Two more studio albums and a collaborative album have been released since his death. He has certified sales of over 17 million units in the United States.
Wallace was born in St. He was the only child of Voletta Wallace, a Jamaican preschool teacher, and Selwyn George Latore, a welder and small-time Jamaican politician. His father left the family when Wallace was two years old, and his mother worked two jobs whilst raising him. He was nicknamed "Big" because of his size by the age of ten. By the time he was twelve, Wallace began selling illegal drugs. His mother, often away at work, was unaware of her son's drug dealing until he was an adult.
According to his mother, Wallace was still a good student but developed a "smart-ass" attitude at the new school. At seventeen years of age, Wallace dropped out of school and became further involved in crime. In , he was arrested on weapons charges in Brooklyn and sentenced to five years' probation. In , he was arrested on a violation of his probation.
One year later, Wallace was arrested in North Carolina for dealing crack cocaine. He spent nine months in jail before making bail. Wallace began rapping when he was a teenager. After being released from jail, Wallace made a demo tape using the name "Biggie Smalls", a reference to a character in the film Let's Do It Again.
The tape was reportedly made with no serious intent of getting a recording deal, but was promoted by New York-based DJ Mister Cee and was heard by the editor of The Source magazine. In March , Wallace was featured in the Unsigned Hype column of The Source , a section dedicated to aspiring rappers, and made a recording off the back of this success. Later in the year, Wallace gained exposure on a remix to Mary J.
Blige's single "Real Love". This was the first use of the stage name The Notorious B. He appeared on remixes to songs by Neneh Cherry and Super Cat. 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 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 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 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 ; from there, Biggie was invited to record with other unsigned rappers. 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 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.
He had been forced to change his recording name after a lawsuit; though he continued to be widely known as Biggie. That same year, as he worked on music for his debut album, Biggie Smalls met Tupac for the first time.
Their encounter, detailed in Ben Westhoff's book, Original Gangstas , took place at a party held by an L. 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. 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.
The Notorious B. The album, Ready to Die , was certified gold within two months, double-platinum the following year, and eventually quadruple-platinum.
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.
The flip side of that is this album. He's giving up all his vulnerability. They wed just days after meeting at a photoshoot. But perhaps the most significant date in Biggie's rollercoaster year was November 30, This was the day Tupac was shot five times during a robbery in a recording-studio lobby in New York.
Tupac urvived, but believed Biggie and his label boss Combs had orchestrated the attack. Shakur claimed that Wallace was partially responsible and later taunted Wallace on one of his songs. He grew up in a poor section of Brooklyn and had many run-ins with the law growing up. Even after he reached stardom in the music world, his legal woes continued. In the summer of he was arrested when police found marijuana and firearms at his New Jersey home.
He also gave a new meaning to fan appreciation when he assaulted a pair of admirers with a baseball bat. Knight was also shot but not wounded seriously in the fatal Las Vegas attack on Shakur and is rumored to have engineered a retaliatory strike against Wallace, whom he held responsible for the Las Vegas shooting.
Knight has been incarcerated for a fatal hit-and-run since But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! It was neither the first nor the last time the party would alter its name to reflect a slight change in allegiance or direction; however, it was the birth of the At the end of a historic case, the U. Supreme Court rules, with only one dissent, that the enslaved Africans who seized control of the Amistad slave ship had been illegally forced into slavery, and thus are free under American law.
In , the U. Congress joined with Great Dropping out of high school at the age of seventeen, Biggie became a crack dealer, which he proclaimed was his only source of income.
Hustlin' one's way was a common life for a young Black man trying to make a living in the ghetto. His career choices involved certain risks. However, a trip to North Carolina for a routine drug exchange ended being the soon-to-be MC a nine-month stay behind bars.
Once released, Biggie borrowed a friend's four-track tape recorder and laid down some hip-hop tracks in a basement. The tapes were then passed around and played at local radio station in New York. Not extremely attractive, Wallace named himself Biggie, for his weight. Biggie was a Black man who was overweight, extremely dark skinned, and had a crook in his eye, yet he was a charmer.
A young impresario and sometime producer by the name of Sean Combs heard Biggie's early tapes. Puffy and Biggie worked on the artist's first album, and the Notorious B. Biggie was first heard on a remix of a Mary J. Blige song and a track on the Who's the Man? After these successes, the album worked on earlier went through its final touches and was released in , titled "Ready to Die.
After the quick success of the album, Biggie went back to get his friends, some who didn't even rhyme. He had several run-ins with the law, on charges that ranged from beatings, to drugs and to weapons, while all claimed that Biggie was a gentle person. He soon met a rapper from the west coast named Tupac Shakur, and the two became friends.
Tupac supported Biggie and was often giving him advice. However, their friendship turned into the most violent era of hip-hop music on November 30, Tupac was shot five times. Biggie rushed down just in time to see Tupac being loaded into an ambulance. Extending a middle finger, Pac blamed Biggie for the shooting and said that Biggie knew about it and failed to warn him.
This sparked the East Coast, West Coast rivalry. Tupac later recovered from his injuries. During this encounter, Biggie admitted that he was scared for his life.
Biggie never responded to any of Tupac's disses. Tupac attacked Biggie in every way he could, even starting strong rumors that there was a love affair between Tupac and Biggie's wife, Faith Evans.
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