X-1 Biggie Smalls

Biggie Smalls, aka The Notorious BIG, aka Christopher Wallace is the most iconic person in the rap and hip-hop industry next to Tupac Shakur. Biggie was born on May 21^st, 1972 in Brooklyn, New York. Biggie began dealing drugs at a very young age. When he was a teenager, he found an interest in music and started experimenting with it. He befriended Sean “Puffy” Combs, also known as “P. Diddy”. Biggie was born in a rough area of Brooklyn in a neighborhood called Bedford-Stuyvesant. At an early age he was surrounded by drug addicts and dealers. As a result of his upbringing, he was entered into a life of drugs, and crime. In an interview with Biggie, he said “Hustlers were my heroes, everything happened on the strip I grew up in. It didn't matter where you went; it was all in your face”.  At the age of seventeen, he was arrested for selling crack cocaine and he stayed in a North Carolina prison for nine months until making bail. After being released, he started following his interest in music. He started gaining notoriety around the neighborhood that 

he used to deal in. He caught the attention of producer Sean Combs. Combs split off from the label he was working for, and set up his own label called “Bad Boy” records. He immediately signed Biggie. Biggie got to work as soon as he could and started remixing Mary J. Blige's single, "Real Love”. In 1994, he released his debut album titled “Ready to Die”. The album told the story of his life.  It went back to the days of dealing, and selling drugs, to his rise in the rap game. The record had massively influential hits such as “Juicy”, and “Big Poppa”. The record went platinum, and the young rapper Biggie was thrown into stardom.  Success was hard on Biggie though. With the fame, came money. With money, came critics. Biggie became extremely paranoid. It led him to act out with aggression. He was reported assaulting a club owner over a cancelled show. After the event, he took a baseball bat to some reporters. His most famous feud was with fellow rap star, Tupac Shakur. Tupac was a west coast rapper, and they naturally didn’t like each other. I won’t get into specifics of the feud, but it eventually led to the death of Tupac Shakur, and Biggie Smalls. A rap game feud led to the death of the two most influential Rappers the game has ever seen. They both died before their time.