"Rat pack & rap pick
BY RICH SCHAPIRO
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Two deejays have mixed raps from the late Notorious B.I.G. with tunes from crooner Frank Sinatra in a new CD.

Talk about strangers in the night.

In "Blue Eyes Meets Bed-Stuy," two local deejays lace raps from the late Notorious B.I.G. over beats sampled from Frank Sinatra - an unlikely mix CD that's become one of the city's hottest underground albums.

"It's been unbelievable," said Matt Connell, 24, the manager of Fat Beats in the West Village, where the CD is the store's top seller.Connell said the appeal of the album, which was mixed by DJ Cappel & Smitty, is simple.
"They're two New York icons, the classic New York guy meets the icon in hip hop. It's just a good combination," he said.
There have been a number of big-name mix CDs in recent years - most notably, the Grey Album, a mashup of the Black Album by Jay-Z and the Beatles' White Album.

The posthumous collaboration of the Chairman of the Board and Biggie Smalls was the brainchild of Jon Moskowitz, a 28-year-old producer born and raised in the West Village.

Last fall, Moskowitz heard a track from DJ Cappel that included beats sampled from Sinatra. The idea to make an entire album with Biggie's vocals on top of Sinatra's digitally altered melodies and voice hit him immediately.

So "New York, New York" was mashed with "Juicy," and "Fools Rush In" was somehow combined with "10 Crack Commandments."
"I wanted to showcase the best of the city," Moskowitz said. "They're the essence of New York - flashy, classy and full of charisma."

What both performers' families - and record companies - think about the album is unknown. But hip-hop fans are loving it.
"There are a lot of Biggie mixes out there, but none with anyone like Frank Sinatra," said Gilbert Fuentes, 20, an assistant engineer who recently bought the album at Fat Beats.
"As soon as I heard about it, I thought I got to pick this up," he added.

B.I.G. Blue Eyes

Here are some of the tracks on "Blue Eyes Meets Bed-Stuy":
"Juicy" and "New York, New York":

The track combines Biggie's smooth vocals over a drum-infused version of the Sinatra song, with the Chairman of the Board crooning "New York" throughout."Nasty Boy" and "For Every Man There's a Woman": Sinatra opens the track with sweet sentiments about women before a deep beat kicks in and Biggie comes out firing with some often-sexist rhymes."10 Crack Commandments" and "Fools Rush In":
This slower track blends Sinatra's vocals with Biggie's hard rhymes on how to." [Via BY RICH SCHAPIRO]

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