"Hypnotize" has one of the catchiest and most effective hooks in hip-hop history, with Pam Long from the group Total singing: Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can't you see? Sometimes your words just hypnotize me "Biggie" (short for "Biggie Smalls") is one of the many monikers for The Notorious B.I.G., who had reached the pinnacle of the rap game by this point. He fills the verses with clever rhymes extolling his talents, but Long says it more succinctly in the second part of the chorus: I just love your flashy ways Guess that's why they broke, and you're so paid
All of the music on this song comes from a sample of Herb Alpert's "Rise," a trumpet-driven instrumental that was a #1 hit in 1979. It's not the trumpet that was sampled though; it's a section of the groove with a sultry bassline and guitar stab that Biggie's producers, Puff Daddy, Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie and Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence, layered, effected and looped into the (appropriately) hypnotic track. By this time, hip-hop had extracted every imaginable sample from obvious sources like James Brown and P-Funk, but "Rise" was untapped. Getting it cleared was a boon for Biggie.
The Notorious B.I.G. was the tentpole artist for Bad Boy Records, Puff Daddy's label, and it was Puffy who laced the track. The song it samples, "Rise," was written by Andy Armer and Herb Alpert's nephew, Randy Badazz Alpert, who told Songfacts how it happened. "I asked Puffy, in 1996 when he first called me concerning using 'Rise' for 'Hypnotize,' why he chose the 'Rise' groove," Alpert said. "He told me that in the summer of 1979 when he was I think 10 years old the song was a huge hit everywhere in New York and 'Rise' along with Chic's 'Good Times' were 'The Songs' that all the kids were dancing and roller skating to that summer. He had always remembered that summer and that song. When he first played the loop for Biggie, Biggie smiled and hugged him."
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