(Redirected from Murder of The Notorious B.I.G.)
Murder of the Notorious B.I.G. | |
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Location | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Date | March 9, 1997; 22 years ago 12:47 a.m. PST (UTC−08:00) |
Target | Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. 'The Notorious B.I.G.' |
Attack type | Drive-by shooting, assassination |
Weapons | Blue-steel 9x19mmpistol (exact model and make unknown) |
Deaths | 1 (Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. 'The Notorious B.I.G.') |
Perpetrator | Wardell “Poochie” Fouse (alleged) |
Motive | Unknown |
The murder of Christopher Wallace, better known by his stage names 'the Notorious B.I.G.' and 'Biggie Smalls', occurred in the early hours of March 9, 1997. The hip hop artist was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, California, one of which was fatal. Despite numerous witnesses and enormous media attention and speculation, no one was ever formally charged for the murder of Wallace. The case remains officially unsolved, as police have searched for years for more details without success.
In 2006, Wallace's mother, Voletta Wallace; his widow, Faith Evans and his children, T'yanna Jackson and Christopher Jordan Wallace (CJ) filed a $400 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department alleging that corrupt LAPD officers were responsible for Wallace's murder. Retired LAPD Officer Greg Kading alleged that Marion 'Suge' Knight, the head of Death Row Records, hired fellow Blood gang member Wardell 'Poochie' Fouse to murder Wallace and paid Poochie $13,000. He also alleged that Theresa Swan, the mother of Knight's child, was also involved in the murder, and was paid $25,000 to set up meetings both before and after the shooting took place. In 2003, Poochie himself was murdered in a drive-by by rival gang members.
- 4Lawsuits
Prior events[edit]
Christopher Wallace traveled to Los Angeles, California in February 1997 to promote his upcoming second studio album, Life After Death, and to film a music video for its lead single, 'Hypnotize'. On March 5, he gave a radio interview with The Dog House on San Francisco's KYLD, in which he stated that he had hired security because he feared for his safety. Wallace cited not only the ongoing East Coast–West Coast hip hop feud and the murder of Tupac Shakur six months prior, and his role as a high-profile celebrity in general, as his reasons for the decision.[1]Life After Death was scheduled for release on March 25, 1997.
On March 7, Wallace presented an award to Toni Braxton at the 1997 Soul Train Music Awards in Los Angeles and was booed by some of the audience.[2] The following evening, March 8, he attended an after-party hosted by Vibe magazine and Qwest Records at the Petersen Automotive Museum in West Los Angeles.[2] Other guests included Faith Evans, Aaliyah, Sean Combs, and members of the Bloods and Crips gangs.[3]
Shooting[edit]
On March 9, 1997, at 12:30 a.m. (PST), Wallace left with his entourage in two GMC Suburbans to return to his hotel after the Los Angeles Fire Department closed the party early because of overcrowding.[4] Wallace traveled in the front passenger seat alongside his associates Damion 'D-Roc' Butler, Junior M.A.F.I.A. member Lil' Cease, and driver Gregory 'G-Money' Young. Combs traveled in the other vehicle with three bodyguards. The two SUVs were trailed by a Chevrolet Blazer carrying Bad Boy Records' director of security.[3]
By 12:45 a.m. (PST), the streets were crowded with people leaving the event. Wallace's SUV stopped at a red light on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and South Fairfax Avenue[5] just 50 yards (46 m) from the museum. A dark-colored Chevrolet Impala SS pulled up alongside Wallace's SUV. The driver of the Impala, a black male, rolled down his window, drew a 9 mm blue-steel pistol and fired at the Suburban; four bullets hit Wallace.[3] Wallace's entourage rushed him to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where doctors performed an emergency thoracotomy, but he was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m. (PST). He was 24 years old.
His autopsy was released to the public in December 2012, fifteen years after his death. According to the report, three of the four shots were not fatal. The first bullet hit his left forearm and traveled down to his wrist; the second hit him in the back, missing all vital organs, and exited through his left shoulder; and the third hit his left thigh and exited through his inner thigh. The report said that the third bullet struck 'the left side of the scrotum, causing a very shallow, 3⁄8 inch [10 mm] linear laceration.' The fourth bullet was fatal, entering through his right hip and striking several vital organs, including his colon, liver, heart, and the upper lobe of his left lung, before stopping in his left shoulder area.[6]
Wallace's death was mourned by fellow hip hop artists and fans worldwide. Rapper Nas felt at the time of Wallace's death that his passing, along with that of Tupac Shakur, 'was nearly the end of rap.'[7]
Investigation[edit]
Immediately following the shooting, reports surfaced linking Wallace's murder with that of Shakur six months earlier, due to similarities in the drive-by shootings and the highly publicized East Coast–West Coast hip hop feud, of which Shakur and Wallace had been central figures.[8] Media reports had previously speculated that Wallace was in some way connected to Shakur's murder, though no evidence ever surfaced to seriously implicate him. Shortly after Wallace's death, Los Angeles Times writers Chuck Philips and Matt Lait reported that the key suspect in his murder was a member of the Southside Crips acting in service of a personal financial motive, rather than on the gang's behalf.[9] The investigation stalled, however, and no one was ever formally charged.
