In The Mind: Notorious B.I.G. (Big Poppa)
Christopher George Latore Wallace, born of Brooklyn, King of East coast rap. Drug dealer, rap-star, storyteller, and fallen icon. Arguably one of the greatest to ever do it. A story of hard knock beginnings leading to superstar status and the weight of a coastal gang war and creative rivalry that buried him before he could enjoy the success. When you think of his life, I want it always to be preceded by the intro hook of his namesake song from his posthumously released album Born Again. Notorious B.I.G.
Christopher half-heartedly released a demo in 1991 under the name Biggie Smalls. A reference to both his stature (6ft 3) and a character in the 1975 movie Let’s Do it Again. He had no real dreams of becoming a professional rapper at the time, for him, it was a long shot at best. By the late 1980s heroin addiction had become an epidemic in impoverished African American communities. Gang culture arose as misguided youth saw a chance to capitalize on the quick turn over and profitability of drug dealing. Christopher Wallace was not exempt from this trend. He too spent his days on the corner, hooded in menace, exchanging handshakes full of cash for handshakes full of heroin. He would pass the time by freestyle rapping and battling his friends on the streets. By the mid-’90s, this form of competitive rhyming or battle rap became commonplace. The formation of these groups consisted of rappers, beatboxers, and dancers, who’d come together and perform just for the sport of it. These gatherings were also known as cyphers.
In 1992, Sean “Puffy” Combs heard Biggie’s demo as the A&R for Uptown Records. This was just before he was fired by founder Andre Harrell, “to make [Puffy] rich”, as Andre claims in the documentary Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story (2017). Whether Andre knew Combs would be worth nearly a Billion dollars today is doubtful, but being fired certainly did jumpstart Puffy’s career. Combs founded Bad Boy records, and in 1994 helped Biggie release his ironically titled debut album, Ready To Die. 1994 was a big year for Notorious B.I.G. (a pseudonym he had taken on to replace Biggie Smalls.). In August of that year, five days before releasing his single, Juicy, which married old school RnB to gangster rap, he (the gangster rapper) himself married RnB singer, Faith Evans.
In September, Ready To Die was released to the public and today is certified at four times platinum. The album was polarizing as it shifted the Hip-Hop communities attention to the East Coast of America, where before, it was largely dominated by the West-Coast. Does the name Tupac Shakur ring a bell? But at the same time, this shift didn’t cause any animosity between the two rap heavyweights. In fact, many reports from the time testify to Tupac and B.I.G. being very close friends.
Trouble immersed like a stray dog in a narrow ally-way on November 30th, 1994 when Tupac was gunned down and robbed in the building where Combs and Wallace were recording. Shakur had suspicions that the attack was premeditated and accused Combs and Wallace, amongst others, of having prior knowledge of the robbery. Wallace denied the allegations and reportedly was quite to distraught and concerned for Shakur’s health and well-being. In 2012 a man by the name of Dexter Isaac, who is serving a life sentence for unrelated crimes, claimed that he attacked Tupac that night and that the attack was in fact orchestrated by James Rosemond, or “Jimmy Henchman”, an entertainment industry executive and convicted drug trafficker. The jury is still out on whether these claims are true, and anyone who has the vaguest of interests in the conflict between the two rappers will acknowledge that the details of Tupac’s attack and the murders of both men (was that a spoiler?) are still shrouded in mystery and subsequent conspiracy theories.
Nonetheless the coastal feud and ever-thickening tension building up in Wallace’s life, he still managed to the top-selling male solo artist and rapper on both the US Pop and RnB charts by the end of 1995. In 1996, there was a tentative collaboration with Michael Jackson on his History album, and reports from Lil Cease (one of the Notorious B.I.G. understudies if you will), suggest that Wallace would not meet with Michael Jackson as he “did not trust him around kids”. This following Michael Jackson’s child sexual abuse allegations in 1993. 1996 also saw the murder of Tupac Shakur after a Mike Tyson Boxing match in Las Vegas. Once again, there were strong allegations thrown in Wallace’s direction, inferring that he had something to do with the murder. Fingers pointed to Biggie paying for the gun that was used on the night, and that Biggie leveraged his favor with the east coast Blood gangs to do his dirty work. All these theories sound spurious to me. It was reported that Biggie and his recording crew were working in the studio till the early hours of that morning on a song. That coupled with the fact that putting the blame on Notorious B.I.G. would fuel a gang war between the coastal counterparts, makes me think that there is far more to the story than anyone knows, nor is willing to share.
In March of 1997, 7 months after Shakur, Wallace was too gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Wallace was on a tour in California to promote his new and equally ironically named album, Life After Death, as well as record the music video for Hypnotize. March 9th, 1997, after leaving a party in convoy with Combs, a security detail, and others, Wallace was shot dead at a traffic light in a suspiciously similar fashion to his recently departed rival. He was pronounced dead half an hour after the incident.
There were a few posthumous albums that came out including Life After Death and The Duets, but they give a little hint to where Biggie was going nor where he wanted to grow as an artist. I’ll Be Missing You featuring Puffy and Faith Evans was released mid-1997 in honor of Biggie’s memory, both as a friend and husband, as well as an icon. In 1999 Afeni Shakur (mother to Tupac) and Volleta Wallace (Biggie’s mother) were introduced to each other by Will Smith at the MTV Music Video Awards, in hopes to provide closure to the coastal feud that was raging both on the streets and in the studio.
It’s impossible to know if Biggie was going to live up to his potential. We have seen great hip-hop artists fall from grace, like Kanye and Lil Wayne, and all it took was a little time. So we can’t know for sure if Wallace’s magic would have endured. All we have is what he gave us. And based on that, he has undoubtedly produced some of the best hip-hop the world has ever seen. Which is why he is in my top five greatest rappers of all time, and I imagine in yours too. Even if you can only think of two rappers to put in your top five right now, I’m willing to bet Biggie is there. I believe that Biggie, alongside Tupac, should be a part of everyone’s Hip Hop education. They were key players in how hip-hop culture became pop culture, founders in history, one might argue. Lest we forget, they were also part of American history as a whole.
