The Swan of Brooklyn

Given that the lazy formulation is that if Shakespeare was alive today he'd be writing for EastEnders, and that Jamal Woolard reckons that Biggie Smalls was this generation's Shakespeare, does that mean the Notorious BIG should have been putting words into Peggy Mitchell's mouth?

It's fair enough that Woolard wants to aggrandise Smalls - after all, he's playing him in a hagiographical movie so it's his job. But couldn't someone at least have asked him to show his working when he makes such a claim:

"Biggie was an influence in every aspect of my music – from the lifestyle to our values to what we believed in. We all had big dreams, we wanted to be musicians, or doctors or lawyers. We all looked up to him. Biggie to us was like our Shakespeare."

Come on, Woolard: A comparison with The Beatles, perhaps. Maybe even Larkin. But Shakespeare? Really? There might even have been some poetic resonance in comparing him to Marlowe.