In a 2002 book by Randall Sullivan, called LAbyrinth, information was compiled about the murders of Wallace and Shakur based on information provided by retired LAPD detective Russell Poole.[3][10] In the book, Sullivan accused Suge Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records and a known Bloods affiliate, of conspiring with corrupt LAPD officer David Mack to kill Wallace and make both deaths appear to be the result of the rap rivalry.[11][12] The book stated that one of Mack's alleged associates, Amir Muhammad, was the hitman who killed Wallace. The theory was based on evidence provided by an informant[13] and the general resemblance of Muhammad to the facial composite generated during the investigation.[11][12] In 2002, filmmaker Nick Broomfield released a documentary, Biggie & Tupac, based on information from the book.[10]The New York Times described Broomfield's low-budget documentary as a 'largely speculative' and 'circumstantial' account relying on flimsy evidence, failing to 'present counter-evidence' or 'question sources.'[14] Moreover, the motive suggested for the murder of Wallace in the documentary—to decrease suspicion for the Shakur shooting six months earlier—was, as The New York Times put it, 'unsupported in the film.'[14]
An article published in Rolling Stone by Sullivan in December 2005 accused the LAPD of not fully investigating links with Death Row Records based on Poole's evidence. Sullivan claimed that Combs 'failed to fully cooperate with the investigation', and according to Poole, encouraged Bad Boy staff to do the same.[3] The accuracy of the article was later challenged in a letter by the Assistant Managing Editor of the Los Angeles Times, who accused Sullivan of using 'shoddy tactics.' Sullivan, in response, quoted the lead attorney of the Wallace estate calling the newspaper 'a co-conspirator in the cover-up.'[15] In alluding to Sullivan and Poole's theory that formed the basis of the Wallace family's dismissed $500 million lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles, The New York Times wrote: 'A cottage industry of criminal speculation has sprung up around the case, with documentaries, books and a stream of lurid magazine articles implicating gangs, crooked cops and a cross-country rap rivalry,'[16] noting that everything associated with Wallace's death had been 'big business.' More recently, the film City of Lies was produced based on Poole's investigation and Sullivan's book: LAbyrinth, and casts Johnny Depp as Poole. The film has yet to be released.[17]
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In examining Sullivan's assertion that the Los Angeles Times was involved in a cover-up conspiracy with the LAPD, it is instructive to note that conflicting theories of the murder were offered in different sections of the Times. The Metro section of the Times wrote that police suspected a connection between Wallace's death and the Rampart police corruption scandal, consistent with Sullivan and Poole's theory.[18] The Metro section also ran a photo of Muhammad, identified by police as a mortgage broker unconnected to the murder who appeared to match details of the shooter, and the paper printed his name and driver's license. But Chuck Philips, a staff writer for the Business section of the Times who had been following the investigation and had not heard of the Rampart–Muhammad theory, searched for Muhammad, whom the Metro reporters could not find for comment. It took Philips only three days to find Muhammad, who had a current ad for his brokerage business running in the Times. Muhammad, who was not an official suspect at the time, came forward to clear his name. The Metro section of the paper was opposed to running a retraction, but the business desk editor, Mark Saylor,[19] said, 'Chuck is sort of the world's authority on rap violence' and pushed, along with Philips, for the Times to retract the article.[18]
The May 2000 Los Angeles Times correction article was written by Philips, who quoted Muhammad as saying, 'I'm a mortgage broker, not a murderer' and asking, 'How can something so completely false end up on the front page of a major newspaper?'[20] The story cleared Muhammad's name.[18][21] A later 2005 story by Philips showed that the main informant for the Poole-Sullivan theory was a schizophrenic with admitted memory lapses known as 'Psycho Mike' who confessed to hearsay.[22] John Cook of Brill's Content noted that Philips' article 'demolished'[21] the Poole-Sullivan theory of Wallace's murder.
In the 2000 book The Murder of Biggie Smalls, investigative journalist and author Cathy Scott suggested that Wallace and Shakur's murders might have been the result of the East Coast–West Coast feud and motivated by financial gain for the record companies, because the rappers were worth more dead than alive.[23]
The criminal investigation into Wallace's murder was re-opened in July 2006 to look for new evidence to help the city defend the civil lawsuits brought by the Wallace family.[24][25] Retired LAPD detective Greg Kading, who worked for three years on a gang task force that included the Wallace case, alleges that the rapper was shot by Wardell 'Poochie' Fouse, an associate of Knight, who died on July 24, 2003, after being shot in the back while riding his motorcycle in Compton. Kading believes Knight hired Poochie via his girlfriend, 'Theresa Swann,' to kill Wallace to avenge the death of Shakur,[26] who, Kading alleges, was killed under the orders of Combs.[27]
In December 2012, the LAPD released the autopsy results conducted on Wallace's body to generate new leads. The release was criticized by the long-time lawyer of his estate, Perry Sanders Jr., who objected to an autopsy.[28] The case remains officially unsolved.
Lawsuits[edit]
Wrongful death claim[edit]
In March 2006, Wallace's mother Voletta filed a wrongful death claim against the City of Los Angeles based on the evidence championed by Poole.[12] They claimed the LAPD had sufficient evidence to arrest the assailant, but failed to use it. David Mack and Amir Muhammad (a.k.a. Harry Billups) were originally named as defendants in the civil suit, but were dropped shortly before the trial began after the LAPD and FBI dismissed them as suspects.[12]
The case came for trial before a jury on June 21, 2005. On the eve of the trial, a key witness who was expected to testify, Kevin Hackie, revealed that he suffered memory lapses due to psychiatric medications. He had previously testified to knowledge of involvement between Knight, Mack, and Muhammed, but later said that the Wallace attorneys had altered his declarations to include words he never said. Hackie took full blame for filing a false declaration.[13]
Several days into the trial, the plaintiffs' attorney disclosed to the Court and opposing counsel that he had received a telephone call from someone claiming to be an LAPD officer and provided detailed information about the existence of evidence concerning the Wallace murder. The court directed the city to conduct a thorough investigation, which uncovered previously undisclosed evidence, much of which was in the desk or cabinet of Det. Steven Katz, the lead detective in the Wallace investigation. The documents centered around interviews by numerous police officers of an incarcerated informant, who had been a cellmate of imprisoned Rampart officer Rafael Perez for some extended period of time. He reported that Perez had told him about his and Mack's involvement with Death Row Records and their activities at the Peterson Automotive Museum the night of Wallace's murder. As a result of the newly discovered evidence, the judge declared a mistrial and awarded the Wallace family its attorneys' fees.[29]
On April 16, 2007, relatives of Wallace filed a second wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles. The suit also named two LAPD officers in the center of the investigation into the Rampart scandal, Perez and Nino Durden. According to the claim, Perez, an alleged affiliate of Death Row Records, admitted to LAPD officials that he and Mack (who was not named in the lawsuit) 'conspired to murder, and participated in the murder of Christopher Wallace'. The Wallace family said the LAPD 'consciously concealed Rafael Perez's involvement in the murder of .. Wallace'.[30]
United States District JudgeFlorence-Marie Cooper granted summary judgment to the city on December 17, 2007, finding that the Wallace family had not complied with a California law that required the family to give notice of its claim to the State within six months of Wallace's death.[31] The Wallace family refiled the suit, dropping the state law claims on May 27, 2008.[32] The suit against the City of Los Angeles was finally dismissed in 2010. It was described by The New York Times as 'one of the longest running and most contentious celebrity cases in history.'[16] The Wallace suit had asked for $500 million from the city.[16]
Defamation[edit]
On January 19, 2007, Tyruss 'Big Syke' Himes, a friend of Shakur who was implicated in Wallace's murder by the Los Angeles Fox affiliate KTTV and XXL magazine in 2005, had a defamation lawsuit regarding the accusations thrown out of court.[33]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'Biggie Told Interviewer He Worried About Safety'. MTV News. March 12, 1997. Retrieved May 6, 2008.
