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In the early days of his rap career, The Notorious B.I.G. had an image to maintain as a smooth-talking ladies’ man from Brooklyn, bolstered by songs such as the hit single “Big Poppa.” To support his 1994 debut album Ready to Die, Biggie released the track “One More Chance” as a single and filmed an accompanying music video. The song and the video were instrumental in solidifying his spot as the hottest new rapper in the game.
The Notorious B.I.G. almost didn’t release ‘One More Chance’ as a single
Despite “One More Chance” being one of Biggie’s highest-charting singles to date, it almost didn’t get a proper release as a single at all. Sean “Diddy” Combs, Biggie’s friend and the founder of Bad Boy Records, insisted that the song was too vulgar for a mainstream release and adamantly declared that “One More Chance” wouldn’t be a single. He changed his mind, however, once he was convinced that Biggie could create a remix for the song featuring women asking him for one more chance, and the music video could reflect that sentiment as well.
The ‘One More Chance’ video featured some special cameos
Biggie included vocals from his wife Faith Evans, Mary J. Blige, and Keisha Spivey from Total, another Bad Boy Records signee, on the final track. The music video for the song was even bigger, with celebrity guest appearances including Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell, D-Nice, Heavy D, Da Brat, Queen Latifah, Tyson Beckford, while R&B singers such as Mary J. Blige, Aaliyah, Zhané, Miss Jones, and Patra also appeared asking Biggie for one more chance. While everyone on set was having fun, one person in particular who wasn’t was Faith Evans. Evans was nervous around all the other women in the video. Puffy took notice and pulled her to the side.
While so many stars were in the video, it wasn’t planned to have that exact array of stars. In a 2021 interview with Vlad TV, Beckford revealed that Biggie’s recruiting him for the video came out of the blue. “Me and Big were down at Howard Homecoming and he came back earlier and I came back like the next day or something and I was sitting behind the trailer and I’m in my Land Cruiser and I think I was standing outside getting ready to smoke a blunt or something and Big comes out of the trailer and he’s like, ‘Yo Tys, what’s up?’ I said, ‘What’s up, Big? What’s going on?’ He said,’ Yo, I’m shooting my music video – I really, really need you to be in this video,’” he recalled.
“One More Chance” went on to peak at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
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Biggie wanted to include Faith Evans in a love scene
The 2022 book It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him details just how the video shoot went. Biggie’s wife Faith Evans was nervous around the other women on set, leading Diddy to pull Evans aside.
“’You see all these chicks up in here? But this is yo’ n****!’” Evans remembered Diddy saying in her memoir Keep the Faith. “‘You can’t let these chicks be hotter than you on your s***.’”
In one scene, Biggie was sitting on the corner of a bed joined by a scantily-clad model. But Biggie himself decided to have his wife star in the scene instead. “I want Faye in this scene,” he told them.
“I was shocked that Big would want me in the video for that scene,” Evans said years later in her memoir. “I figured he’d want some video chick to be next to him. I knew it was Hollywood and not real life. But Big wanted his real-life woman next to him in that scene. And of course, I loved that he was making it clear who the main woman was in his life as well as in the video.”
