Norwegian DJ leads late Biggie music revival

THE Notorious B.I.G. would figure at or near the top of any list of hiphop all-stars, yet the slain rapper’s top song on Spotify comes via a 26year-old Norwegian.

Matoma ( right), a fresh-faced DJ who played to a packed, raucous crowd recently at the Panorama festival in New York, hometown of The Notorious B.I.G. ( inset), grew up admiring the rapper before he ever understood the lyrics.

“His beats were so flawless and there was something about his voice and his rhythm that I got really curious about,” Matoma, who affably introduces himself by his real name of Tom Lagergren.

Studying music production in Norway’s third largest city, Trondheim, Matoma noticed that clubs would empty out whenever hip-hop came on.

He tried his hand and married hip-hop to electronica – which enjoys a significantly larger base in Europe.

To his surprise, Old Thing Back, his Notorious B.I.G. remix, quickly went viral after he posted it online in 2014.

Old Thing Back has since been heard more than 189 million times on leading streaming site Spotify – more than any original track by The Notorious B.I.G., known to fans as Biggie, who was shot dead in 1997 just before the revolution in online music.

Matoma has been signed to a major label, Atlantic, and released an album. He himself has more than 12 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

And in a sign of acceptance, Matoma in May put out a new Biggie remix, Party on the West Coast, working with both Biggie’s widow, Faith Evans, and Snoop Dogg, who has spoken fondly of Biggie despite coming from the rival rap camp of Los Angeles.

Matoma notes proudly that The Notorious B.I.G.’s overall streams on Spotify have risen sharply since Old Thing Back.

He wondered if many young listeners, especially outside the United States, would have otherwise encountered the rapper born as Christopher Wallace.

“His voice deserves to reach out to people who haven’t heard him today,” Matoma said.

The viral remix took vocals from The Notorious B.I.G. and collaborator Ja Rule on Want That Old Thing Back, a relatively obscure track – released after Biggie’s death – in which the rap legend makes his sexual prowess explicitly clear through his fasttongued rhymes.

Matoma said that the original version – quick-tempoed with anxious synthesised strings – did not do justice to Biggie’s voice.

For the remix, Matoma brought tropical house – the Caribbeanaccented electronic style that has swept pop music – and added the saxophone to give the track a new feel-good energy. – AFPRelaxnews