- ^ abBruno, Anthony The Murders of gangsta rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.Archived 2007-04-07 at the Wayback MachineCourt TV Crime Library. Retrieved January 24, 2007.
- ^ abcdeSullivan, Randall (December 5, 2005). 'The Unsolved Mystery of the Notorious B.I.G.' Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on April 29, 2009. Retrieved October 7, 2006.
- ^Purdum, Todd S. (March 10, 1997). 'Rapper Is Shot to Death in Echo of Killing 6 Months Ago'. The New York Times. Retrieved February 23, 2009.
- ^nevereatshreddedwheat # (March 9, 1997). 'where biggie smalls was shot and killed in los angeles : the notorious b.i.g. | music at popturf'. Popturf.com. Retrieved December 31, 2013.
- ^Horowitz, Steven J. (December 7, 2012). 'Notorious B.I.G. Autopsy Report Released'. HipHop DX. Retrieved December 7, 2012.
- ^Smith, Alex M. (August 18, 2014). 'Nas Interview: Tupac, B.I.G. Deaths Were Nearly 'The End Of Rap''. Music Times.
- ^Cathy Scott. 'Rap slaying similar to Shakur's'. Las Vegas Sun. March 10, 1997.
- ^Philips Laitt, Chuck Matt (March 18, 1997). 'Personal Dispute Is Focus of Rap Probe'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 18, 2013.
- ^ abFuchs, Cynthia (September 6, 2002). 'Biggie and Tupac review' PopMatters. Retrieved January 2, 2007.
- ^ abSerpick, Evan (April 12, 2002). 'Review: Rappers' deaths probed in 'LAbyrinth'Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved January 2, 2007.
- ^ abcdPhilips, Chuck 'Slain rapper's family keeps pushing suit'Los Angeles Times, February 7, 2007. Retrieved April 14, 2007.
- ^ abPhilips, Chuck (June 20, 2005). 'Witness in B.I.G. case says his memory's bad'. LA Times. Retrieved October 3, 2013.
- ^ abLeland, John (October 7, 2002). 'New Theories Stir Speculation On Rap Deaths'. New York Times. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
- ^Duvoisin, Marc; Sullivan, Randall (January 12, 2006). 'L.A. Times Responds to Biggie Story'. Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on August 17, 2007. Retrieved December 6, 2012.
- ^ abcSISARIO, Ben (April 19, 2010). 'Wrongful-Death Lawsuit Over Rapper Is Dismissed'. New York Times. Retrieved September 17, 2013.
- ^Lopez, Ricardo; Lopez, Ricardo (2018-08-07). 'Johnny Depp's Notorious B.I.G. Film 'City of Lies' Pulled From Release Schedule'. Variety. Retrieved 2019-03-03.
- ^ abcCook, John (May 23–26, 2000). 'Notorious LAT'. Brills Content. Archived from the original on 2012-08-09. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
- ^Trounson, Rebecca (February 22, 2012). 'Mark Saylor dies at 58; former Times editor oversaw Pulitzer-winning series'. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 28, 2013.
- ^Philips, Chuck (May 3, 2000). 'Man No Longer Under Scrutiny in Rapper's Death'. Los Angeles Times.
- ^ abCook, John. 'Notorious LAT'. Reference tone. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
- ^Philips, Chuck (June 3, 2005). 'Informant in Rap Star's Slaying Admits Hearsay'. LA Times. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
- ^Bruno, Anthony. 'Hip-Hop Homicide — 'Worth More Dead Than Alive' — Crime Library on'. Trutv.com. Archived from the original on 2013-11-10. Retrieved December 31, 2013.
- ^Philips, Chuck (July 31, 2006). 'LAPD Renews Search for Rapper's Killer'. Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on October 21, 2006. Retrieved January 20, 2007.
- ^'LAPD launching new Notorious BIG task force'. Associated Press. August 3, 2006. Retrieved September 29, 2006.
- ^Kenner, Rob (March 9, 2012). 'Interview: Former L.A.P.D. Detective Says He Knows Who Killed The Notorious B.I.G.' Complex.com. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
- ^Quinn, Rob (October 4, 2011). 'Sean Combs Ordered Tupac Murder: LA Cop:And Suge Knight had Biggie Smalls killed in revenge, says book by former LAPD detective'. Newser. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
- ^Wolfe, Roman (December 8, 2012). 'Lawyer For Notorious B.I.G. Blasts LAPD Over Autopsy Report'. AllHipHop. Retrieved December 9, 2012.
- ^Estate of Wallace v. City of Los Angeles, 229 F.R.D. 163 (C.D. Cal. 2005);Reid, Shaheem (July 5, 2005). 'Notorious B.I.G. Wrongful-Death Case Declared A Mistrial'. MTV News. Retrieved February 14, 2007.
- ^Finn, Natalie (April 18, 2007). 'An Extra B.I.G. Suit'. E! Online. Retrieved August 2, 2007.
- ^Estate of Christopher G.L. Wallace v. City of Los Angeles, et al., 2:07-cv-02956-FMC-RZx, slip op. at 15 (C.D. Cal. December 17, 2007) (Cooper, J.).
- ^Complaint, Estate of Christopher G.L. Wallace v. City of Los Angeles, et al., 2:07-cv-02956-FMC-RZx (C.D. Cal. May 27, 2008).
- ^'Lawsuit involving rapper death dismissed'. Yahoo!. Associated Press. January 20, 2007. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
Coordinates: 34°03′46″N118°21′41″W / 34.06278°N 118.36145°W
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_the_Notorious_B.I.G.&oldid=899001866'
Marcc Rose as Tupac Shakur in Unsolved. Photo: USA Network/Isabella Vosmikova/USA Network
The season finale of USA’s Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G. makes a case for who was responsible for the the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls while still raising plenty of question marks. That’s entirely by design.
