Notorious BIG

Hip-hop heavyweight “The Notorious BIG” was born Christopher Wallace on May 21, 1972, in Brooklyn, New York City. Growing up in Brooklyn 's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Wallace performed with local groups such as the Old Gold Brothers and the Techniques. Wallace first entered the recording studio in his teens, going by the name Biggie Smalls.

At age seventeen, he dropped out of high school despite his good grades. Lured by the flashy lifestyle of local drug dealers, Wallace began selling crack. After spending nine months in jail for drug charges, Wallace recorded a demo which made its way to a DJ who worked with Big Daddy Kane named Mister Cee.

From there, the tape got passed on to hip-hop magazine The Source, where Wallace received a positive rap sheet in the unknown artist section. This publicity caught the eye of Uptown Records producer Sean "Puffy" Combs, who immediately signed Wallace to the label. While at Uptown, Wallace continued to sell drugs to support his new daughter until Combs stepped in and set him straight. Soon after Wallace signed on, he split to join Combs at his own label, Bad Boy Records (then called Bad Boy Entertainment.) 

In 1993, Wallace changed his performing name from Biggie Smalls to The Notorious BIG, and made his recording debut on the remix of Mary J. Blige's song “Real Love.”  In September 1994, Wallace released his prophetic debut album, Ready to Die. The album sold over four million copies and established Wallace as a major hip-hop player on the East Coast. Just as Wallace’s career was soaring, so too was his love life.  Not long after the album’s release, Wallace married R&B singer and fellow artist, Faith Evans.

In November 1994, West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur was robbed and shot in a New York recording studio. Shakur survived the attack, and then accused Combs and Wallace of orchestrating it. The West and East Coast rap wars became centered around Combs’s label, Bad Boy, in competition with Suge Knight's label, Death Row. Meanwhile, Wallace collaborated with music moguls Michael Jackson and R. Kelly on their respective albums. He also collaborated with Lil' Kim on her first solo album, and the two entered into an affair.

In September 1996, Tupac Shakur was shot at again and this time murdered in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas strip. Wallace, who was accused of the incident, added fuel to the fire when did not attend an anti-violence hip-hop summit held in Harlem following Shakur's death. Less than a year later, on March 9, 1997, Wallace was also murdered in a drive-by shooting. Today, the two cases remain unsolved.