He never finished high school and, at age 17, was arrested on drug charges in North Carolina and spent nine months in jail. Before attaining fame, he was a small-time crack dealer in the tough Bedford-Stuyve-sant section of Brooklyn. ’s music is perhaps equal parts fiction and autobiography. After transporting listeners through a brutal urban landscape, the album closes with the death of its rapping narrator -who takes his own life. ” 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. “one of (rap) music ’s most talented and promising voices. The Los Angeles Times said the album was “jolting and uncompromising ” and called B.I.G. The album detailed drug sales, sex, violence, incarceration, and death.

shook the music world with that debut album, Ready to Die, an unflinching portrayal of the despair experienced daily in much of urban America -and it ’s brutal outcomes. In 1994, after the release of his first album, he told the Chicago Tribune that he was “scared to death. One some level, B.I.G., seemed to know that the odds were against him escaping his violent past. ’s second album, titled Life After Death … ’Til Death Do Us Part, was released shortly after his death.Īwards: Billboard Award, Rap Artist of the Year, 1995.ĭay before his death that he wanted “to see my kids get old. Wallace was known by the street name Biggie Smalls and the stage name Notorious B.I.G.Īrrived on the music scene in 1994 with the debut album Ready to Die, which sold more than 1 million copies. 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. The product of a brutal environment, he commented on the For the Record …īorn Christopher G. Born Christopher Wallace, he used the street name Biggie Smalls and the stage name Notorious B.I.G. A big man, he was variously described as standing between 6-feet and 6-feet-3-inches tall and weighing between 230 and 380 pounds. rapped his way to a better life only to lose that life to the street violence he could not leave behind. And 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, indeed, on the music charts.Īt the same time, he was a hard man to pin down. ’s funeral -he was buried in a white double-breasted suit and an extra-large mahogany casket -attracted rap ’s elite and drew hordes of fans onto Brooklyn streets. His death at age 24 -the second drive-by slaying of a gangsta rapper in a six -month span-intensified a purported deadly feud between rap music ’s East Coast and West Coast factions.

Notorious big death scene