On 9 January, Notorious - the biopic covering the tumultuous life, groundbreaking art and tragic death of Christopher Wallace, AKA hip-hop icon Notorious BIG - premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Nestled just a few subway stops away from Biggie's old Bedford-Stuyvesant stomping ground, the BAM played host to an eclectic crowd. Present were Brooklyn Borough president Marty Markowitz (who would invoke one of BIG's most memorable couplets, "Spread love, it's the Brooklyn way"), his mentor and label chief, Sean "P Diddy" Combs, New York radio personality DJ Mister Cee, who was instrumental in his early career, and his mother Voletta Wallace, who served as film producer and practically willed the picture into existence. They were all gathered to pay tribute and see the film, though for them - and for many of Biggie's fans - Notorious will seem like familiar ground. It's a movie many have seen already.
As one of hip-hop's most innately gifted lyricists, Biggie Smalls came of age in a time when music fans wanted a story to go along with the records they were consuming, and artists' success was as dependent on their representation in videos as it was on their music. Biggie understood this. His was a career that served as a perpetual autobiography; myth-making in music. His first album detailed his humble beginnings and his second revelled in his success as much as it predicted his violent downfall.
Early Biggie records make his inspiration explicit. Growing up in Brooklyn in the late-80s and early-90s, Biggie lived through New York City's socially apocalyptic crack cocaine epidemic. And, as if the environmental stress wasn't enough, he faced the domestic trials of being raised by a single mother. His music was a vehicle to rescue himself and his mother from this world.
Which is why there's a sad sense of symmetry to Notorious. Just as Biggie's music was largely a tool to aid his mother, this film is, for Voletta Wallace, a way of repaying the favour. "I wouldn't call it closure, that's not what I get from this," says a weary Wallace at the end of a long day of interviews in midtown Manhattan. "I guess I feel a sense of accomplishment. This project was for Christopher; for people to always remember him, and to see how he became the man he was."
Spearheaded by Voletta Wallace, the movie functions as a monument of sorts to Biggie, but more through its sheer existence than any sort of profound statement on his life and death. Notorious is an accomplished look at Biggie's life, especially in the sections dealing with his early days in Brooklyn (where a young Christopher Wallace is eerily portrayed by his own real-life son, Christopher Wallace Jr), growing up in a single-parent household in a neighbourhood wilting under the strain of drugs and violence.
But for the real story, one might be better suited to listening to one of Biggie's early singles, Juicy, and watching its accompanying video. Juicy is nothing short of an origin myth for the legend that was to come. Beginning with a swift, lyrical middle finger to all the neighbours, unsympathetic teachers and ball-busting police officers that hindered his hustle, Juicy talks about a life saved by music, albeit delivered by a man keen to prove his doubters wrong, one lavish purchase at a time.
In the years leading up to the release of his 1994 debut album, Ready To Die, Biggie flitted in and out of jail, on and off the streets, ostracising his mother and honing a talent that would be his temporary salvation. Juicy tells the story of a wayward soul saved by NYC radio heavies such as Funkmaster Flex and Marley Marl. Its Hype Williams-directed video is rich with detailed imagery: the bodegas that line Brooklyn's sidewalks, narcotics officers making petty drug busts, inmates doing time in New York City's infamous Tombs holding cells.
The second half of the video takes place in heaven (which is basically a pool of barely clothed women, good friends, rivers of Cristal and the sweet smell of success). Biggie opines an open-hearted note to his mother:
"Thinkin' back on my one-room shack/Now my mom pimps a Ac' with minks on her back... We used to fuss when the landlord dissed us/No heat, wonder why Christmas missed us/Birthdays was the worst days/Now we sip champagne when we thirst-ay/Uh, damn right I like the life I live/'Cause I went from negative to positive".
