


The article was enough to catch the attention of Sean "Puffy" Combs, a young producer at Uptown Entertainment, a New York-based label specializing in hip-hop and rhythm and blues. After a tape of his landed in the hands of Mister Cee, a well-known DJ, Smalls was featured in the hip-hop publication, The Source. He hooked on with a crew called the "Old Gold Brothers," and began experimenting on his own.Īround his neighborhood, Biggie Smalls, as he called himself then, began building a reputation as a musician. As he navigated his young, uncertain life, Biggie started making music. It didn't matter where you went, it was all in your face."Īt the age of 17, Biggie was arrested for selling crack, and spent nine months in a North Carolina prison before making bail. "Everything happened on the strip I grew up in. As a result, by his early teens, Biggie had joined the life that was all around him. Biggie, or "The Notorious B.I.G," as he'd later become known, experienced a rough childhood-at an early age, he was surrounded by drug addicts and dealers.

Biggie was killed in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997.Īmerican hip-hop star Biggie Smalls was born as Christopher George Latore Wallace on in Brooklyn, New York, in the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. His 1994 debut album, Ready to Die, was a smash hit, and his long-running feud with fellow rapper, Tupac Shakur, helped to shape his career. He started experimenting with music as a teenager and, not long after, befriended Sean "Puffy" Combs. Born as Christopher Wallace on May 21, 1972, in Brooklyn, New York, Biggie Smalls, also known as Notorious B.I.G., became a drug dealer at a young age.
