People who have followed this blog for some years know that wile I do like a lot about Big L's only true posthumous album, given that he was actually working on it at the time of his death, true posthumous release "The Big Picture", it could have been so much better. Some years ago I made my own version of it, posted it and let you the readers decide whether my "A&R:d" version was closer to L's original vision than the sometimes cheesy shit that ended up in retail stores. Don't get me wrong, the album had plenty of hot joints, many of them recorded by L in his lifetime and released as the first singles from his upcoming album ("We Got This", "Ebonics", "Size 'Em Up", etc.). Yet other songs he recorded, albeit maybe a little dated at the time from a production standpoint, like "Games Females Play" were remixed into one of the albums absolute worst club imitating cuts that had me shaking my head in disbelief.
Luckily they had a lot of ill acapellas to work from, inviting bonafied legends like DJ Premier, Showbiz, Hi-Tek, Mike Heron and Pete Rock to add new boom bap type of soundbeds for L's masterful lyricism. But the latter producer I mentioned, who happens to be one of my all time favorites, turned the track that L recorded with Buckwild shortly before his passing into a superbly mediocre club anthem called "Who You Slidin' Wit", also adding an uneccesary verse by weed carrier Stan Spit (and as if that wasn't enough the one Pete Rock track that actually goes replaces the impeccable Party Arty once again with Stan Spit). The album version of "Who You Slidin' Wit" strangely sounds nothing like either Pete Rock or Big L, and considering that it's a "remix" (as using a total backdrop for the same vocals) of a song Buckwild gave L for inclusion on the LP, and was even cut at the very last minute in favor of the Soul Brother beat. SMH. Check out the album version up top and download the Buckwild original version below (320 kbps); a track that luckily made its way to the public through a very rare Rawkus promo of the album released in 1999, but we definitely needed more DITC/DJ Premier type of joints on this album and that's a fact.
Good looking out.
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