He was poised to be one of the greats. Supreme wit, raw passion, and a flow tighter than Kid Cudi’s jeans. But the timing in Big L’s tragically short career never seemed to quite work in his favor. First there was his tepidly received debut album, Lifestyles Ov Da Poor and Dangerous. Then there was a 3 year hiatus during which the mic-ripper born Lamont Coleman watched as MCs he’d helped introduce to the rap game (Jay-Z, Cam’ron, Ma$e) began to make very big names for themselves without him. But L never stopped sharpening his sword. He had big plans, and the cards looked like they held a long and prosperous career for him right up until the night he was gunned down blocks away from his childhood home. Now with the upcoming release of Return of the Devil’s Son, L’s only surviving brother, Donald Phinazee, is preparing to release the first batch of unreleased material since L’s first posthumous (second studio) album — and apparently there’s plenty more where that came from. For years Big L has been beloved by his hometown of Harlem, USA. If his brother has anything to say about it, soon enough he’ll be beloved by the entire world. In part 1 of my conversation with Don we discuss L’s career, as well as attempt to provide an explanation for the tragedy that prematurely cut it short.
Paint me a picture of what growing up with L was like. You’re his older brother, correct?
Yea, I’m the oldest. Big Lee is the middle one and L is the youngest. He was mostly quiet, yahmean? My brother [Lee] and I used to fight over him, because if I did something to him — if I hit him — me and Lee would be fighting. Or if Lee did something that I ain’t like, me and him would be fighting. But [L] was a good dude. He was always quiet. Observant.
That’s interesting because if you listen to his rhymes, judging from the punchlines he used it seemed like he was kind of a jokester.
Aw yea. He would snap on you in a minute! We used to sit outside all the time and be on the block til 3, 4, 5 in the morning just joking on each other. So that’s where he got alot of that from. Growing up he used to watch us.
So was he always quiet? Or did he start to open up a little once maybe he got to high school and started to develop his talent more?
That’s when he started to open up a little bit. But he ain’t open up too much. He still stayed quiet, yahmean? He still stayed humble.
The NFL crew was one of L’s first real collectives. Could you talk a little about that?
NFL was Niggas For Life. We wasn’t no gang or nothin’ cuz we wasn’t on that type stuff. We were basically gettin’ money. The other blocks had different crews and we would play basketball against each other, throw parties, and have fun with it. That’s what it was. it was like a crew thing.
L also had an affiliation with Children Of the Corn. How did that come about?
Cam’ron and Ma$e used to try and come around to hang out with Lamont all the time, man. Them boys looked up to Lamont something crazy. That’s why I feel some type of way about how they went about a lot of stuff. I ain’t got nothing against Cam’ron, I just got a whole lotta something against Ma$e. He said a lot of things that were real disrespectful. He said he wrote some of Lamont’s rhymes. That was ridiculous. That boy ain’t start rhyming til late in the game. Lamont had been rhyming. They used to try to be around him because Lamont had a lot of other dudes that was rapping around him. So they wanted to try to come get in it and hang out with the fellas. Hang out with the real dudes.
So they were all younger than L?
Yea. But even if Lamont was younger they’d still look up to him, cuz all of ‘em looked up to us, yahmean?
When did Ma$e say that?
I was locked up in Pennsylvania — cuz I just did 8 and a half years — I was locked up in PA, in the [federal penitentiary], and he was on Shade45 radio. He tried to be slick about it.
So you got out just recently?
No, I been out almost 4 years now.
Were you locked up when L first got signed?
No, when he got signed I was out. When they made his first video I was locked up. In January of ‘96 I came home.
What did you think of L’s career when you first got out? Did you think he was gonna make it, or did you think it was a passing phase that wasn’t going anywhere?
I came home to make sure that I made something big outta him. L’s supposed to have been there, yahmean? I’m gonna make it happen. I’m gonna put him where he belongs. Whether I get 50,000 people’s help or I get no help, I’ma make it happen. See I was in the streets real hard. So we was hustlin’ and doing what we do to get money up for studio time and to take care of the families. L ain’t have no kids, and he ain’t want none cuz he had enough nieces and nephews. Basically we was in the streets, yahmean? [When I first got out] we started Flamboyant Entertainment together.
What kind of work were you doing for Flamboyant?
Well we were just getting off the ground. Remember, the first album ain’t do too good.
Why do you think that is?
He didn’t get promoted right. That’s how I feel. Nas had gotten hot at the time — which was Lamont’s man — so they were focusing on what was really hot. They didn’t wanna take their time to build a good dude up to make him hot. But if you put him out there [for long enough] he’ll be heard and [the people] will know who he is. You either like him or you don’t like him, and everybody loved him as soon as they heard him. It was the marketing. It was bad promotion.
[...] ice, donald phinazee, flamboyant entertainment, Hip-Hop, Jay-Z, ma$e Posted 1 minute ago Last week we were able to fill in some of the missing pages in the story of Big L’s life. In part two [...]
[...] bro Donald Phinazee has been making the rounds promoting the album (via various media outlets,) and URB’s own Dan Vidal recently sat down with him to speak about L’s life, his short-lived career, his [...]