The Return of Max B

"The burnt-rubber scent of Pelle Pelle jackets in the air can mean only one thing: Max B is free. Inside of his welcome home party at Harbor, one of those Midtown Manhattan money-suck nightclubs that tries to get you and your friends to pony up your rent money on a section, I was surrounded by so many Uptown dudes draped in heavy leather that I flashed back to the black-and-red joint Max rocked in a classic interview he did with Mazi O."

"to the camera where he rammed his Bimmer into the luxury vehicle of Jim Jones, who had Max tied up in bad contracts and janky deals for years. "Never had any beef with the other Dipset members. It's just been Jim; it's always been Jim," he says like a gunslinger headed out to a duel that he knows he's not coming back from."

"The Mazi O. interview was filmed in 2008 when Max Biggaveli was in the midst of one of New York's most outlandish and exciting mixtape runs. Months before, he'd dropped the incredibly smooth Public Domain 3: Domain Pain, which has cover art that features Max, with his long hair flowing out from underneath his fitted, standing around tombstones with the names of Juelz Santana and Jim Jones engraved on them."

Max B attended a welcome-home party at Harbor in Midtown Manhattan after his release, surrounded by Uptown men wearing oversized Pelle Pelle jackets. The Pelle Pelle became a visual echo of a 2008 Mazi O. interview in which Max recounted ramming his Bimmer into Jim Jones's luxury vehicle and condemned Jones for years of bad contracts. Max explicitly separated his issues with Jim Jones from the rest of Dipset, delivering lines with theatrical, gunslinger humor. The 2008 interview coincided with a prolific mixtape run, including Public Domain 3: Domain Pain with tombstone cover art naming Juelz Santana and Jim Jones. Max demonstrated versatility by turning pop songs into player anthems and writing both radio hooks and gritty street ballads, marking him as a singular figure in New York rap.

Read at Pitchfork