Stack chips like ________

Ode to the 100 $ Bill
written by Just K

I can’t knock his hustle. The guy put up a million so that the legendary New Year’s Eve Ball would have the same color as the blue stone on the Ciroc bottle. Absolutely genius. He’s a visionary and trendsetter. He sports the Mohawk for the marathon and suddenly we’ve got a whole generation of Negro psuedo-punk rocker look-a-likes. Even further back, how many rappers tried to follow the Sean John blueprint into the world of fashion? Got another one for you. Who do you know that gets paid to do a season-long advertisement for a group he hasn’t put together yet (over and over again)? Damn right, it’s Puffy or Diddy or Daddy Puff Diddly or whatever. Who was rocking the vote before there was a black candidate? True that. Then there are the acting gigs – heard he did his thing with Raisin in the Sun – the cologne, and the viral videos. There’s obviously the fact that he introduced B.I.G. to the world. The guy’s a hustler. And even though his lyrical prowess is somewhere between that of Birdman and Jay-Z (wink), the dude has put together one of my favorite hip-hop joints of all time.

With his biggest song as an artist, Diddy Daddy Puff P let us know what he was about straight out the gate. This is my ode to the ode to the 100-dollar bill.

When that sick beat came on with Diddy’s “Ugh. Uh-huh, yeah,” I knew I was in for something special. Then homegirl’s voice came in “it’s all about the Benjamins baby,” a C-note never sounded so sexy.

“Now, what you wanna do? Wanna be ballers, shot callers, brawlers…”

The slow, smooth flow that’s catchy enough to memorize after just a few listens.

“On ya Hot 97 everyday that’s my word.”

Living in MD, I was hyped just ‘cause I knew what Hot 97 was. Shoutout to my uncle still living on Flatbush. Visiting him in the summers allowed me to decipher this lyric for my homeboys. I didn’t want them to think Puffy had gotten too lyrically complex.

Puff’s restraint over such a hype beat, then slow build to hypeness had me hyped. Then before Puff could even finish, Jada came in like he was too hyped to wait for Puff to wrap it up. I was sold.

“You should do like we do, stack chips like…”

Stack chips like what?!

Pringles? Hindus? Singles? Shingles??? These Jews? HEBREWS! Stack chips like Hebrews. It meant a lot to finally fill in that gap. Ah, the power internet lyric searches.

I was convinced Sheek was the man after this verse.

“I’m strictly trying to cop those, colossal-sized Picassos”

Son, dude is cultured. His energy was off the chain. Dude was so amped. I was jumping up and down by this point when I first heard this song.

“Pinky-ringin, gondolas wit the man singin, Italian music down the river wit your chick clingin”

I told you, dude is cultured! And then the Rupaul line was one of those classic verse-enders. Between this and his verse on the Get At Me Dog (remix), I knew Sheek was legit.

Then the Queen Bee came in sounding like an angry Jamaican dude.

“What the blood clot”

Yeah, Kim ripped this verse up something nasty.

“only female in my crew, and I kick sh*t like a ni**a do, pull a trigga too, f**k you!”

She sounded like a chick that had to battle every dude in the crew just to get on the song. Like she earned her spot and her verse was the proof.

Then the beat changed.

Then everything changed.

“I been had skills, Cristal spills, hide bills in Brazil”

Naw, man. You don’t just hop on a track like that. That’s just crazy. That’s just tough right there. That voice, that flow. It was B.I.G. That’s all there is to it.

“Lent my east coast girl, the Bentley to twirl. My west coast shorty push the chrome 740.”

Ok. At this point, I was 100% sure that this was the greatest hip-hop song ever made and I wanted girls on both coasts. Now I understand how jet lag would me a major obstacle in the quest for bicoastal jumpoffs, but at the time I had big dreams – no pun intended. By the state pen – Penn State line, it was over. B.I.G. had officially smashed the track.

“All about the Benjis, what?”

And the beat switches back like nothing ever happened.

Uh-huh. Yeah.