Background and career
Christopher George Latore Wallace (May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997), known professionally as 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 (1994), 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 and Lil' Cease—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. On March 9, 1997, six months after Shakur's murder, Wallace was killed in a similar drive-by shooting by an unidentified assailant, while visiting Los Angeles. Two weeks later, Life After Death (1997) 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 (RIAA). Three more posthumous albums followed: Born Again (1999), Duets: The Final Chapter (2005) and The King & I (with Faith Evans; 2017). Wallace's certified U.S. sales exceed 28 million copies, including 21 million albums. Rolling Stone called him the "greatest rapper that ever lived", and Billboard named him the greatest rapper of all time in 2015. 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.
Christopher George Latore Wallace was born at Cumberland Hospital in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City, on May 21, 1972. Wallace was the only child of Jamaican immigrant parents; his mother, Voletta Wallace (died 2025), was a preschool teacher, while his father, Selwyn George Latore, was a welder. 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 English 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 91 kilograms (201 lb), 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.
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 (aka Matty C), 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 label, 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.
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 57,000 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 one million copies in 1995 (the year of its release). 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.
Junior M.A.F.I.A. began working on their debut studio album in 1994. On August 29, 1995, Conspiracy was released via Undeas Recordings. It achieved gold certification and sold over 500,000 copies in the U.S. The first single, "Player's Anthem", features Wallace, Lil' Kim, and Lil' Cease, and was produced by Clark Kent. The third single, "Get Money", a battle-of-the-sexes track featuring Wallace and Lil' Kim, became their most popular song. "Player's Anthem" and "Get Money" charted within the top 20 in the U.S. and also earned gold and platinum status, respectively. Wallace continued collaborating with R&B artists, working with groups like 112 on "Only You" and Total on "Can't You See", both of which reached the top 20 on the Hot 100. By the end of the year, Wallace had become the top-selling male solo artist and rapper on both the U.S. pop and R&B charts. In July 1995, Wallace appeared on the cover of The Source with the caption "The King of New York Takes Over," a nod to his alias Frank White, inspired by the character from the 1990 film King of New York. At The Source Awards in August 1995, he won Best New Artist, Lyricist of the Year, and Live Performer of the Year, while his debut album was named Album of the Year. He was also honored as Rap Artist of the Year at the Billboard Awards. In 1995, Wallace became embroiled in the East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry, which involved his now-former friend, Shakur. In an April 1995 interview with Vibe while serving time in Clinton Correctional Facility, Shakur accused Harrell, Combs, and Wallace of having prior knowledge of a robbery on November 30, 1994, during which he was shot five times and lost thousands of dollars' worth of jewelry. They denied any involvement. Wallace stated, "I had nothing to do with that, it just happened to be a coincidence that he was in the studio. He couldn't really say who really had something to do with it at the time, so he just kind of leaned the blame on me". In 2012, Dexter Isaac, who was serving a life sentence for unrelated crimes, claimed responsibility for the attack on Shakur that night, stating that the robbery was orchestrated by entertainment executive and former drug trafficker James Rosemond. After his release from prison, Shakur signed with Death Row Records in October 1995. This made Bad Boy Records and Death Row business rivals, further escalating the conflict between Shakur and Wallace. In October 1995, Wallace revealed that he still had not received any earnings from Ready to Die, despite the album having sold two million copies at the time. With each CD priced at $15 (equivalent to $33 in 2025), the album should have generated approximately $30 million ($59 million in 2025) in revenue. Amid the rivalry between Wallace and Shakur, many speculated that "Who Shot Ya?", released in late February 1995 as a secondary B-side to "Big Poppa", was intended to taunt Shakur. According to Lil' Cease, the song was not intended to be a comment on the shooting, stating, "He knew that song wasn't about him [...] he was around at that time". Lil' Cease stated that the song was an introduction for Mary J. Blige's second album, however, "the shit was too hard, so Big kept it and said, 'I'm gonna put it out'".
