The Notorious B.I.G.

The Notorious BIG was born Christopher G. Wallace on May 21, 1972 in Brooklyn, New York. He was the son of a pre-school teacher. He did well in school, as he was on the honor roll. He dropped out of school at the age of 17, when he decided to sell crack. Selling crack was his way of achieving success in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Brooklyn ghetto he grew up in. When visiting North Carolina on a business trip, he was caught selling the substance and sent to prison for 9-months.

Christopher started out rapping under the alias Biggie Smalls. After being released from prison, he sent a demo tape to The Source, the leading hip-hop magazine in the nation. After getting excellent reviews from The Source, he was discovered by Sean "Puffy" Combs, the Suge Knight of the east-coast. Puffy at the time was an executive at Uptown Records. He soon left Uptown, and fled with Biggie to form Bad Boy Records.

Biggie first made his debut featured on Mary J. Blige's 1993 track, Real Love. He made a name for himself on another Mary J. Blige remix track titled What's the 411?. He was also featured on the Who's the Man? soundtrack, rapping Party and Bullshit, which was his first solo recording.

In 1994, Notorious BIG released his first album, titled Ready to Die. The album, which became one of the most popular of the year, featured two of his better-known singles, Juicy and Big Poppa. Big Poppa proved to be his most successful single of the album, as it was honored as the best rap single of the year by Billboard. He also tied a record for the best debut for a single with One More Chance. He tied Michael Jackson, with the single debuting at number 5 on the pop singles chart. The album, which went double-platinum, earned Biggie the Rapper of the Year award at the '95 Billboard Awards.

He had several encounters with the law. In '95, him and Sean Combs were accused of setting up the November shooting of Tupac Shakur. Both Combs and Biggie denied the charges, it broke apart the friendship that Biggie and 2Pac once shared. He also chased several of his fans down after they had harassed him for autographs in New York. He chased them down in a cab, and when he caught up to them, he attack the windows of the fans with baseball bats. Shortly after he released his first album, he married Faith Evans. He also had an affair with Lil Kim. He produced her album Hardcore, which went platinum. He also formed a clique named the Junior M.A.F.I.A., whom had a '95 album titled "Conspiracy", which went gold.

On March 8, 1997, he attended The Soul Train Music Awards, and after a party the morning of March 9, he was shot to death in his GMC Suburban. He died instantly. No one has ever been convicted of his death, though most believe it was retaliation for his rival and former friend, Tupac Shakur's death. Three weeks after his death, his second album Life After Death was released. The album debuted at number 1, featuring such tracks as Hypnotize and Mo Money Mo Problems. The album was the first rap album to reach diamond status. Two years after his death, another album, Born Again was released. It had 18 of his unreleased tracks that he had produced prior to his death.