“Last Day” → Notorious B.I.G. feat. The Lox (1997)
“When we did ‘Last Day’ with Biggie the Lox was still wet behind the ears. We had just signed a deal with Bad Boy; the music business was all new to us. We were still hanging around in the ‘hood in Yonkers when we got the call from Puffy that BIG wanted us on his Life After Death project. So you could just imagine the adrenaline and the anxiety that was going through our minds. It was like, ‘Yo, they want us to go down to Daddy’s House to get on a song with BIG!’ We get all the proper accessories for our studio session, which we really didn’t need because BIG had it already laid out. So we get there and the beat is knocking and we find out that the track was produced by Havoc [from Mobb Deep]. The whole Junior Mafia was there. The scenery and lights were just ill. There’s a bunch of weed smoke and it’s foggy. It’s crowded and there was a party atmosphere, but it was still dead serious.
I tried to get over on BIG. I had some bars already written before I got into the booth and came up with the verse that you hear today. But BIG was like, ‘Nah…I like it, but I need something else.’ Now this is BIG telling me that I have to come with something better. I used to second-guess sometimes when Puff would tell me to switch up my verse, but when BIG told me, I didn’t even think about it. I just did it.
I went back to a neutral corner and started writing. I tried to ride this beat as much I could and say some hard shit. That’s when I came with, ‘You already know what it’s about when I run in your house…’ People loved that cadence and flow. Diddy was like, ‘You nailed it!’ BIG was the one that put the battery in my back. It was the same feeling for Styles and Sheek, if I could speak for them. BIG was the one that told us. ‘Yo, y’all are nice, man.’ Once he said that, that’s all I needed. I was on top of the world. I was ready to take this music industry on.”
