The Notorious B.I.G.
Christopher George Latore Wallace, better known by his stage names the Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls, was an American rapper and songwriter. Rooted in the East Coast hip-hop and gangsta rap traditions, he is widely considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. Wallace became known for his distinctive, laidback lyrical delivery, offsetting his lyrics' often grim content. His music was semi-autobiographical, telling of hardship and criminality but also of debauchery and celebration.
Wallace was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City. In 1993, he became the first artist to sign with Sean Combs's Bad Boy Records and gained recognition for his guest appearances on other artists' singles. His debut studio album, Ready to Die, received acclaim and included the successful singles "Juicy", "Big Poppa", and "One More Chance". Ready to Die made Wallace the central figure of East Coast hip-hop and helped restore its prominence at a time when the West Coast was dominating the genre. In 1995, Wallace was named Rapper of the Year at the Billboard Music Awards, and with his protégé group, Junior M.A.F.I.A.—which included longtime friends like Lil' Kim—released the album Conspiracy.
While working on his second album in 1995, Wallace became embroiled in the growing East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry, including a feud with his former friend Tupac Shakur. After Shakur was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996, rumors circulated suggesting that Wallace might have been involved, given the two artists' feud. In March 1997, six months after Shakur's death, Wallace was also killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles by an unknown assailant. Two weeks later, Life After Death was released as a posthumous double album; it debuted atop the Billboard 200, yielded the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Hypnotize" and "Mo Money Mo Problems", and received diamond certification by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Two more posthumous albums followed, Duets: The Final Chapter and The King & I. Wallace's certified U.S. sales exceed 28million copies, including 21million albums. Rolling Stone called him the "greatest rapper that ever lived", and, in 2015, Billboard named him the greatest rapper of all time. The Source named him the greatest rapper of all time in its 150th issue. In 2006, MTV ranked him at No. 3 on their list of The Greatest MCs of All Time, calling him possibly "the most skillful ever on the mic". In 2020, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Life and career
1972–1990: Early life
Christopher George Latore Wallace was born at Cumberland Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, on May 21, 1972. Wallace was the only child of Jamaican immigrant parents; his mother, Voletta Wallace, was a preschool teacher, while his father, Selwyn George Latore, was a welder and politician. At the age of five, he began attending preschool at Quincy-Lexington Open Door Day Care Center, where he was already bigger than most of the other children. Three months before Wallace's third birthday, his father left the family, leaving his mother to raise him while working two jobs. He grew up in Brooklyn's Clinton Hill, near the border of Bedford-Stuyvesant. As a child, Wallace spent most of his time on Fulton Street, where he was introduced to drug dealing, alcoholism, and gambling. Raised as a Jehovah's Witness, Wallace attended St. Peter Claver Church in Brooklyn, graduating from the parish elementary school in 1982. He excelled in the English subject at Queen of All Saints Middle School. He attended Westinghouse High School, a public school attended by several future celebrities, including Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes.While attending Westinghouse High School, Wallace weighed, which earned him the nickname "Big". During this period, his interest in drug dealing intensified, having been influenced by the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. A friend introduced him to buying and selling marijuana when he was around the age of twelve. Having grown up in a strict household, Wallace concealed the money he earned on the roof of his apartment. His mother had no idea about this; she only discovered it when he was twenty years old. Despite being an honor student, Wallace dropped out of school at the age of sixteen due to his growing interest in drug dealing. In 1989, he was arrested in Brooklyn on weapons charges and sentenced to five years of probation. The following year, he was arrested for violating that probation. A year later, Wallace was arrested in North Carolina for dealing crack cocaine and spent nine months in jail before making bail.
Early in his life, Wallace was influenced by Black artists like the Dramatics, Blue Magic, Teddy Pendergrass, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye. He was also well acquainted with the performances of Parliament-Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Kool & the Gang, and Chic. During visits to Jamaica he was influenced by its prominent native genres, including jazz, reggae, soul, and mento. As Wallace entered adolescence, he started listening to artists like Run-DMC and LL Cool J. Wallace adopted the stage name MC CWest and formed the Techniques with his two friends Michael Bynum and Hubert Sams. Wallace met Donald Harrison, a saxophonist from New Orleans, and the Techniques worked on their first songs together at Harrison's home studio. As the trio grew older, their interests shifted; Sams became focused on high school football, while Bynum lost interest in the music industry. Wallace adopted his second stage name, Biggie Smalls, from Calvin Lockhart's character in the 1975 film Let's Do It Again.
