The Notorious B.I.G.
Brooklyn's rap king — Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls — whose effortless flow and vivid street storytelling made him the defining East Coast voice of the mid-90s. His 1997 murder, still unsolved, cut short one of hip-hop's greatest careers at just 24.
Christopher Wallace, born in Brooklyn in 1972, became the first artist signed to Sean "Puffy" Combs' Bad Boy Records in 1993. His 1994 debut, Ready to Die, introduced a rapper of rare charisma — the rags-to-riches anthem "Juicy" and the smooth "Big Poppa" — and sold multiple millions, reviving East Coast hip-hop at a moment when the West Coast dominated.
That regional rivalry curdled into the infamous East Coast–West Coast feud, pitting Biggie and Bad Boy against Tupac Shakur and Death Row Records. The beef played out in interviews and diss records until Tupac was murdered in Las Vegas in September 1996.
Six months later, on March 9, 1997, Wallace was shot and killed in a drive-by in Los Angeles at age 24; the case remains officially unsolved. His second album, Life After Death, arrived just 16 days afterward, debuted at number one, and spun off the chart-topping hits "Hypnotize" and "Mo Money Mo Problems" — sealing a posthumous legend.
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