In the Spike Lee film 25th Hour, Edward Norton’s character spends his last night before heading to prison trying to have his friends beat him up. The movie is much, much more complicated than that, but on Thursday evening, Beanie Sigel presumably is hoping for more or less the opposite to happen: The legendary Philadelphia hard-head is playing this one last show before heading to prison for a 24-month sentence, handed down for his failure to file tax returns almost a decade ago.
In his heyday, Beans was the muscle of Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella crew, his hard-nosed Philly gutter-rap providing stark counterpoint to Jigga’s Uptown upward mobility. If Jay’s narrative was of the big-time hustler who made it legit, Sigel was the guy Jay left behind on the corner. Unfortunately for Beans, this narrative played out a little too uncomfortably close to reality, with Jay’s interest in promoting Sigel waning once he ascended the throne of his Def Jam presidency.
Now Beans has found a new home as flagship artist of the recently-resuscitated Ruff House Records—the erstwhile label of such acts as the Fugees, Cypress Hill and Kriss Kross (don’t hate—“Jump” is still the jam). One hopes that his forthcoming This Time ascends to the heights of The B. Coming—arguably the album of his career, and created under similar duress as the rapper faced prison for arms charges. Sigel is proof that sometimes if you put a rapper under enough pressure, greatness might leak out of them.—Drew Millard