As Unsolved creator Kyle Long explains it, he wanted to let viewers draw their own conclusions about the murders, while also laying out the theory developed by Greg Kading, a former LAPD detective and executive producer of the series who, as portrayed by Josh Duhamel, led a 2006 task force charged with looking into the death of Smalls in the wake of a lawsuit filed by the rapper’s mother, Voletta Wallace. The ambitious series also retraces the friendship and falling out between Tupac (Marcc Rose), who was shot and killed in Las Vegas, and Biggie (Wavyy Jonez); as well as the initial investigation into their homicides, as pushed forward by single-minded cop Russell Poole (Jimmi Simpson). Long spoke with Vulture about capturing the details of such a complicated narrative, whether there could still be any developments in the Shakur case, his attempts to reach out to Voletta Wallace, and how he worked around the fact that Unsolved couldn’t use any of the music recorded by these two legendary artists.
I want to start with a very obvious question: Who do you think killed Tupac and who do you think killed Biggie?
I’ll answer, but I’m curious because you just watched it — what do you think the takeaway is supposed to be?
I’ll answer, but I’m curious because you just watched it — what do you think the takeaway is supposed to be?
Well, my takeaway was that Orlando Anderson, a member of the South Side Crips, shot Tupac, and that Poochie shot Biggie as retaliation for Tupac’s murder at the behest of Suge Knight.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But at the very end, Russell Poole says something about Suge being the real target on the night Tupac was killed, which adds another question mark.
I really wanted to lay it all out there and let the audience decide, but to me, the Tupac of it all is really quite simple. It was Orlando Anderson.
I really wanted to lay it all out there and let the audience decide, but to me, the Tupac of it all is really quite simple. It was Orlando Anderson.
What has happened since we made the show, which is fascinating to me, is that Keffe D went on a documentary called the Death Row Chronicles and confessed again. He doesn’t have immunity in that confession. He tried to get cute and says, “Oh, I handed the gun into the back seat, but I don’t know who pulled the trigger.” You watch it, and it’s like, He just confessed without immunity to being an accessory to murder. They should go arrest him.
Now, there are details that will never be 100 percent clear. But Keffe D and the South Side Crips killed Tupac, and everyone in that car except Keffe D is dead. If he doesn’t get arrested, I’ll have a hard time swallowing that one.
What do you think the likelihood is of that happening?
I mean, I would love to hear an answer from [the Las Vegas Police] if they don’t do anything. We’ll see what happens.
I mean, I would love to hear an answer from [the Las Vegas Police] if they don’t do anything. We’ll see what happens.
The Biggie of it all, that’s more complicated. I have more questions about Poochie and all that. There are more questions in that one.
So, you can’t say with certainty who killed Biggie?
Obviously Greg Kading has a strong take. I know he feels very strongly about it, I know the task force feels very strongly about it, but I understand how hard it would be to make that case in court. At the same time, that doesn’t mean [the police department] shouldn’t have tried.
Obviously Greg Kading has a strong take. I know he feels very strongly about it, I know the task force feels very strongly about it, but I understand how hard it would be to make that case in court. At the same time, that doesn’t mean [the police department] shouldn’t have tried.
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In terms of the LAPD, do you think there was a cover-up? The series strongly implies that there was something else happening.
Once the task force was able to basically prove there was no way Voletta Wallace and her lawyers were ever going to prove some kind of connection to the LAPD, that meant that the LAPD would never lose this lawsuit. That was a big sigh of relief for the LAPD. They had been working it for three years — it’s a tremendous amount of money, it’s a tremendous amount of resource — so they just kind of disbanded it. But the question is, did they disband it because their job was done? They had proved cops didn’t do it. Maybe the LAPD thought they never were going to be able to see it all the way through in a way that was provable in court.
Once the task force was able to basically prove there was no way Voletta Wallace and her lawyers were ever going to prove some kind of connection to the LAPD, that meant that the LAPD would never lose this lawsuit. That was a big sigh of relief for the LAPD. They had been working it for three years — it’s a tremendous amount of money, it’s a tremendous amount of resource — so they just kind of disbanded it. But the question is, did they disband it because their job was done? They had proved cops didn’t do it. Maybe the LAPD thought they never were going to be able to see it all the way through in a way that was provable in court.
My take on Poole is that his heart was really in the right place, but by the end, it just became sad. He was such a tragic figure. He really believed all this stuff, but it became his identity at the end. Kading says it in the finale, “I don’t even know what to make of his theory at this point.” Every time someone poked at his theory and said, “There’s no way,” it just became something else. I really have a lot of respect for Russell Poole, and I really thought his intentions were good, but by the end, it was heartbreaking to me. How he died is just so sad.
When I was watching that scene where he has the heart attack, I didn’t know he actually died while he was talking to the sheriffs.
I kept saying in the writers’ room that our currency is the truth. There’s so many crazy things that happened that, if you made them up, you wouldn’t believe it. So that happened. He died still pursuing his theory. When he says, “I want someone to do something,” that’s the anger we all felt in the show. Like, “I just want this [investigation] to keep going. I want there to be a final answer.”
I kept saying in the writers’ room that our currency is the truth. There’s so many crazy things that happened that, if you made them up, you wouldn’t believe it. So that happened. He died still pursuing his theory. When he says, “I want someone to do something,” that’s the anger we all felt in the show. Like, “I just want this [investigation] to keep going. I want there to be a final answer.”
I’ll give Greg Kading a lot of credit. When I got involved with Greg on this project — and if you read his book, Russell Poole is not a big part at all — I told him, “Listen, I want people to be all in on Russell Poole when they’re watching him and be very objective about it.” I think that was tough for Greg at first because he had such a strong opinion of his own, and he didn’t believe in what Russell Poole was doing, but he really was wonderful about it. By the end, he really did see that there were some parallels between them.
Did you have an opportunity to talk to Voletta Wallace?
No. I’ll give you the whole story with Voletta. I always assumed there was no universe where they’d want to cooperate with a project like this, so I wrote her a letter and never heard back. I just assumed that she would be very anti this show. That kept me up at night. But I’ve heard since that she is very much a fan, which, I don’t really know what to take from that. If true, that’s amazing. It’s the best review I could ever hope for. She’s the heart and soul of this project. I get very emotional when I think about her.
