Notorious B.I.G. 1972–1997
Rap artist
Notorious B.I.G. fully embodied the gangsta life he portrayed on his rap albums. A former crack dealer and convict, B.I.G. rapped his way to a better life only to lose that life to the street violence he could not leave behind. At age 24 he became the victim of a drive-by shooting—the second death connected to a purported deadly feud between rap music’s East Coast and West Coast factions which had claimed the life of rapper Tupac Shakur only months before. B.I.G.’s death cut short a career that promised to propel him into the upper echelons of the music business. His posthumous second album—ironically and prophetically titled Life After Death… ‘Til Death Do Us Part —confirmed that the heavyweight rapper had the potential to be big on the music charts.
Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, was the only child of Voletta Wallace, a preschool teacher who raised him alone in the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Although he was described as a shy, overweight youngster, Christopher Wallace soon took on the hardened mentality of the gang members around him and began dealing drugs under the street name Biggie Smalls. He never finished high school and, at age 17, was arrested on drug charges in North Carolina and spent nine months in jail. Even after finding success in the music industry, B.I.G. continued to run afoul of the law. In 1995, he was arrested in New York and charged with assault after he allegedly chased two people with a baseball bat and smashed the window of their cab. He was twice arrested in New Jersey—first for allegedly robbing and assaulting a man, then on drug and weapons charges. In the rap world, these incidents established his credibility as someone well-acquainted with the streets but B.I.G. understood the dangers of living out the life he rapped about. In 1994, after the release of his first album, he told the Chicago Tribune that he was “scared to death…. Scared of getting my brains blown out.” B.I.G. moved out of his Brooklyn neighborhood to a safer locale in New Jersey.
Released Ready to Die
B.I.G. shook the music world with his debut album, Ready to Die, an unflinching portrayal of the despair experienced daily in much of urban America. The album
At a Glance…
Born Christopher G. Wallace, in Brooklyn, New York; shot to death March 9, 1997, in Los Angeles, CA; son of Voletta Wallace; married Faith Evans (a singer); children: T’Yanna, Christopher, Jr, Known by the street name Biggie Smalls and the stage name Notorious B.I.G.
Career: Rapper, Albums: Ready to Die, 1994; Ufe After Death… ‘Til Death Do Us Part, 1997. Guest appearance on Martin, Fox-TV.
Awards: Billboard Award, Rap Artist of the Year, 1995.
detailed drug sales, sex, violence, incarceration, and death, much of which was drawn from his own life. “I can’t say I’m proud of dealing drugs,” B.I.G. once said. “But you do what you can to survive in the ’hood. Live in the real bad part of the ’hood for a while and you’ll see how desperate it can make you,” he continued. B.I.G. drew on that desperation and his law-breaking past in his songs, in which he matter-of-factly“described himself as a former drug dealer and stickup man who had turned to rapping,” Jon Parales wrote in the New York Times “He recalled the mundane details of bagging, transporting and selling drugs; he boasted about sexual conquests and mourned a murdered girlfriend.” After transporting listeners through a brutal urban landscape, the album closes with the death of its rapping narrator who takes his own life. The Los Angeles Times said the album was “jolting and uncompromising” and called B.I.G. “one of (rap) music’s most talented and promising voices.” He was named Rap Artist of the Year at the Billboard Awards in 1995 and cited as Rap Singer of the Year for the song One More Chance.
Friendship Turned to Deadly Rivalry
B.I.G. was the protégé of Sean “Puffy” Combs, head of the New York City record company Bad Boy Entertainment. When B.I.G first appeared on the scene, he hung around with Tupac Shakur. The two rappers once shared a friendship, but it had evolved into a bitter rivalry. Shakur accused B.I.G. of copying his musical style and being involved in a 1994 incident in which Shakur was robbed and shot. B.I.G. made references to Shakur in his music and Shakur rapped back that he had had sex with B.I.G’s wife, rhythm and blues vocalist Faith Evans. The rivalry grew and expanded including Combs and Deathrow CEO Marion “Suge”Knight, rap groups Mobb Deep, The Dogg Pound, Junior M.A.F.I.A. and fans of the two rap artists. In September of 1996, Shakur was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. The media immediately picked up on the rift between B.I.G. and Shakur as a possible motive for murder but the speculation regarding B.I.G.’s involvement in the slaying did not result in any arrests.
A Targeted Hit
B.I.G. was sitting in the passenger side of his GMC Suburban following a music industry party in Los Angeles shortly after midnight on March 9, 1997, listening to a tape of his second album which was to be released in two weeks. A dark-colored car—which police believe had been waiting for the rapper—pulled up beside the Suburban. Several shots from a nine-millimeter handgun were fired into B.I.G.’s upper body before the car raced away. Notorious B.I.G. was pronounced dead when his body arrived at Los Angeles’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “The way it went down,” said a police official, “it was a targeted hit.” Police and music industry insiders quickly speculated that B.I.G.’s murder may have been a retaliation killing for the death of Shakur. But in spite of the very public nature of the murder, committed in front of dozens of witnesses that included several off-duty police officers who were acting as security guards, there were no arrests in the case and the investigation seemed permanently stalled. Family and friends of B.I.G. accused the police of dragging their feet because the death of a young black man does not take high priority. The death of Tupac Shakur has likewise been unsolved. “The deaths of Shakur and (B.I.G.) have forced official America to peer into the world of the leading rappers, who have made millions and surrounded themselves with armed heavies,” wrote a London Times contributor. In 1998, Vibe magazine reported that Orlando Anderson, who was a suspect in Shakur’s murder, was also questioned in B.I.G.’s murder. The car used in B.I.G.’s drive-by shooting had been found and belonged to Anderson’s cousin. Anderson had reportedly also been at the same industry party as B.I.G. Orlando Anderson was murdered in a shooting unrelated to both Shakur’s and B.I.G.’s murders.
B.I.G. commented on the day before his death that he wanted “to see my kids get old,” a wish that was to go unfulfilled. B.I.G.’s funeral attracted rap’s elite and drew hordes of fans onto Brooklyn streets to honor the rap star buried in a white double-breasted suit in an extra-large mahogany casket. At the time of his death, B.I.G. was separated from his wife, singer Faith Evans. He and Evans had a son, also named Christopher, and B.I.G had a 4-year-old daughter, T’yanna, from a previous relationship. Two weeks before his death, according to the Los Angeles Times, B.I.G. was fatalistically quoted as saying: “There’s nothing that protects you from the inevitable. If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen, no matter what you do. It doesn’t matter if you clean your life up and live it differently. What goes around comes around, man.”
Selected discography
Ready to Die, Bad Boy Entertainment, 1994.
Life After Death… Til Death Do Us Part, Bad Boy Entertainment, 1997.
Sources
Associated Press, March 10, 1997.
Facts on File, March 13, 1997, p. 170.
London Times, March 11, 1997.
Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1997, p. A1; March 11, 1997, p. B1; March 19, 1997, p. B1.
Newsweek, March 24, 1997, p. 74.
New York Times, March 10, 1997, p. A8.
People, March 24, 1997, p. 69; March 31, 1997, p.108.
Vibe, December/January 1997–1998; September 1998.
—Dave Wilkins and Rebecca Parks
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