Tuesday, March 11, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
"You wanna see me locked up, shot up, Mom's crouched up over the casket screamin b------; crying, knowing my friends is lying, ya'll know who killed him," Wallace rapped in the upcoming album "Life After Death ... 'Til Death Do Us Part."
The lyrics were prophetic: Christopher Wallace, also known as The Notorious B.I.G. or Biggie Smalls, was shot to death Sunday. He was 24.
A drive-by shooter killed Wallace as he left a party for industry artists and executives. Stickers on the vehicle he was killed in bore the message "Think B.I.G., March 25, 1997," the release date of his album.
Once a crack-selling kid who had a knack for rhyming, Wallace became a hulking man who commanded respect as the king of East Coast rap.
The Notorious B.I.G. was a dapper dresser at 280 pounds and more than 6 feet tall, often topped with a derby hat.
Wallace was Billboard Rap Artist of the Year in 1995. His single, "One More Chance/Stay With Me," was named the best rap single that same year, after debuting at No. 5.
His debut album, "Ready to Die," sold more than 1 million copies.
"He knew where he came from and he knew what was up," said Peter Spirer, who worked with Wallace on the newly released rap documentary "Rhyme & Reason."
"I think the guy had a great ability of being able to talk about his environment."
The music is hard for some to listen to and even harder for some to understand.
"I was full-time, 100 percent hustler, sellin' drugs, waking up early in the morning, hitting the set selling my s--- 'til the crack of dawn. My mother goin' to work would see me out there in the morning. That's how I was on it," he said in an Arista Records biography.
But this "gangsta" rapper was also a new father who looked at what he was doing as a business.
"He was a money maker," said the manager of a well-known Los Angeles rap artist who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It was all about his money, very serious, very cool and very respectable. He built it from the ground up."
On "Ready to Die," Wallace rapped about taking over a new drug territory.
"I had the master plan, I'm in the caravan, on my way to Maryland, with my man Two Techs to take over these projects. They call his 'Two Techs' he totes two techs, and when he starts to bust he likes to ask, 'Who's next?"
Kurtis Blow, a disc jockey for KPWR-Los Angeles, said Wallace had a distinctive, East Coast style.
"Biggie was smooth, his vocal delivery was one of pure silk," Blow said. "He was the chill gangster. His lyrics were really hardcore expressing his innermost feelings coming from a Brooklyn ghetto, and he was real, because everything he said, he lived that life. There was no ifs, ands or buts about it."
Wallace visited the station a few weeks ago, and music director Damion said the rapper was positive and happy to be in Los Angeles, despite rumors of an East Coast-West Coast rivalry.
"This guy didn't want any of this drama, he was finishing his album," Damion said.
"He said 'I'm out on the West Coast and I'm gettin' mad love."'
In an interview Friday, Wallace told the Los Angeles Times he had begun thinking more about where his life was headed.
"When you start making a whole lot of money and you start living too fast, it's up to you to slow yourself down," he said.
"You can't be getting drunk, smoking two or three ounces of weed a day, and (having sex) with all these different females. Something's bound to happen."
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