hypnotize
Born in Brooklyn NY, May 21, 1972 as Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, he was raised by a single mother in the poor Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. His father left Christopher at the young age of two leaving his mother a daunting task of raising their son alone on a preschool teachers salary. Although he started out as an excellent student he later dropped out of high school at age seventeen. Growing up in the crack epidemic of the 80′s, “Big” claimed this was the only way he could make an income. Hustling was not an uncommon life for a young, poor, Black man living in the ghettos of Brooklyn. This career choice involved risks which ultimately led to a 9 month stay behind bars after a routine drug deal went bad in North Carolina. This may have been the turn for Big which by the way was a nickname he earned in high school for his large size. Biggie learned a new trade while in prison and after his release using a borrowed tape recorder he made his first hip-hop tracks from a basement. These infamous tapes got passed around and played at local radio stations in New York. And so the story begins….
Biggie was not a very attractive Black man, he was an extremely large, dark skinned man but had a certain charm that could not be missed. It was not long after his tapes started circulating that they caught the ear of an young, up and coming producer by the name of Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs (also known as Puffy) while working at Uptown records. B.I.G. was originally signed by Uptown but when Puffy was let go he followed Puffy to his new label, Bad Boy Records. With this new relationship came a new name, the Notorious B.I.G. releasing a series of remixes and collaborating with on several projects.
Releasing his first album in 1994, Notorious B.I.G. achieved much success with the album reaching Platinum status not once but four times. He was later named MC of the year at the 1995 Billboard Music Awards. But with success came more troubles for Big Poppa, he was in and out of trouble with the law, trying to bring along old friends from the ghetto and forming new friendships that would later lead to one of the worst turf wars between the East Coast/West Coast.
Events escalated after Biggie’s friendship with fellow artist Tupac Shakur went south. Tupac had been gunned down and robbed in the lobby where Puffy and Biggie Smalls were recording a new album. Tupac blamed Biggie citing he knew about the attack and failed to warn him. The war between the East Coast and West Coast was not a good thing, Tupac recovered from the attack but never let it go that Biggie was at fault until a secret meeting between the two in which he revealed to BIG that he was just trying to sell some records. Unfortunately it was too little to late as Tupac was gunned down in Las Vegas and later died.
In March 1997, the Notorious BIG music went on and he traveled to California to promote his new album and film his new music video. Then on March 9, 1997 while traveling with his entourage from a party, Biggie was gunned down in his suburban being pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m. Only fifteen days after his death, his second album entitled Life After Death was released and almost immediately went to #1 on the Billboard album charts. It was on this album that the single Hypnotize was released in April and quickly went to #2 on Billboards top songs chart and then to #1 the following week. This made Biggie Smalls the fifth artist in the Hot 100 history to have a post humus chart-topper. At the 1998 Grammy awards, Hypnotize was nominated for Best Rap Solo Performance but it had already reached fame status as it was also played at his funeral. Biggie-Hypnotize, the power of music and the life of one of the greatest rap artists of all time.
Natasha Ray currently works at a recording studio and wants to pay tribute to one of the greatest Rap artist of all time, Biggie Smalls. If you liked this article and would like to find out more about the man behind the music and the lyrics to some of his most popular songs, please visit Natasha at Biggie-Hypnotize.
System Of A Down – Hypnotize #04
