Notorious! When we write that, you have to hear the musical hit. No-tor-ious! Damn, we wish we had a boom box that we could carry around and play that when we entered rooms.

You may or may not remember that the producers of the Notorious biopic conducted a open-casting-call for the part of Christopher Wallace AKA The Notorious B.I.G. (No-tor-ious!), and that theparte ended up going to an unknown New York rapper Jamal Woolard.

We’re officially supposed to describe the film like so:

Notorious tells the story of the life of rapper Christopher Wallace a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G. The film stars multiple award winner Angela Bassett as Christopher’s mother Voletta Wallace, Derek Luke as Sean Combs, Anthony Mackie as Tupac Shakur and introducing Jamal Woolard as The Notorious B.I.G. After the overwhelming response to a year long aggressive and active worldwide search, Jamal Woolard, a Brooklyn native, was selected to portray the infamous rapper. Notorious is directed by George Tillman Jr.

In just a few short years, The Notorious B.I.G. rose from the streets of Brooklyn to become one of the most influential hip hop artists of all time. B.I.G. was a gifted storyteller; his narratives about violent life on the streets were told with a gritty, objective realism that won him enormous respect and credibility. His stories were universal and gave a voice to his generation.

Or we could simply remember our college roommate Ryan taping “I like it when you call me Big Poppa” to the underside of the bunk above him so he could show ladies. Or how when Dave ran into Julia Stiles for the first time how all he really wanted to do is talk to her about her table dance to “Hypnotize” in 10 Things I Hate About You (this was pre Heath Ledger’s untimely death).

The East Coast Vs West Coast rap war might be over, but our memories of it, and our memories of Biggie live on…hopefully not just so they can be raped by a third-class biopic.

We’re rooting for you Notorious. Don’t make us look like idiots.