No. I’ll give you the whole story with Voletta. I always assumed there was no universe where they’d want to cooperate with a project like this, so I wrote her a letter and never heard back. I just assumed that she would be very anti this show. That kept me up at night. But I’ve heard since that she is very much a fan, which, I don’t really know what to take from that. If true, that’s amazing. It’s the best review I could ever hope for. She’s the heart and soul of this project. I get very emotional when I think about her.
What was it like for Aisha Hinds to play the part? I assume she didn’t get an opportunity to talk--
She did! I had reached out and never heard anything, so I said, “Well, I’m not going to pester this woman. That’s the worst thing in the world I could do.” I know Aisha had somehow gotten in contact with her and they had a nice conversation. I don’t really know anything more than that. You’d have to ask Aisha. But, you know, I can’t imagine a better actress playing her. I certainly feel we wrote Voletta with such respect, but the fact that she’s watching it is interesting to me. It’s a fascinating story, but is it fascinating if you actually lived it? It’s very humbling to think about that. I would love to someday meet her, but I’m trying to be so respectful about it. We all are.
She did! I had reached out and never heard anything, so I said, “Well, I’m not going to pester this woman. That’s the worst thing in the world I could do.” I know Aisha had somehow gotten in contact with her and they had a nice conversation. I don’t really know anything more than that. You’d have to ask Aisha. But, you know, I can’t imagine a better actress playing her. I certainly feel we wrote Voletta with such respect, but the fact that she’s watching it is interesting to me. It’s a fascinating story, but is it fascinating if you actually lived it? It’s very humbling to think about that. I would love to someday meet her, but I’m trying to be so respectful about it. We all are.
In terms of Russell Poole, were you able to speak to any family members or colleagues?
Well, that’s a tricky one. It’s crazy how this works, but they were making a movie called LAbyrinth, where Johnny Depp plays Russell Poole. I don’t know anything about it, though I think it just tells the story of Russell Poole, which to me is just like, I don’t know how you can tell the story of these investigations without telling what happened ten years later.
Well, that’s a tricky one. It’s crazy how this works, but they were making a movie called LAbyrinth, where Johnny Depp plays Russell Poole. I don’t know anything about it, though I think it just tells the story of Russell Poole, which to me is just like, I don’t know how you can tell the story of these investigations without telling what happened ten years later.
This is a long way of saying the Poole family was involved in that and had strong feelings about Greg Kading that probably weren’t great, so I kept my distance. Based on Twitter and things like that, I know they have been surprised by the show. They probably thought I was going to do some character-assassination piece on their father. I look at it as very much a tribute to Russell Poole. They probably disagree with my take on the case or Greg Kading’s take on the case, but I would be willing to bet that it’s not the show they thought it was going to be.
Did you ever make any contact with Keffe D?
I did not reach out to Keffe D, but everything we have is based off interviews and transcripts, and I didn’t really feel a need to talk to him. One of the things that people don’t realize about making a show like this is the amount of legal vetting that has to go into these shows. I’d say for every script, there was an 80- to 100-page document generated by legal saying, “This is where we got everything. This is where this came from.” It’s a job on top of a job for everybody.
I did not reach out to Keffe D, but everything we have is based off interviews and transcripts, and I didn’t really feel a need to talk to him. One of the things that people don’t realize about making a show like this is the amount of legal vetting that has to go into these shows. I’d say for every script, there was an 80- to 100-page document generated by legal saying, “This is where we got everything. This is where this came from.” It’s a job on top of a job for everybody.
Was there anything that you fictionalized or dramatized a bit?
Yeah, there’s things that I did for dramatic license. Probably the biggest one is Kading and Poole never met.
Yeah, there’s things that I did for dramatic license. Probably the biggest one is Kading and Poole never met.
The scene where they have that meeting with [Det. Daryn] Dupree?
I had to compress time. Kading had left the task force already, but Dupree did meet him, and [Poole] was the exact same. To do nine episodes and then not have them across from each other, I wrestled with it, but it didn’t take me long to be like, “I’m going to take one big cheat. That’s going to be it.” If it just had been Daryn and Russell Poole, it wouldn’t have landed as much for the audience.
I had to compress time. Kading had left the task force already, but Dupree did meet him, and [Poole] was the exact same. To do nine episodes and then not have them across from each other, I wrestled with it, but it didn’t take me long to be like, “I’m going to take one big cheat. That’s going to be it.” If it just had been Daryn and Russell Poole, it wouldn’t have landed as much for the audience.
What about Theresa Swann? The series doesn’t touch on what happened to her.
Well, that’s a delicate one. To make a show like this, if you don’t put it all out there, in this day and age of Google and Reddit and all those things, people are going to say, “Hey, why didn’t they tell that story?” Yeah, she’s out there, and I feel like the show does a fair job of pointing out the ruse they pull on her. When Greg gets kicked off the task force, you have the brass saying, “We don’t even know if what she told you was the truth. Maybe she’s just telling you what you want to hear.” I was very careful with that scene because they did kind of jam her up, but she also willingly said all these things in her own words — and has never taken them back, by the way.
Well, that’s a delicate one. To make a show like this, if you don’t put it all out there, in this day and age of Google and Reddit and all those things, people are going to say, “Hey, why didn’t they tell that story?” Yeah, she’s out there, and I feel like the show does a fair job of pointing out the ruse they pull on her. When Greg gets kicked off the task force, you have the brass saying, “We don’t even know if what she told you was the truth. Maybe she’s just telling you what you want to hear.” I was very careful with that scene because they did kind of jam her up, but she also willingly said all these things in her own words — and has never taken them back, by the way.
Is all of this in Greg’s book?
It is all in Greg’s book, yes.
It is all in Greg’s book, yes.
Does it identify her by name?
Theresa Swann is an alias, so we stuck to the alias. Legally, we had to be so, so careful with how we were putting this information out there — what she said exactly, how the police did it. You have to be very careful about it that way.
Theresa Swann is an alias, so we stuck to the alias. Legally, we had to be so, so careful with how we were putting this information out there — what she said exactly, how the police did it. You have to be very careful about it that way.
![Dead Dead](/uploads/1/2/3/7/123761149/799741104.jpg)
Were you paying attention to this when it was all unfolding 20 years ago? Not to minimize the seriousness of what happened, but it was like a tragic soap opera.
