"Ten Crack Commandments" is a song by American rapper The Notorious B.I.G. on disc two of his final studio album, Life After Death. It was written by B.I.G. along with Khary Kimani Turner and Christopher Martin who also produced the song under his stage name DJ Premier. Complex rated it the #1 song about selling drugs. In March 2017, Faith Evans released the single "The Ten Wife Commandments" as the fourth single from her duet album with the rapper The King & I. Lin-Manuel Mirandapaid homage with the song "Ten Duel Commandments" in his hit musical Hamilton. The Swedish underground hip hop group The Keffat Liv paid homage with the song "10 Barn Commandments" from their album Vassego o skölj.
Background
The song is a step-by-step guide to achieving success as a drug-dealer. Biggie, purportedly, was inspired by an article in the hip hop magazine The Source. The July 1994 article, entitled "On the Rocks: From 1984 to 1994, Ten Years of Crack", included a sidebar, "A Crack Dealer's Ten Crack Commandments" that outlines ten critical rules to help dealers survive and thrive in the drug business. The crack epidemic of the early 1980s and the early 1990s was the flood of crack cocaine usage in urban communities across the United States. Beginning around the same time as hip hop music became the sound of these same urban areas, the manifestations of the crack epidemic became a key theme in hip hop music. The relationship between drugs and hip hop music can be mapped onto the politics of drug use in urban communities during the epidemic. A lack of economic opportunity forced urbanites to turn to selling drugs and other illicit forms of employment to make ends meet and provide for their families. The War on Drugs sought to quell the incredible impact that drugs had on the United States and the increase in violent crime nationwide. These two factors encouraged both The Source and rappers to discuss drug-dealing in the way that promoted physical and fiscal security without discouraging dealers, who had no other means of income, to stop selling drugs. Still, however, the drug influenced lyrical content of hip hop music has encouraged a longstanding debate about the illicit content of the musical genre.
Composition
"Ten Crack Commandments" does not follow the typical constructs of a hip hop or pop song. It contains no chorus and completely abandons the 16 bars construction of a rap verse. Instead, the song presents the lyrics in a list and offers a short, witty explanation of each. Bracketing this list are an intro and outro of sorts that, to start, outlines Biggie's credentials for sharing this list and, to end, explores what might happen if the listener does not abide by these rules. The song also includes samples from "Shut 'Em Down" by Public Enemy and "Vallarta" by Les McCann and interpolates the structure of the Ten Commandments.
