No. 17: Big L

I really, really wanted Lamont "Big L" Coleman to be higher than this. And were it not for some mindless idiot with a gun, he almost undoubtedly would have been.

Big L was an underground phenom in the early 1990s, first with his group Children Of The Corn (which also included Cam'ron and Mase) and then as a solo artist. He caught the ear of Lord Finesse, which led to him joining the incredibly talented D.I.T.C. collective. After making guest appearances on a handful of D.I.T.C. projects, Big L dropped his first LP, Lifestyles Ov Da Poor & Dangerous, in 1995.

I wasn't poor, I was po'/I couldn't afford the O-R...

The album was lyrically vicious, filled with entertaining stories and hard-hitting punchlines, and Big L seemed destined for at least underground superstardom if not mainstream success. But according to Mase's autobiography about a decade ago, Puffy and Bad Boy Records secured the rights to an El DeBarge sample that was eventually used for Biggie's "One More Chance" remix.

Big L had used the same piano loop first for his lead single, "M.V.P.," but with the rights to the sample now swallowed up, he was relegated to the background forever. According to Mase:

Big L...was circulating his first single on tape and it was hot. Somebody must have heard 'It' because Bad Boy ended up with the rights to the sample and that was all she wrote...Big L's career was over before it even started.

And hilarious tracks like "No Endz, No Skinz" got No Play.

After being dropped by Columbia, Big L eventually started his own label, Flamboyant Entertainment, leading off with the fantastic 12-inch single, "Ebonics." That was enough to catch the ear of Roc-A-Fella Records, who began the process of trying to sign Big L (and his crew, at his insistence) in early 1999.

Before the deal ever got done, though, Lamont Coleman was gone. On February 15, 1999, he was killed in Harlem, shot nine times in the face and chest. Theory has it that the murder was in retaliation for something that one of Coleman's two brothers had done before going to prison, but the crime remains unsolved.

Thus, all of us were robbed of the chance to see one of the world's elite wordsmiths hone his craft. Nonetheless, Big L did more than enough in his 24-plus years to earn a place among the all-time greats.