And in a perfect world that would be that. But clearly Biggie knew something about his life and about his future, because this victory lap, a song which Voletta Wallace fondly recalls as a personal favourite, is nestled in the middle of an album called Ready To Die. Biggie was chillingly prescient about how the dangers of the streets would follow him wherever he went. According to Wallace, the streets and success had equal impact on him. "When he was with me, I taught him to respect women," she says. "I taught him not to curse, I taught him that doing and selling drugs was bad. After he left me, that's when he picked up those habits."
Life After Death, Biggie's colossal second album, released in 1997, a little over two weeks after his murder in Los Angeles, continued to work the livewire tension Biggie found between his aspirations and his fears.
On the surface the albums of Notorious BIG ushered in an era of unflinching materialism and lionisation of drug dealing; two tropes that have served the countless number of rappers that followed him. But really, it's in Biggie's self-authored mythology that you see his true influence. This was the rapper-as-superman; not infallible, but certainly larger than life. It's in Biggie's rhymes about his rags-to-riches trip from dealing drugs on the street corners to riding in yachts, that 50 Cent first formulated his own death-defying trip up America's tax brackets; and it's in Biggie's paranoia, the kind that permeates Life After Death tracks like What's Beef? that you hear the pitfalls-of-fame that Eminem exploited on his crazy-fan smash Stan.
The film does a respectable job at capturing these moments; but ultimately, as caringly crafted as the film is, as lovingly shepherded as it was by his still-grieving mother, nothing can tell Biggie's story like the man himself. The film is a noble gesture. His music is the monument.
Notorious is out 13 Feb
The rise and fall of Biggie Smalls
21 May 1973 Christopher George Latore Wallace is born to Voletta Wallace and George Latore in Brooklyn, New York. Latore leaves when his son is two and the two have minimal contact.
1989 After leaving George Westinghouse School (other pupils include Busta Rhymes, DMX and Jay-Z) at 17, Wallace is arrested on weapons charges and receives five years probation. A year later, he is arrested for dealing crack cocaine, and spends nine months in prison.
1991 Still selling drugs, the six-foot-three, 350lbs Wallace records a demo as Biggie Smalls.
Mar 1992 DJ Mister Cee is given Biggie's demo, and passes it on to The Source mag who crown him Unsigned Hype of the month. Budding music exec Sean Combs signs him to Uptown Records, home of Mary J Blige and Jodeci.
Jun 1992 Uptown CEO, Andre Harrell, fires Puffy, but agrees to let him keep Biggie, now going under the name of Notorious BIG. Puffy sets up Bad Boy records; Biggie is the first official signing. After intervention from Puffy, Wallace finally stops dealing.
8 Aug 1993 Wallace has his first child, T'yanna with long-term girlfriend Jan.
8 Sep 1994 After a nine-day courtship, he marries RB singer Faith Evans after meeting her at a photo shoot. Four days later, first single Juicy hits the charts.
13 Sep 1994 His first album, Ready To Die is released. It goes on to sell over 4m copies.
30 Nov 1994 Tupac Shakur is shot four times at Quad Studios, NYC, where Biggie is also recording. Despite the two being friends, Tupac later accuses Big and Puffy of orchestrating the shooting; they both deny it.
6 Mar 1995 Biggie releases single Big Poppa, featuring B-side Who Shot Ya?, which he claims was recorded before Tupac's shooting. 'Pac responds in June with Hit Em Up, taunting Biggie about having sex with his wife, Faith.
8 Sep 1996 Tupac is shot in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. He dies five days later. No one has ever been formally charged for his murder.
29 Oct 1996 Faith Evans gives birth to Biggie's son, Christopher Wallace. Shortly after, the rapper is involved in a car accident, shattering his left leg and leaving him walking with a cane for the rest of his life.
9 Mar 1997 After leaving a Vibe magazine party following the Soul Train awards, Big is gunned down in his car on Fairfax Avenue, LA. He died at the age of 24. No arrests for his murder have ever been made.
18 Mar 1997 Thousands gather in Brooklyn for his funeral. Stars including Puffy, Mary J Blige and Big's off-and-on girlfriend Lil Kim also attend.
25 Mar 1997 His second album, Life After Death is released and has since sold over 10m copies.
Hattie Collins