The Notorious B.I.G.

He was an American rapper and songwriter. Rooted in East Coast hip hop and particularly gangsta rap, he is widely considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. Wallace became known for his distinctive laid-back lyrical delivery, offsetting the lyrics’ often grim content. His music was often semi-autobiographical, telling of hardship and criminality, but also of debauchery and celebration.

During 1996, while recording his second album, Wallace became ensnarled in the escalating East Coast–West Coast hip hop feud. Speculations of his involvement following Tupac Shakur‘s death on September 1996 in Las Vegas. On March 9, 1997, six months after Shakur’s death, Wallace was murdered in a drive-by shooting while visiting Los Angeles. The assailant remains unidentified. Wallace’s second album Life After Death, a double album, was released two weeks later. It reached number one on the Billboard 200, and eventually achieved a diamond certification in the United States. With two more posthumous albums released, Rolling Stone has called him the “greatest rapper that ever lived”, Billboard named him the greatest rapper of all time, The Source magazine named him the greatest rapper of all time in its 150th issue and 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.