerful presence and his talent is so magical."Ī few times, Evans felt like her late husband's spirit visited her in the studio. "The ups and downs, the in betweens, the beginning, the end. "It's my creative expression of our love story," she says. More than anything else, Evans wants to share Biggie's legacy with this album.
The track "Lovin' You For Life," featuring Lil' Kim, has Evans and Kim both reminiscing about loving Biggie, covering everything from their arguments to what it was like kissing Notorious B.I.G. It didn't help there were rumors she was hanging out with the west coast rapper Tupac Shakur. As Evans sings about what it takes to be a great wife, she says her commandments are "don't talk about what you do in the bedroom," "always say 'I love you' when he leaves the house" and "separate your feelings from your bank account," among others.Įvans watched her relationship with Biggie fall apart during their three-year marriage, between 19, as gossip surfaced about his affairs with other women, including Lil' Kim. The song acts like wise advice for young women (and comes off a bit like the famed dating bible The Rules).
#FAITH EVANS YOU USED TO LOVE CRACK#
One of the most compelling songs on the album is "Ten Wife Commandments," which is a reinterpretation of Biggie's track "Ten Crack Commandments," from his album Life After Death. I had this light bulb go off and say, 'Hey, you've got all this footage.' I chopped it up, went into the studio and put music behind it. "I had my videographer go over to her house with me, we spoke about our relationship," said Evans. Wallace's vocals are taken from unreleased documentary footage Evans shot a few years back. "That's how things ended up working out," she said. Evans, a Grammy award-winning R&B singer who was the first woman signed to Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records in 1994, started fishing around for Biggie's old a capellas and freestyles on YouTube and met with the gatekeepers of his master tapes. Three years ago, she picked up the idea again. "I wondered if I could do something like that with Biggie, it was just a thought." It's a similar to the approach that Natalie Cole took in making her late father Nat King Cole's recording of "Unforgettable." "I remember watching the music video for that song and thinking 'that's very clever,'" Evans tells me over the phone from her home in Los Angeles. She was inspired to take Biggie's old recordings and lay new vocal tracks over them, creating a duet album 20 years after his death. It all came about years ago when Evans was having a conversation with Biggie's mother, Voletta Wallace. "With the sequence of the songs, I wanted it to feel like a movie, to feel the progression of the relationship, a roller coaster, which it was," said Evans. Slated for release on May 19, two days before Biggie's birthday, The King & I is a 25-track album that mixes rare and unreleased vocals by the legendary rapper with new vocals by Evans and a cast of collaborators.
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