1970 Somethin'
nostalgic, elegiac, tinged with bravado
This posthumously released Biggie track builds a fictionalized autobiography from birth to incarceration, framing it as origin myth for a Brooklyn hustler-turned-icon. Its most striking move is a mid-song detour imagining a version of the world where Tupac Shakur survived, which turns the song from simple biography into meditation on mortality and alternate timelines.
mythologized origin story street life and survival mortality and alternate futures hustling versus artistic destiny loss of friends and innocence
Who's speaking
Biggie narrates in first person as himself, addressing listeners directly, moving between literal memoir and speculative fantasy; the voice is confident and knowing but shadowed by the fact the artist is already dead by the time of release, which colors every claim of destiny with irony.
What happens
The song opens with a vivid, almost mythic birth scene—umbilical complications framed as a brush with death before life even begins—then jumps to a fantasy sequence imagining Tupac still alive and Biggie surviving into 2006, before pivoting to teenage years marked by drugs, dropped ambitions, and eventual arrest. The trajectory moves from birth to imagined future back to real past, refusing linear chronology to emphasize how thoroughly his life was shaped by both fate and choice.
How it's built
Verses are long, narrative-driven, and loosely chronological within themselves, but the song as a whole jumps in time rather than progressing steadily. A repeated hook functions as an anchor, pulling the listener back to a nostalgic 'before' state each time, contrasting with the escalating chaos described in the verses. The alternate-history verse in the middle acts as a structural and thematic detour, a fictional aside that momentarily breaks the memoir form.
Section by section
Opening verse
“umbilical cords wrapped around my neck”
The birth narrative doubles as origin myth and premonition, framing his entrance into the world as already brushing against death, which retroactively frames his later life and death as fated.
Hook
The refrain nostalgically gestures toward an earlier, purer sense of ambition, before wealth and violence complicated things, functioning as an emotional throughline across otherwise disjointed verses.
Second verse
“would 'pac be alive, if you let 'pac drive”
This speculative aside momentarily abandons autobiography for a wish-fulfillment fantasy, using an alternate-history device to process loss and imagine a version of hip-hop history where both artists survive into middle age.
Third verse
The narrative shifts to adolescence, tracing a familiar arc of dropped ambition, drug involvement, and eventual arrest, grounding the mythic opening in harsher, more mundane reality.
Closing verse
Ending on incarceration rather than triumph subverts typical rags-to-riches framing, suggesting the song is less about celebrating success than about tracing the cost of the choices that led there.
Craft
- conditional/alternate history
- Imagining Tupac's survival and his own continued career lets the song comment on mortality and missed possibility without stating grief directly.
- foreshadowing
- The umbilical cord imagery at birth doubles as a symbol of near-death that echoes his eventual real death, retroactively haunting the origin story.
- refrain as temporal anchor
- The recurring hook about 'before' repeatedly resets the narrative clock, reinforcing nostalgia for a simpler pre-fame, pre-violence state.
- juxtaposition
- High-fashion, luxury imagery is placed against violent threats and criminal consequence, capturing the tension between aspiration and danger that runs through his persona.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats the song as a retrospective myth-making exercise, blending real biographical texture with fictionalized embellishment (the alternate 2006 verse) to construct a legend rather than a strict memoir. A secondary reading emphasizes elegy: since the song was released after Biggie's death, its speculative fantasy about Tupac surviving can be heard as a displaced wish for his own survival, making the entire song an unintentional epitaph.
Context
This track appeared on a posthumous Biggie release, assembled from verses and material after his death, which shapes how listeners hear its references to mortality and fate. I don't have reliable details on the exact production credits or original recording session, so I'm working primarily from the text itself.
Listen for
- the shift in tone between the mythic birth narrative and the grounded teenage verses
- the fantasy detour imagining an alternate future where both Biggie and Tupac are alive
- how the recurring hook functions as a nostalgic reset point between verses
- the ending on incarceration rather than a triumphant resolution
About The Notorious B.I.G.
Christopher George Latore Wallace, known professionally as the Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls, was an American rapper and songwriter.
1972 - 1997 / United States
Full biography and catalogue