
14 years ago, Tajuan “Big Noyd” Perry literally made a name for himself. On the track “Give Up The Goods” off Mobb Deep’s 1995 masterpiece, The Infamous, the Queensbridge native put his lifetime in between the paper lines with, “Yo it’s the r-a-double-p/ E-r n-o-y-d, niggas can’t fuck with me!” The bars that followed helped him secure a solo deal with Tommy Boy Records before a stint in jail and label politics slowed things down. Finally taking matters into his own hands with Noyd Inc. and upcoming documentary, America’s Most Infamous, N.O. talks about the verse that made him a lyrical destructor.
Havoc [and I] always knew each other cause our mothers was friends. One day I called him on a weekend [and] he was like “Come to Manhattan, Mobb got a studio time over there today.” I believe it was Battery [Studios]. I was like “Aight, I’m a go over there.”
We must have stayed in the studio ’til like 5 in the morning. [We] had got there like 1’o clock the day before. P[rodigy] was like, “Yo, I got a idea. Let’s do an A capella real quick before the song.” My man Scarface was like “Yo spit that rhyme you spit last week!” I was like “Nah, I ain’t fucking wit’ you. Let these niggas get done. Let these niggas work.” He was like, “Son, you don’t fucking do that shit right now, we fighting in this bitch! This shit is crazy!” He put me on blast, so I spit the verse. That’s actually the first time I rhymed for the Mobb.
I never really considered myself as an MC. I used to just come home from school and copy Rakim lines down so I could know the words. Niggas knew I rhymed a little bit but I was never trying get on. I actually got signed from that verse. I fucking performed one time in V.A. and the girl from Tommy Boy was in the crowd.
If you look back
at the video I’m in
there, but they actually got somebody else playing my part. Fucking around with these bitches, I had left the video
shoot. I stayed for like 2 hours and bounced! To be honest, it wasn’t anything planned for it to be like a single, or me getting signed from it. If you look on the back of the Infamous album, with the whole crew, I’m not even on it cause I had to go see my P.O. that morning! Shit was new to me, so I would just put it down on paper. I really just [rap] for myself and the people liked it. I appreciate it. — As Told To Brian “B.Dot” Miller
{mp3}06 give up the goods just step{/mp3}
Previously: Nature “Banned From TV”
This is a great reminder of how powerful and lasting Lauryn Hill’s influence has been in music. The fact that The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill eventually reached diamond status after so many years shows that truly meaningful music can continue finding new listeners long after its original release. I also like how the article highlights the combination of hip hop, R&B, neo soul, and reggae that made the album so distinctive. Achieving more than 10 million sales is an incredible milestone, especially considering how much the music industry has changed since 1998. The album’s success feels less like a temporary trend and more like proof that strong songwriting and authentic artistic expression can remain relevant across generations. It is interesting to see how numbers can tell part of a story, whether we are looking at album sales or using a proportion calculator to understand relationships between different figures.