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. Immediately, The Notorious B. Blige's single, "Real Love," and followed it up with a second Blige remix, "What's the ? In , The Notorious B. Backed with hits like "Juicy" and "Big Poppa," the record went platinum and the young hip-hop artist became a full-fledged star.
As his star power increased, Biggie did his best to share his prestige. He backed the work of several rappers that he'd originally performed with while starting out in Brooklyn, and took to the studio in support of other artists on Sean "Puffy" Combs ' label.
He also teamed up with such stars as Michael Jackson and R. By the close of , Biggie was one of music's best-selling and most sought after performers. However, success and wealth hardly brought peace to Biggie's life. In the immediate aftermath of Ready to Die's popularity, the rapper found himself in constant fear.
In , he told The New York Times that he was disliked for having more money, which came with his fame. The large rapper—at 6 feet and three inches, and tipping the scales at nearly pounds—said that he jumped whenever the door to his apartment building opened, fearing that someone might want to hurt him. Biggie's fear led to anxiety, which led to spurts of aggression. In May , he allegedly beat up a man after they got into a dispute over a canceled performance.
Later, he took a baseball bat to a group of autograph seekers. His most famous battles, however, occurred with others in the hip-hop industry, most notably with Tupac Shakur , Marion "Suge" Knight and Death Row Records. The rivalry turned into an East Coast-West Coast feud with Combs and Biggie representing the East , and the tension escalated in , when Shakur and a member of the Wu-Tang Clan were shot and robbed. The two men survived and Shakur came out blazing, accusing Biggie and Combs of orchestrating the attack.
Both vehemently denied the accusation. Shakur added fuel to the flames with a pointed slam on the East Coast rap world in the single, "Hit 'Em Up," in which he claimed to have slept with Biggie's wife, Faith Evans. Rumors of Biggie's involvement immediately began to make the rounds, and when the rapper was one of the few hip-hop artists not to make an appearance at an anti-violence summit that was held in Harlem a few weeks later, the finger-pointing intensified.
Shakur 's death amplified Biggie's fears about his own life, and his concern was tragically validated on March 9, Biggie, who had just come out of the Soul Train Music Awards, was sitting in an SUV when another vehicle pulled up to his car, opened fire and killed him. His second album, Life After Death, was released two weeks later and reached number one on the Billboard - and eventually achieved a Diamond certification in the US.
One theory suggests Biggie was killed by mistake and that P. Diddy was the original target of the shooter. Diddy had received multiple death threats and his security guard confronted a man who had approached Combs' car just moments before the shooting.
Both rappers had been waiting for cars to pick them up outside the Peterson Automotive Museum in LA after an after-party. Combs' security guard told his driver to run a red light rather than stopping at a junction, knowing they wouldn't have been safe to sit at the lights. Biggie's driver however didn't follow suit and they sat at the lights for around a minute.
He was arrested in on robbery and aggravated assault charges and again in when police found marijuana and firearms in his home. Such encounters with the law and his honesty regarding his drug dealing helped Smalls construct a gangsta rap persona built on authenticity.
Interested in rap from a young age, he began performing with local rap crews including the Old Gold Brothers where his skill with words — both verbal and written — was soon being celebrated and appreciated. Voletta Wallace poses for a photo with a wax figure of her son, Biggie Smalls.
Ready to Die would be the only studio album released in his lifetime. We did have a very violent relationship. A man displays a t-shirt tribute to Smalls on March 18, , as friends and fans lined the funeral procession route through his old neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Upon finding out, Combs is said to have tried to make him stop. Drawn into the East Coast-West Coast hip-hop rivalry following the success of Ready to Die , Smalls came to represent the East Coast alongside Bad Boy Records, while rapper and former friend Tupac Shakur and Los Angeles-based Death Row Records were the West Coast, with both sides taking subliminal and blunt digs against the other in music releases, videos and interviews.
On September 7, , Shakur was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, and no culprit was apprehended, and rumors circulated that Smalls was somehow implicated in the death due to the ongoing feud , rumors Smalls refuted. While stopped at a red light, a black car pulled alongside the vehicle in which Smalls was traveling and the rapper was shot four times with a pistol brandished from the parallel car.
Rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center he was pronounced dead at a.
0コメント