It was all really great television, right? But beneath it all is unbelievable violence. I moved to L.A. right around the time Biggie was shot, and I remember being right where it happened and thinking, “It’s just ridiculous. It’s a public intersection.” And then Russell Poole’s first series of articles came out, and the Biggie and Tupac documentary, and there was a big Rolling Stone article, just all this stuff. If you are a true crime guy like I am, you just were like, “Oh my God.” I was always reading and reading about it. Once you dug beneath the surface a bit, you’d say, “Oh, that’s an interesting theory, but there’s nothing really there.”
It was all really great television, right? But beneath it all is unbelievable violence. I moved to L.A. right around the time Biggie was shot, and I remember being right where it happened and thinking, “It’s just ridiculous. It’s a public intersection.” And then Russell Poole’s first series of articles came out, and the Biggie and Tupac documentary, and there was a big Rolling Stone article, just all this stuff. If you are a true crime guy like I am, you just were like, “Oh my God.” I was always reading and reading about it. Once you dug beneath the surface a bit, you’d say, “Oh, that’s an interesting theory, but there’s nothing really there.”
There are so many books, documentaries, and movies about Biggie and Tupac. How do you find a new way to tell the story?
Well, I knew we weren’t telling a biopic. We don’t have the music, and I knew we weren’t going to get the music because they’re notoriously restrictive when it has anything to do with the actual events. If you want to put a Biggie song in a movie that has nothing to do with Biggie, you’re fine. But even for the Tupac movie, they had to go to tremendous lengths to get that music. With a project like this, you know, they didn’t know who I was. They didn’t know what our intentions were. I was like, “We’re never going to get it, and I completely respect it.”
Well, I knew we weren’t telling a biopic. We don’t have the music, and I knew we weren’t going to get the music because they’re notoriously restrictive when it has anything to do with the actual events. If you want to put a Biggie song in a movie that has nothing to do with Biggie, you’re fine. But even for the Tupac movie, they had to go to tremendous lengths to get that music. With a project like this, you know, they didn’t know who I was. They didn’t know what our intentions were. I was like, “We’re never going to get it, and I completely respect it.”
How much did that affect what you wanted to do?
I was like, “We’re not making All Eyez On Me. We’re not making Notorious. So what can we do that’s different?” Of course, you have to tell some of the key events, just to tell the story of their friendship. But we were always looking for different kinds of scenes. Like in the pilot, they run around the backyard with guns, and that’s a true story. Now, were there sprinklers going on? Probably not. That was [director] Anthony Hemingway doing his thing. We were constantly looking for stories like that. I’m sure some people think we didn’t tell enough of the Biggie and Tupac story. Everyone’s gonna have a point of view on it, and that’s fine.
I was like, “We’re not making All Eyez On Me. We’re not making Notorious. So what can we do that’s different?” Of course, you have to tell some of the key events, just to tell the story of their friendship. But we were always looking for different kinds of scenes. Like in the pilot, they run around the backyard with guns, and that’s a true story. Now, were there sprinklers going on? Probably not. That was [director] Anthony Hemingway doing his thing. We were constantly looking for stories like that. I’m sure some people think we didn’t tell enough of the Biggie and Tupac story. Everyone’s gonna have a point of view on it, and that’s fine.
How difficult was it to find other songs that worked?
We had a tremendous music supervisor, Lyah LeFlore. She is a fascinating woman. She worked at Bad Boy Records. She knew everyone. She just nailed it. There was a lot of just wonderful R&B music. Then we found Don McLean’s “Vincent,” which is in the episode where Tupac dies.
We had a tremendous music supervisor, Lyah LeFlore. She is a fascinating woman. She worked at Bad Boy Records. She knew everyone. She just nailed it. There was a lot of just wonderful R&B music. Then we found Don McLean’s “Vincent,” which is in the episode where Tupac dies.
Yeah, I was wondering about that song specifically.
It is a little odd. But it’s literally one of his favorite songs. It’s what they played in the hospital when he was dying.
It is a little odd. But it’s literally one of his favorite songs. It’s what they played in the hospital when he was dying.
Oh, wow.
To me it says so much about him. He’s not what you think. He didn’t just like rap music. This is a guy that had so many interests. When I heard that, I said, “We’re putting that song in there.” It’s a beautiful song, and it really shows who he is in a lot of ways.
To me it says so much about him. He’s not what you think. He didn’t just like rap music. This is a guy that had so many interests. When I heard that, I said, “We’re putting that song in there.” It’s a beautiful song, and it really shows who he is in a lot of ways.
Is there going to be another Unsolved season that deals with another case?
I’m hopeful. I can’t tell you much more than that. They know what I want to do, and I’m hopeful that they do it. One of the things that’s so interesting about season one is to me, yes, it takes place in the ‘90s and all the way through 2015, but it feels very relevant. You want something that feels contemporary and speaks to a lot of things that are still going on today. So, that’s the stuff we’ve been batting around.
I’m hopeful. I can’t tell you much more than that. They know what I want to do, and I’m hopeful that they do it. One of the things that’s so interesting about season one is to me, yes, it takes place in the ‘90s and all the way through 2015, but it feels very relevant. You want something that feels contemporary and speaks to a lot of things that are still going on today. So, that’s the stuff we’ve been batting around.
Related
Unsolved Is Worth Watching Even If You Know Everything About Biggie and TupacQuick Facts
- Name
- Biggie Smalls
- Occupation
- Rapper
- Birth Date
- May 21, 1972
- Death Date
- March 9, 1997
- Did You Know?
- Biggie Smalls had to change his name to the Notorious B.I.G. for legal reasons.
- Did You Know?
- The B.I.G. in his name stood for Business Instead of Gain
- Place of Birth
- Brooklyn, New York
- Place of Death
- Los Angeles, California
Biggie Smalls, also known as 'The Notorious B.I.G.,' was a revered hip-hop artist and face of East Coast gangsta rap. He was shot and killed on March 9, 1997.
Who Was Biggie Smalls?
Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls and the Notorious B.I.G., lived a short life. He was 24 years old when he was gunned down in 1997 in Los Angeles, a murder that has never been solved. Smalls was from New York and had almost single-handedly reinvented East Coast hip hop — overtaken in the early 1990s by the West Coast 'g-funk' sound of Dr. Dre and Death Row Records. With his clear, powerful baritone, effortless flow on the mic and willingness to address the vulnerability, as well as the harshness, of the hustler lifestyle, Smalls swung the spotlight back towards New York and his label home, Bad Boy Records. He styled himself as a gangster and although he was no angel, in reality he was more of a performer than a hardened criminal. In this regard, he was similar to Tupac Shakur, his one-time friend turned bitter rival — a contest that spiraled horrifyingly out of control leaving neither man alive to tell the tale.
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Born and Raised in Brooklyn to Jamaican Parents
![Tupac Tupac](/uploads/1/2/3/7/123761149/103390689.jpg)
Twenty-three years before Rolling Stone would describe him, in a 1995 interview, as 'a mountain of a man, 6ft 3 in, 280 lbs, black as tar, with a W.C. Fields scowl and a lazy left eye,' Christopher George Latore Wallace was born on May 21, 1972 in Brooklyn, New York. His parents both hailed from the Caribbean island of Jamaica — his mom, Voletta taught preschool; his pop, Selwyn, was a welder and local Jamaican politician. Selwyn left the family when Biggie was two, but Voletta worked two jobs in order to send her son to a private school — the Roman Catholic Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School; alumni include Rudy Giuliani and former Primark CEO Arthur Ryan. But Biggie subsequently transferred to the George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School; alumni include the rappers DMX, Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes. Biggie had excelled at English, but often played truant at Westinghouse and dropped out altogether in 1989 at age 17.
Acquiring the childhood nickname 'Big' because of his plus-sized girth, he began selling drugs at 12, according to an interview he gave to the New York Times in 1994, working the streets near his mom's apartment on St. James Place. Voletta worked long hours and had no inkling of her son's activities. Biggie stepped up the drug dealing after quitting school and was soon in trouble with the law. He received a five-year probationary sentence in 1989 after being arrested on weapons-possession charges. The following year he was arrested for violating that probation. The year after that, he was charged with dealing cocaine in North Carolina and reportedly spent nine months in jail while waiting to make bail.
Biggie and Bad Boy Records
Biggie began rapping as a teenager to entertain people in his neighborhood. After he got out of jail, he made a demo tape as Biggie Smalls — named after a gang leader from the 1975 movie Let's Do It Again; also a nod to his childhood nickname. He had no serious plans to pursue a career in music — 'It was fun just hearing myself on tape over beats,' he later said in an Arista Records biography — but the tape found its way to The Source magazine, who were so impressed that they profiled Biggie in their Unsigned Hype column in March 1992; from there, Biggie was invited to record with other unsigned rappers. This recording came to the attention of Sean 'Puffy' Combs, an A&R executive and producer who worked for the leading urban label Uptown Records — he started there as an intern in 1990. Combs arranged a record deal for Biggie, but left the label soon after, having fallen out with his boss, Andre Harrell. Combs went on to set up his own imprint, Bad Boy Records, and by mid-1992 Biggie had joined him.
Before he had the chance to put anything out on Bad Boy, Uptown released music that Biggie recorded during his brief stint at the label, including a remix of Mary J. Blige's 'Real Love' in August 1992 that featured a guest verse from The Notorious B.I.G. (He had been forced to change his recording name after a lawsuit; though he continued to be widely known as Biggie). In June 1993, the label released The Notorious BIG's first single as a solo artist, 'Party and Bullshit.'
Biggie and Tupac's Friendship
That same year, as he worked on music for his debut album, Biggie Smalls met Tupac Shakur for the first time. Their encounter, detailed in Ben Westhoff's book, Original Gangstas, took place at a party held by an L.A. drug dealer. They ate, drank and smoked together, and Tupac, already a successful recording artist, gifted Biggie, then unknown outside New York, a bottle of Hennessy. After that, Tupac mentored Biggie whenever the two met up — at one point Biggie even asked if Tupac would become his manager. 'Nah, stay with Puff,' Tupac apparently said. 'He will make you a star.' Biggie was particularly concerned about money around that time because he became a father in August to T'yanna, his daughter, with high-school sweetheart, Jan. It has been reported that Biggie went back to drug dealing at this point, until Combs learned what he was up to and made him stop.
'Ready to Die' Album Takes Off
Why Was Tupac Murdered
The Notorious B.I.G.'s debut album came out on Bad Boy in September 1994, a month after 'Juicy,' his first single for the label. The album, Ready to Die, was certified gold within two months, double-platinum the following year, and eventually quadruple-platinum. 'Big Poppa,' the second of the album's four singles, was nominated for a Grammy for best rap solo performance. Ready to Die marked a resurgence in East Coast hip hop, and Biggie was widely acclaimed for the narrative ability he displayed on the album's semi-autobiographical tales from his wayward youth. Away from the more playful radio-friendly singles — 'Birthdays was the worst days/Now we sip champagne when we thirst-ay' he chortled on 'Juicy' — Biggie did not sugar-coat the drug-dealer lifestyle; the album's final track, 'Suicidal Thoughts,' sounded like a cry for help. 'In street life you're not allowed to show if you care about something,' Sean Combs told the New York Times. 'You've got to keep that straight face. The flip side of that is this album. He's giving up all his vulnerability.'
In the run-up to Ready to Die's release, Biggie married the R&B singer Faith Evans, his label-mate on Bad Boy, on August 4, 1994. They wed just days after meeting at a photoshoot. Evans went on to be featured on 'One More Chance,' the fourth single from Ready to Die, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and was certified platinum. She gave birth to their son, Christopher 'CJ' Wallace Jr. on October 29, 1996.
Biggie and Tupac's Feud
But perhaps the most significant date in Biggie's rollercoaster year was November 29, 1994. This was the day Tupac Shakur was shot five times during a robbery in a recording-studio lobby in New York. Shakur survived, but believed Biggie and his label boss Combs had orchestrated the attack. It didn't help that the B-side to Biggie's single 'Big Poppa,' released a little more than two months after the incident, featured the song 'Who Shot Ya?' Tupac interpreted this as Biggie taunting him, and released an explosive diss track, 'Hit 'Em Up,' the following year, on which he claimed to have slept with Biggie's wife. (Evans would speak about this many years later in 2014, when she told MTV that Shakur once hit on her after a recording session, 'but that ain't how I do business,' she said.)
