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Label Affiliation: Bad Boy/Arista
THE NOTORIOUS
B.I.G. blasted his way onto the hip-hop scene with his platinum-selling
album
Ready To Die,
and entered the mainstream public's eye in much the same way when he was
murdered in March of 1997. Until his death, B.I.G., a.k.a. Biggie Smalls,
né Christopher Wallace, was virtually unknown outside the world
of hip-hop. But news of his death fueled intensive media coverage of an
East Coast-West Coast rap war, rallied hip-hop artists from both coasts,
and left two young children without a father. The 6'3", 280-pound Wallace
was only twenty-four years old. Raised in the Brooklyn neighborhood
of Bedford-Stuyvesant as the son of a pre-school teacher, young honor-roll
student Wallace dropped out of high school at the age of seventeen to sell
crack.
Although his
mother insists that "he didn't need to sell crack. He never went hungry,"
Wallace contended that "crack dealers were my role models." Whatever his
reasons, dealing was a way for a young black man to make a living in the
ghetto. Of course, his career
choice involved
certain risks, not all of which paid off: one drug-exchange trip to North
Carolina ended with a nine-month stay behind bars.
Wallace had plenty of time to think during his prison term, but becoming
a millionaire musician was still in the realm of fantasy. Still, after
his release, the young man borrowed a friend's four-track
tape recorder
and laid down some basic rap tracks in a basement. The tapes that
he came up with were passed around until they landed in the hands of Andre
Harrell, president of Uptown Records,
who was impressed
with what he heard. Also at Uptown at the time was the East Coast version
of Death Row's Marion "Suge" Knight, Sean "Puffy" Combs. When he left Uptown
to form Bad Boy Records, B.I.G. went with him. B.I.G. first made a name
for himself with a
remix of Mary
J. Blige's "What's the 411?" and a track on the Who's the Man? soundtrack.
But it was the 1994 album Ready To Die, that pushed him to the forefront
of the hip-hop scene. The record quickly went platinum, and the Notorious
B.I.G. was named Rapper of the Year at the 1995 Billboard Awards. Rolling
Stone called the record the best rap debut since Ice Cube's Amerikkka's
Most Wanted.
Ready To Die differed from other gangsta rap efforts in its matter-of-fact
storytelling of life on the street, with B.I.G. acting as a kind of omniscient
narrator. The entire album was held together by his
unique perspective;
rather than glamorizing violence with the telltale first-person bravado
of many rappers, B.I.G. sought to tell the truth, and his deep voice and
deeper tales earned him the respect of his fellow artists. The single "Big
Poppa" landed him another nickname, and "One More Chance" was named Billboard's
Rap Single of the Year.
But despite his new reign as a successful rap artist, B.I.G. had not completely left his former life behind. Over the next few years, he had several run-ins with the law, on charges ranging from beatings to drugs to weapons. In 1994, he and Combs were accused of setting up the November robbery-shooting of Tupac Shakur, a charge both of them vehemently denied. (Shakur later mocked B.I.G. in a song, claiming to have slept with Faith Evans, the R&B singer B.I.G. married shortly after the release of Ready To Die.) After one of his concerts was canceled in 1995, B.I.G. and his entourage allegedly beat up a promoter when it turned out the man didn't have the rapper's promised fee. Later the same year, as he and a friend were leaving the Palladium in New York, a crowd of photograph-seekers harassed them, and after some words were exchanged, two of them hopped in a cab to flee. B.I.G. and the friend followed, caught up with the cab, and took baseball bats to the windows and occupants.
B.I.G. kept extremely busy in the years between his two albums. He carried
on a very public affair with Kim Jones, a.k.a. L'il Kim, and went on to
produce her album Hardcore. He also appeared on R.
Kelly's debut album and shared studio time with the King of Pop himself,
appearing on Michael Jackson's HIStory. Along with Sticky Fingers and M.C.
Lyte, the portly rapper even played himself on an episode of the TV show
New York Undercover.
All that ended in March of 1997 in Los Angeles. B.I.G. was on the West
Coast for several events, doing advance press for his next release, Life
After Death . . . 'Til Death Do Us Part. On March 9, he
attended the Soul Train Music Awards and the party that followed.
After the bash, B.I.G. was sitting in a G.M.C. Suburban on the street when
he was shot several times by an unknown assailant. He died almost instantly.
Theories abound about B.I.G.'s death, the most popular being that the incident was part of the East Coast-West Coast feud between rappers, and that B.I.G.'s murder was payback for the September killing of Tupac Shakur. There had been a buzz around L.A. that the local rap community was unhappy with the high-profile presence B.I.G. had taken on while on their turf, and that the Soul Train Awards appearance was the capper. Another theory gaining prominence is that the murderer was part of a gang that B.I.G. had hired to protect him on his left-coast trip, and that the banger felt he'd been short-changed by the rapper on a past deal. Although the official report reads that the shooting was a drive-by, some accounts say that a man approached the car, talked with B.I.G., and then shot him as he rolled down the window. Several off-duty police officers were working security for Wallace at the time, yet none could provide any concrete evidence of the crime or its perpetrator. Los Angeles police have released a sketch of the suspect, but no arrests have been made.
B.I.G.'s murder thrust the so-called "rap war" into the national spotlight and created a call for peace from all sides. Rappers from both coasts, including Snoop Doggy Dogg, Chuck D, and Doug E. Fresh attended a summit held by Louis Farrakhan in Chicago, pledging their support for a unity pact that would include a joint peace tour and an album. Puffy Combs was unable to attend but sent his support, as did Ice-T and Ice Cube. Cube also canceled two shows he had scheduled in L.A. out of respect for the slain rapper. "Stop the Gunfight," a single recorded several years ago that featured both Tupac and B.I.G. was released soon after, and Puffy Combs put together a tribute album that included a single with both B.I.G. and Faith Evans. May 14 was declared Notorious B.I.G. Day, with over two hundred radio stations nationwide playing the single, followed by a thirty-second moment of silence.
The Notorious B.I.G.'s public funeral, however, was anything but peaceful.
Thousands flooded into his Brooklyn neighborhood to catch a glimpse of
his hearse, jumping on cars and clashing with police; ten people were arrested.
A private funeral held earlier was more cordial, with Queen Latifah and
members of Public Enemy and Naughty by Nature in attendance. The casket
was open from the
waist up, and
the rapper had been fitted in a double-breasted white suit and matching
hat. A week later, the double-CD Life After Death hit the streets, landing
at the top of the charts, where it remained for three weeks.
