Max B was out of jail for little over a year when he caught a robbery and murder conspiracy charge in 2006. For the three years that followed, up until the time he was convicted, he put out a volume of music rivaled only my Gucci Mane. Born Charly Wingate, the self-anointed Biggavelli -- a portmanteau of Notorious B.I.G., Jay Z, and Tupac's nicknames -- teamed up with legendary New York producer Dame Grease, who produced about half of DMX's landmark It's Dark and Hell is Hot, and conjured a wave of creative energy that is still felt today.
Max is now scheduled to get out of jail as soon as 2018 and as late as 2022. Celebrate by revisiting a few of his choicest cuts from the prime of his career.
Jim Jones - "G's Up" feat. Max B
After being released from a eight-year jail bid in 2005, Max B immediately fell in with The Diplomats. He co-wrote or ghostwrote numerous Jim Jones records, including "We Fly High." He also appeared on a few Jones tracks, including one called "G's Up" in which he displays his unusual yet effective approach multisyllabic rhyme to describe his wild, women-beating street adventures:
"Beat the nigga bitch
Til she bleeding from the lips
Got me speeding in the six
Drunk off the Hen, breezing in the mist
Chicks believing in the dick
Fiending for a sniff
Got me needing for a spliff"
Cam'ron - "You Gotta Love It" feat. Max B (Jay Z diss)
Max B grew up with Cam'ron and had the honor of appearing on his underrated six-minute Jay Z diss "You Gotta Love It," in which Cam rags on Hov for being old and calls into question his pairing of jeans with sandals.
"Goon Music (We Run NY)" feat. French Montana
Featuring a heavy dose of soprano sax, "Goon Music" is a good example of the sort of genre-brending production Dame Grease tended to churn out." The song spawned an entire French X Max B mixtape, Coke Wave, that was good enough to appear on Pitchfork's list of "The 50 Best Rap Mixtapes of the Millennium."
"I Never Wanna Go Back"
Max recorded "I Never Wanna Go Back" in 2009 the night before he received a 75-year prison sentence for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and murder. He had already been convicted. It is truly an incredible song that puts Max's rare ability to compress a dizzying blend of lechery and pathos in single sentences: "Baby beat meat real good, got talent, family back home, a structure and a balance."
"Gotta Have It"
Max B always had superb melodic instincts. On "Gotta Have It," he coos a hook that sounds straight of Get Rich or Die Tryin and raps his verses with a distinctly Dipset approach to rhyme schemes. Indeed, Max B is mid-'00s NYC rap in a nutshell.
"Where Do I Go"
Max B was arrested on homicide charges in 2006, just over a year after he had been released from jail. He wouldn't be sentenced for another three years, but "Where Do I Go" captures the sorrow and terror of a man out on bail, living on borrowed time.
Pete Rock - "We Roll" feat. Max B & Jim Jones
A vocal supporter of Max B, Pete Rock invited the Silver Surfer to appear on his 2008 album NY's Finest. Max raps Marlon Brando in "The Godfather," with the cottonballs tucked in his cheeks. The quality of his voice is fundamentally different, and thus magnetic.
"Blow Me a Dub"
In addition to featuring a first-rate outdated sports reference -- "I'm Tom Brady, you a Testaverde / All washed up with no arm-strength" -- "Blow Me a Dub" casts Max in stark relief, a gangster-turned-bluesman who injects notes of melancholy into his exposition on what it means to be a boss.
Max B went on to remix "Blow Me a Dub" in the sense that he recorded an entirely new song over the same beat. It might be even better than the original. Listen to both below.
"Deez My Streetz"
"Deez My Streets" came out about six weeks after Max and his associates were arrested in 2006 and features some of the most ruthless lyrics in his entire catalogue: "Sawed-off shotgun, revolve a nigga, clap/ All off hot one, dissolve a nigga fat." Also: "Gun spark, glock cocked, burners from Bangkok/ Turn your mink to a Hulkamania tank-top."
"Lip Sing"
After Max B's partnership with Dipset ultimately turned sour, he teamed up with French Montana. Judging from the Public Domain 3 cover, He would have thrived in the era of when The Game and 50 Cent hire Photoshop professionals to cook up libelous images of Meek Mill.
"Steady running through bitches like I was water."