Table of Contents
Live from
Bedford Stuyvesant
the livest one
representing BK
to the fullest
The Notorious B.I.G.,
Unbelievable, 1994
Dedicated to my unbelievable grandfather, the notorious Lt. Col. Bertram W. Wilson, a Tuskegee airman who flew with the 100th Fighter Squadron during World War II. Like Christopher Wallace, he loved forty-dollar steaks, fast cars, fly women, proving all playa-hatas wrong, and most of all, the place that shaped his attitudes and tastes, New York City. The finest man I have ever known.
I miss you, Granddaddy. Every day.
FOREWORD
THE THRILL IS GONE
by Bnz Malone
Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads.
Erica Jong
When Christopher Biggie Smalls Wallace was searching for a record deal in 1992, he came up to see me at Island Records, where I was working in A&R at the time. He rolled through with my man Matt-Life and offered me a brash challengefrom one Brooklynite to another. We would play cee-lo, the classic curbside hustlers convention dice game. And if he won? Well, I guess I would owe the brother a record deal.
Maaan, it was on! We rolled them bones from 5 P.M. till after 8. I was snap-pin my fingers so hard they started bleeding. All of a sudden, the Notorious one started playin hot. On the last roll, he threw a pound and told me I better Go get a pen so he could sign that contract.
Five years laterand forty-eight hours after the murder of my friend ChristopherI sat in my lonely studio apartment, thinking of how close we became, the meals we had together, and about how different both of our lives might have been if I hadnt rolled that game-winning head crack. One toss of the dice, in effect, delivered the Notorious B.I.G. straight to Bad Boy Entertainment.
Biggie was damn crafty; Id never known any aspiring artist to get down for his crown with an A&R guy like that before. Id never seen an MC standing in front of his building wearing a Bermuda shirt and shorts, draped with a .357 Magnum, either. When I asked him why he had the strap, he said, Somebody called my crib and said they were comin to get me so Im waiting for em.
Ultimately, this was a B.I.G. brother who believed that real people do real things. A grown-ass man who knew the difference between gun powder and divine power and trusted only the will of God, the luck of the draw, and the loyalty and respect of his famplus the whole Hip Hop Nation.
Biggies voice is still on the air and his name is still in the air seven years after his family laid him to rest. Some people swear hes the greatest MC of all time. Others have portrayed him as a thug, a sex symbol, or a crime lord. Personally, I could live with the death of Biggie Smalls the image. But now, Im forced to live without Christopher Wallace the person. And thats a difficult reality to face.
I have yet to read this book, although Ive been asked to write the foreword. Without knowing what secrets and revelations unfold hereinand just to prove that whats true in one place is universally true in all placesI will share with you the same counsel I once gave the king:
There are two sides to every one-way street and theres only one question that puts you on that yellow line in its center: Will you be an artist or a gangster? Both create images of hero worship. Both have plenty of underlings present to watch you destroy yourself at the height of your career. All young men are faced with this question once they get introduced to the street life. Although hip hop was created to defuse gang violence, it doesnt have the power to exempt you from making a choice. It can only help absolve you to yourself, in one way or another.
The title of this book may be Unbelievable, but for an only child raised by his mom, the story certainly is not. Christopher Wallace made his choice to be the Bad Boy of the block so that his moms could walk the streets with juice. So that his kids and his crew could live off the lyrics he wrote for them and own property from their publishing. Because he believed it was all going to pay off for him one day, not pay him off some day. If Satan stepped to Christ himself and offered Him all the kingdoms of the earth, then jumping out on St. James Place with 24-inch dubz aint nothing for the devil to do! It can happen to you too. And if youre like me, it already has.
Christopher Wallace and I were friends and I respected him, but so did those that hated himbecause he had become both the artist and the gangster. Biggie absolved the two personas to himself with such command of presence that it became impossible to differentiate between them. Like many of our associates in the rap industry, he knew that the pen is mightier than the sword. He also knew that a pen and a sword make a king. The nonchalance of his delivery was labeled legendary from the moment he picked up the habit. It will live in infamy until the industry he conquered one day implodes. May the story of his life show both the blessing and the malediction of someone who did more for others than for himself, and who had the courage to make the wrong choice for the right reason.
The only way to serve God is to be a gangster of His will, in one way or another. Believe that.
INTRODUCTION
ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS?
Stereotypes of a black male misunderstood And its still all good
Just relax, man. Kick back. Its all good.
The Notorious B.I.G. sat in the cabana area near the pool at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills wearing his trademark Versace sunglasses, sipping from a glass of lemonade and puffing on a potent marijuana-filled cigar in clear defiance of a posted NO SMOKING sign. It was a sunny afternoon on February 14, 1997, and Christopher Wallace was very much in character as B.I.G., the hustler god he personified on his hit records. But the cane resting near his deck chair was not just a player accessoryhe truly had trouble getting around since the car crash that fractured his right leg five months earlier. He was taking his time, slowly re-learning how to walk on his own.
Old friends like D-Roc and Lil Cease kept popping in to see if he needed anything. His pager buzzed incessantly with women sending Valentines Day wishes. He ignored most of them because hed already spoken with the first and most important love of his life, his mother Voletta Wallace. Valentines Day was also her birthday. He told her he was sorry he couldnt help her celebrate in person, but that he was happy to be right where he was. New York was cold, and B.I.G. was way out west to make a music video, drop some rhymes, smoke some sticky green bud, and play in the sun.
I thought of the kid I met three years earlier, standing in unlaced Timberland boots on his block in Brooklyn. Hed recently returned from the Hamptons, a plush Long Island suburb where he and Sean Puffy Combs had filmed the video for B.I.G.s first hit single, the rags-to-riches tale Juicy. Combs would eventually buy a $2.5 million house in the exclusive area. But Wallace remembered being unnerved by the quiet, wondering aloud how someone could make real rap records if they woke up in the morning hearing birds and crickets.