Biggie & Michael Jackson, More Legal Problems
Biggie's next album release came on August 29, 1995, as part of the group Junior MAFIA (an acronym for Masters at Finding Intelligent Attitudes). He had formed the group to mentor young rappers including Lil' Kim, with whom he would have an affair. That year he also became one of the only hip hop artists to collaborate with Michael Jackson on the song 'This Time Around.' (The story goes that Biggie was with another of his Junior MAFIA protégés, Lil Cease, who was then 16, when he was summoned to the studio to record with Jackson. But according to Cease, Biggie would not allow him to meet the King of Pop because he didn't 'trust him with kids.') Biggie also guested on R. Kelly's eponymous album on the track '(You to Be) Be Happy.' By the end of 1995, the Notorious B.I.G. was the biggest-selling solo male artist on the Billboard charts — not only in hip hop, but in pop and R&B, too.
Biggie began working on his second studio album in September 1995 and continued into the following year. But there would be more trouble. In March 1996, he was arrested after chasing two autograph hunters with a baseball bat in Manhattan, threatening to kill them; he was sentenced to 100 hours of community service. Months later police raided his house in New Jersey and found 50 grams of marijuana and four automatic weapons. That same summer, he was charged with beating and robbing a friend of a concert promoter at a New Jersey nightclub. And then in the fall, he was arrested again, this time for smoking marijuana in his car in Brooklyn.
The Death of Tupac
On September 7, 1996, his former friend Tupac Shakur was shot dead in Las Vegas. Nobody has ever been charged for the murder, but as a consequence of the ongoing East Coast/West Coast rap beef that Biggie and Tupac's rivalry had come to embody, and also of Tupac publicly blaming Biggie and Puffy for his non-fatal shooting in 1994, there were plenty who believed that the East Coast rap kingpins were behind Tupac's murder. (Both Biggie and Puffy strenuously denied their involvement and other key suspects have since emerged.)
'It's a funny thing, I kind of realized how powerful Tupac and I was,' reflected Biggie to the interviewer Jim Bean after his great rival's death. 'We two individual people, we waged a coastal beef. You know what i'm saying? One man against one man made a whole West coast hate a whole East Coast. And vice versa. And that really bugged me out . . .Like yo, dude don't like me, so his whole coast don't like me. I don't like him, so my whole coast don't like him. It let me know how much strength I have. So what I'm trying to do now, I've got to be the one to try to flip it. And take my power and flip it, like, yo, because Pac can't be the one to try to squash it because he's gone. So I gotta take the weight on both sides.'
Biggie Smalls Shot to Death in Los Angeles
Sadly, Biggie did not live long enough to see the peace he wished for. He himself was murdered the early hours of March 9, 1997. It happened shortly after he left a Vibe magazine party at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. As Biggie's SUV — in which he was riding with a bodyguard and Lil' Cease — waited at a red light, a vehicle pulled up alongside it, and a gunman opened fire. His bodyguard rushed Biggie to the hospital, but it was already too late.
Like that of Tupac Shakur, the killing of Biggie Smalls would never be solved. There would be no closure. Also like Tupac, Biggie would release a double album posthumously, in Biggie's case a mere fortnight after his demise. On March 25, 1997, Bad Boy released the spookily titled Life After Death. It had collaborations with artists including Puff Daddy, Jay-Z, 112, Lil' Kim, Mase, R Kelly, Darryl 'DMC' McDaniels and Angela Winbush, and would be nominated for three Grammy awards — for best rap album, best solo rap performance for the lead single 'Hypnotize,' and best performance by a duo or group for its second single, 'Mo Money Mo Problems,' which featured Puff Daddy and Mase. The album was certified diamond in 2000 after selling more than 10 million copies.
With his murder seen by many hip hop fans as a tit-for-tat killing, Biggie appeared to continue the beef from beyond the grave on the album track 'Long Kiss Goodnight.' The lyrics seemed to refer to the time Tupac got shot, and survived, in New York ('When my men bust, you just move with such stamina / Slugs missed you, I ain't mad atcha'). But according to the hip hop magazine XXL, the song was likely to have been recorded before Tupac's actual murder. Whatever the case may be, Biggie's shocking fate spelled the end of the East Coast/West Coast rap feud. Things had gotten way out of hand. Two of the greatest rappers to ever pick up a microphone were dead and gone. Hip hop's reputation had been dragged through the gutter. Nobody had any appetite for more.
On March 18, 1997 Biggie's memorial service was held at the the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan among 350 guests, which included Lil Kim, Mary J. Blige, Queen Latifah, Run DMC, Busta Rhymes, Foxy Brown and other high profile artists. Biggie lay in an open mahogany casket dressed in a white suit. After the service, his remains were cremated.
Life After Death: Biggie Smalls' Legacy
But this wasn't the last that the world had heard from Biggie Smalls. He was featured on no fewer than five songs on Puff Daddy's 1997 album, No Way Out. A single from that album, 'I'll Be Missing You,' dedicated to Biggie's memory, won the Grammy for best rap performance by a duo or group in 1998 — ironically beating Biggie himself, whose 'Mo Money Mo Problems' was nominated in the same category. There were two more posthumous albums using previously unreleased material: Born Again in 1999 and Duets: the Final Chapter in 2005 — featuring a host of guests including Eminem, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige and, bizarrely, Bob Marley — also from beyond the grave — and the metal band Korn.
Watch an animated tribute to Biggie Smalls by Steve Stoute, one of Big’s contemporaries who worked as a talent manager and executive at Interscope Records. Stoute is the author of 'The Tanning of America: How Hip Hop Created a Culture that Rewrote the Rules of the New Economy.'
The actor, rapper and comedian Jamal Woolard played Biggie Smalls in a biopic in 2009, which grossed $44 million worldwide. It sparked a war of words between Faith Evans and Lil' Kim, who was upset at her portrayal in the movie. But they have since reconciled, and Kim appears on an album of duets between Evans and Smalls. Titled The King and I, the album reportedly features a mix of familiar and unreleased rhymes.
'At the end of the day we're family, whether we like it or not,' Kim said last year, shortly before she and Evans went on tour. 'I'm part of the estate. She's part of the estate. We're a part of Big, and we both share a lot in common. We all realized how strong we could be together.'
It is a great shame that Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur were not able to reach the same conclusion.
(Photo of Biggie Smalls by Clarence Davis/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images.)
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