No Dream Is Too Big

I don't think I could have imagined as a young(er) girl that I would see it really happen. I daydreamed about it for my children, sure. I hoped and prayed that someone would answer the call, of course. I bumped my records, my musical prayer, late into the dorm room nights while sippin' my juice, no doubt. But did I really believe in my heart of hearts that I would live to see the Christopher Wallace biopic-of-epic-proportions written and unleashed for the masses? No.

Here it is upon us, Friends. This past weekend saw the release of a film that will hopefully help to answer the many questions in our young minds that continue to revolve around the 1990s' East Coast/West Coast Feud and the resulting martyrdom (err...) of two promising young men.

N.O.T.O.R.I.O.U.S. is now in theaters: Yes. It. Is. And I have yet to see it, which, in the spirit of Great Opinations, is all the more reason to start spinning commentary.

In my most vivid dreams (the ones I have been having nightly, as of late), this film exposes and explains in intricate detail Biggie's ambiguous beef with Tupac. There is full disclosure of a lack of evidence against Suge Knight, and the "are they" or "are they not" in Cuba discussion is confidently indulged (and Cuba confirmed).

My burning questions are answered: Yes, you thought they were rivals, but really, they are BFFs. When Tupac said "Now you’re ‘bout to feel the wrath of a menace," what he meant was, "Can't wait for you to meet my girl, bro. She gotta pass the Biggie test, know wha'm sayin'. I'll call you tomorrow, after church." I find out that they're really not dead, that they are living in a terrestrial limbo of sorts, anxiously awaiting their 2010 collaborative album drop, after which they will emerge from the dead in a second-coming that will renew our faith in the future of hip hop.

The pundits... the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into East Coast and West Coast; East Coast allegiances to Jay-Z and Wu-tang, West Coast to Dre, Pac, and Snoop. And they've been doing it for almost two decades now. But I've got news for them. We worship an awesome chronic here on the East Coast, and we too tip our hats to bad boys on the West Coast. We appreciate and honor the G-funk on the East Coast, and yes, Raekwon is in our disc rotation on the West. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to good hip hop when we hear it, all of us defending the reputation of the streets.

In the end, that's what this film should be about. Do we let our heroes of hip hop spiral downward, stereotypically, into shameless debauchery, or do we mandate a new level of collaboration that only Cuban dreams are made of? In the spirit of audacious hope, I present the truth that I am almost sure will be revealed in this new film, which is that theirs is the notion of a true team of rivals, and the Biggie-Tupac duo is poised for a real, live catapult back onto the scene.