“He was just hanging out at the barber shop, used to party over there up on St. James Place. He used to come down to the store and say, ‘Birdell, I want you to help me get beats, tracks, ’cause I know you know them old blues and the good music.’ I said: ‘Aw, Biggie, I don’t have time for that. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Get you a record player and I’ll let you go downstairs in the basement.’ So he and his partner would come every day three or four months straight, every day but Saturdays, and he would say, ‘I’m going to be big one day, Birdell.’ I said, ‘Aw, you ain’t going to be nothing.’ ” — Brooklyn record-store owner Joe Long on the crate-digging ways of former customer Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace. [NYT]