1991–1994: Early career and first child
After his release from jail, Wallace produced his first demo tape in 1991 called Microphone Murderer with a disc jockey named 50 Grand. Although Wallace reportedly had little ambition for the tape, local disc jockey Mister Cee, known for his work with Big Daddy Kane and the Juice Crew, discovered and promoted it. Mister Cee sent the tape to Matteo Capoluongo, an editor at The Source magazine, who featured the track in the "Unsigned Hype" section in March 1992, a chart dedicated to showcasing promising rappers. That year, Wallace started gaining exposure; after reading the "Unsigned Hype" section, Sean Combs arranged to meet him. Combs connected Wallace to rhyme on the remix of Mary J. Blige's hit "Real Love".In 1992, Wallace's girlfriend, Jan Jackson, became pregnant, and he was signed to Uptown Records in March by Combs. Wallace's first chance to record a solo track for Uptown Records, rather than featuring on another artist's remix, came in 1993 when Combs was creating a song for the soundtrack of the hip-hop comedy Who's the Man?. The song was "Party and Bullshit", produced by the Brooklyn-based Easy Mo Bee. The song was heavily inspired by "When the Revolution Comes" by the Last Poets, which uses sarcasm, frustration, and humor to critique young Black people's lack of seriousness in the struggle for equality. In the track, vocalist Umar Bin Hassan delivers lines like "niggas will party and bullshit, and party and bullshit". Development on Wallace's first album began at Capoluongo's apartment in late 1992. Wallace appeared on Heavy D & the Boyz's 1992 album Blue Funk, on the track "A Buncha Niggas".
In July 1993—a month before Wallace's first child was born—Combs was fired from Uptown Records by his mentor Andre Harrell, resulting in the loss of access to the songs recorded at that time. Jan gave birth to T'yanna Dream Wallace on August 8, 1993. Wallace promised his daughter "everything she wanted," believing that if he had experienced the same support in his own childhood, he would have graduated at the top of his class. Soon after he was fired, Combs started his own record, Bad Boy Records, and promptly signed Wallace to the label. Combs discovered that Wallace continued dealing drugs and insisted he stop. When Wallace found out the name Biggie Smalls was already taken, he adopted a new moniker, settling on the Notorious B.I.G. Wallace explained that the acronym "B.I.G." stood for "Business Instead of Game". Combs and Clive Davis, then CEO of Arista Records, reached an agreement in which Davis provided Combs with a $1.5 million advance and full creative control. Combs promptly used the money to repurchase the tracks recorded for Wallace's album from Harrell.
Around this time, Wallace formed a friendship with fellow rapper Tupac Shakur in Los Angeles. Lil' Cease remembered the two as being very close, often traveling together when they were not working. He noted that Wallace frequently visited Shakur's home, and they spent time together whenever Shakur was in California or Washington, D.C. Yukmouth, an Oakland emcee, stated that Wallace's style was influenced by Shakur.
The "Real Love" remix single was followed by a remix of a Mary J. Blige song, "What's the 411?". Wallace's success continued, though to a lesser extent, with remixes of Neneh Cherry's "Buddy X" and reggae artist Super Cat's "Dolly My Baby" in 1993. In July 1994, Wallace appeared alongside LL Cool J and Busta Rhymes on a remix of Craig Mack's track "Flava in Ya Ear", which reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Flava in Ya Ear" reached No. 1 on the rap chart for three consecutive weeks.
1994: ''Ready to Die'' and marriage to Faith Evans
On August 4, 1994, Wallace married R&B singer Faith Evans, whom he first met in June 1994 at a promotional photoshoot. Wallace and Mo Bee originally wanted "Machine Gun Funk" as Wallace's upcoming album's first single due to its "funky, upbeat" sound, but Combs preferred a "smoother" sound for the release. The upcoming album's first song to be released was the title track, "Ready to Die", followed by "Gimme the Loot", "Things Done Changed", "Machine Gun Funk", and "Warning". Wallace had his first pop chart success as a solo artist with double A-side, "Juicy / Unbelievable", which reached No. 27 as the lead single to his debut album.Recorded at the Hit Factory between 1993 and 1994, Wallace released his debut studio album, Ready to Die, on September 13, 1994. Inspired by Snoop Dogg's bold, violent, and darkly humorous hit records, Wallace sought to create a similar style with Ready to Die, infused with an East Coast influence. Wallace originally wanted to name the album The Teflon Don, drawing inspiration from John Gotti, who was then making headlines for his ability to avoid legal troubles. Combs disagreed, arguing that the title should make an impact in a way that would "represent for the masses". Wallace agreed to follow Combs' decision, and the two conceived the name Ready to Die.
Ready to Die reached No. 15 on the Billboard 200 chart, sold 500,000 copies in its first week, and was certified four times platinum. The album shifted attention back to East Coast hip-hop at a time when West Coast hip-hop dominated U.S. charts. It received positive reviews upon release and has been widely praised in retrospect. In addition to "Juicy", the album produced two other hit singles: the platinum-selling "Big Poppa", which topped the U.S. rap chart; and "One More Chance", which sold onemillion copies in 1995. Busta Rhymes recalled seeing Wallace handing out copies of Ready to Die from his home, which the former saw as "his way of marketing himself". In 1994, Wallace formed the hip-hop group Junior M.A.F.I.A., which included many of his childhood friends, such as Lil' Kim and Lil' Cease. The name is a backronym for "Masters at Finding Intelligent Attitudes".
Wallace also befriended basketball player Shaquille O'Neal. O'Neal said they were introduced during a listening session for "Gimme the Loot"; Wallace mentioned him in the lyrics and attracted O'Neal to his music. O'Neal requested a collaboration with Wallace, which resulted in the song "You Can't Stop the Reign". According to Combs, Wallace would not collaborate with "anybody he didn't really respect" and that Wallace paid O'Neal his respect by "shouting him out". In 2015, Daz Dillinger, a frequent collaborator with Shakur, said that he and Wallace were "cool", with Wallace traveling to meet him to smoke cannabis and record two songs.