Christopher George Latore Wallace (May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997), known professionally as the Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls, was an American rapper and songwriter. Rooted in the East Coast hip-hop and gangsta rap traditions, he is widely considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. Wallace became known for his distinctive, laidback lyrical delivery, offsetting his lyrics' often grim content. His music was semi-autobiographical, telling of hardship and criminality but also of debauchery and celebration.
Wallace was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City. In 1993, he became the first artist to sign with Sean Combs's Bad Boy Records and gained recognition for his guest appearances on other artists' singles. His debut studio album, Ready to Die (1994), received acclaim and included the successful singles "Juicy", "Big Poppa", and "One More Chance". Ready to Die made Wallace the central figure of East Coast hip-hop and helped restore its prominence at a time when the West Coast was dominating the genre. In 1995, Wallace was named Rapper of the Year at the Billboard Music Awards, and with his protégé group, Junior M.A.F.I.A.—which included longtime friends like Lil' Kim and Lil' Cease—released the album Conspiracy.
While working on his second album in 1995, Wallace became embroiled in the growing East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry, including a feud with his former friend Tupac Shakur. After Shakur was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996, rumors circulated suggesting that Wallace might have been involved, given the two artists' feud. On March 9, 1997, six months after Shakur's murder, Wallace was also killed in a drive-by shooting by an unknown assailant, while visiting Los Angeles. Two weeks later, Life After Death (1997) was released as a posthumous double album; it debuted atop the Billboard 200, yielded the Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Hypnotize" and "Mo Money Mo Problems", and received diamond certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Three more posthumous albums followed: Born Again (1999), Duets: The Final Chapter (2005) and The King & I (with Faith Evans; 2017). Wallace's certified U.S. sales exceed 28 million copies, including 21 million albums. Rolling Stone called him the "greatest rapper that ever lived", and Billboard named him the greatest rapper of all time in 2015. The Source named him the greatest rapper of all time in its 150th issue. In 2006, MTV ranked him at No. 3 on their list of The Greatest MCs of All Time, calling him possibly "the most skillful ever on the mic". In 2020, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Christopher George Latore Wallace was born at Cumberland Hospital in Brooklyn, New York City, on May 21, 1972. Wallace was the only child of Jamaican immigrant parents; his mother, Voletta Wallace (died 2025), was a preschool teacher, while his father, Selwyn George Latore, was a welder. At the age of five, he began attending preschool at Quincy-Lexington Open Door Day Care Center, where he was already bigger than most of the other children. Three months before Wallace's third birthday, his father left the family, leaving his mother to raise him while working two jobs. He grew up in Brooklyn's Clinton Hill, near the border of Bedford-Stuyvesant. As a child, Wallace spent most of his time on Fulton Street, where he was introduced to drug dealing, alcoholism, and gambling. Raised as a Jehovah's Witness, Wallace attended St. Peter Claver Church in Brooklyn, graduating from the parish elementary school in 1982. He excelled in English at Queen of All Saints Middle School. He attended Westinghouse High School, a public school attended by several future celebrities, including Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes.
While attending Westinghouse High School, Wallace weighed 91 kilograms (201 lb), which earned him the nickname "Big". During this period, his interest in drug dealing intensified, having been influenced by the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. A friend introduced him to buying and selling marijuana when he was around the age of twelve. Having grown up in a strict household, Wallace concealed the money he earned on the roof of his apartment. His mother had no idea about this; she only discovered it when he was twenty years old. Despite being an honor student, Wallace dropped out of school at the age of sixteen due to his growing interest in drug dealing. In 1989, he was arrested in Brooklyn on weapons charges and sentenced to five years of probation. The following year, he was arrested for violating that probation. A year later, Wallace was arrested in North Carolina for dealing crack cocaine and spent nine months in jail before making bail.
Early in his life, Wallace was influenced by Black artists like the Dramatics, Blue Magic, Teddy Pendergrass, Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye. He was also well acquainted with the performances of Parliament-Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Kool & the Gang, and Chic. During visits to Jamaica he was influenced by its prominent native genres, including jazz, reggae, soul, and mento. As Wallace entered adolescence, he started listening to artists like Run-DMC and LL Cool J. Wallace adopted the stage name MC CWest and formed the Techniques with his two friends Michael Bynum and Hubert Sams. Wallace met Donald Harrison, a saxophonist from New Orleans, and the Techniques worked on their first songs together at Harrison's home studio. As the trio grew older, their interests shifted; Sams became focused on high school football, while Bynum lost interest in the music industry. Wallace adopted his second stage name, Biggie Smalls, from Calvin Lockhart's character in the 1975 film Let's Do It Again.
1991–1994: Early career and first child
After his release from jail, Wallace produced his first demo tape in 1991 called Microphone Murderer with a disc jockey named 50 Grand. Although Wallace reportedly had little ambition for the tape, local disc jockey Mister Cee, known for his work with Big Daddy Kane and the Juice Crew, discovered and promoted it. Mister Cee sent the tape to Matteo Capoluongo (aka Matty C), an editor at The Source magazine, who featured the track in the "Unsigned Hype" section in March 1992, a chart dedicated to showcasing promising rappers. That year, Wallace started gaining exposure; after reading the "Unsigned Hype" section, Sean Combs arranged to meet him. Combs connected Wallace to rhyme on the remix of Mary J. Blige's hit "Real Love".
In 1992, Wallace's girlfriend, Jan Jackson, became pregnant, and he was signed to Uptown Records in March by Combs. Wallace's first chance to record a solo track for Uptown Records, rather than featuring on another artist's remix, came in 1993 when Combs was creating a song for the soundtrack of the hip-hop comedy Who's the Man? The song was "Party and Bullshit", produced by the Brooklyn-based Easy Mo Bee. The song was heavily inspired by "When the Revolution Comes" by the Last Poets, which uses sarcasm, frustration, and humor to critique young Black people's lack of seriousness in the struggle for equality. In the track, vocalist Umar Bin Hassan delivers lines like "niggas will party and bullshit, and party and bullshit". Development on Wallace's first album began at Capoluongo's apartment in late 1992. Wallace appeared on Heavy D & the Boyz's 1992 album Blue Funk, on the track "A Buncha Niggas".
In July 1993—a month before Wallace's first child was born—Combs was fired from Uptown Records by his mentor Andre Harrell, resulting in the loss of access to the songs recorded at that time. Jan gave birth to T'yanna Dream Wallace on August 8, 1993. Wallace promised his daughter "everything she wanted," believing that if he had experienced the same support in his own childhood, he would have graduated at the top of his class. Soon after he was fired, Combs started his own record label, Bad Boy Records, and promptly signed Wallace to the label. Combs discovered that Wallace continued dealing drugs and insisted he stop. When Wallace found out the name Biggie Smalls was already taken, he adopted a new moniker, settling on the Notorious B.I.G. Wallace explained that the acronym "B.I.G." stood for "Business Instead of Game". Combs and Clive Davis, then CEO of Arista Records, reached an agreement in which Davis provided Combs with a $1.5 million advance and full creative control. Combs promptly used the money to repurchase the tracks recorded for Wallace's album from Harrell.