NEWS
 
 

---

From the LA TIMES website:

Thursday, December 9, 1999

By MATT LAIT and SCOTT GLOVER, Times Staff Writers
 

Christopher Wallace (Notorious B.I.G.)

     A former Los Angeles police officer already in prison for bank robbery is among the suspects in the 1997 slaying of rap star Notorious B.I.G., according to sources and confidential LAPD documents obtained by The Times.
     Among the theories investigators are pursuing is that ex-Officer David A. Mack conspired with Death Row Records founder Marion "Suge" Knight to arrange the contract killing of the 24-year-old rap sensation whose real name was Christopher Wallace, according to a former detective on the case.
     Specifically, detectives are trying to determine whether Mack arranged for a longtime friend to carry out the attack outside the Petersen Automotive Museum on March 9, 1997, according to sources and Los Angeles Police Department documents. Police would not say whether they have been able to locate or question the man they suspect of being the gunman under that theory. He is Amir Muhammad, who was known as Harry Billups when he and Mack were college classmates at the University of Oregon, according to sources and documents. Muhammad apparently dropped from sight after visiting Mack in prison on Dec. 26, 1997.

Amir Muhammad, also known as Harry Billups, is longtime friend of former LAPD Officer David Mack.

     No one has been arrested or charged in the shooting, which some investigators believe was motivated by a bitter bicoastal feud between Death Row and a rival rap record label based in New York City. Eight months ago, LAPD homicide detectives served search warrants on several locations linked to Death Row and the man in charge of its security.

Composite sketch of suspect drawn day after murder.

     Mack, who is serving a 14-year prison sentence for a Nov. 6, 1997, bank holdup, has not been publicly identified as a suspect in Wallace's slaying. But according to sources and LAPD investigative documents, detectives have been trying to build a case against the former police officer for nearly two years.
     Mack's attorney, Donald M. Re, rejected the notion that Mack was involved in Wallace's slaying.
     "It sounds absolutely ridiculous to me," Re said.
     Knight's attorney, Robin J. Yanes, also dismissed the theory.
     "A year ago it came up and now they're recycling it to cover their butts," Yanes said. "Suge doesn't know" Mack.
     Mack is a former partner and close friend of Rafael Perez, the disgraced officer at the center of the LAPD's unfolding corruption scandal. The two officers, in fact, partied in Las Vegas two days after the bank robbery, spending thousands of dollars. Investigators on the LAPD corruption task force are continuing to look for a criminal link between the two former partners.

     Dispute Over Money Probed
     Wallace, a 360-pound rapper who also was known to fans as Biggie Smalls, was gunned down as his motorcade was leaving a music industry party at the museum at Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. Eyewitnesses described the lone gunman as an African American wearing a suit and bow tie, similar, police say, to the attire favored by Nation of Islam members. The assailant was driving a dark-colored Chevrolet Impala, witnesses said. The precision with which the attack was executed makes investigators suspect that it was a professional assassination.
     In addition to the rap feud theory, investigators have pursued information that Wallace's death was related to a dispute with Southside Crips gang members in Los Angeles, who claimed that the rapper owed them money for providing him security.
     Over the past two years, the investigation has been headed by several teams of detectives. Recently, the pair who conducted the searches of Death Row have retired. The two new detectives assigned to the investigation declined comment for this story. But sources close to the case say that neither the rap feud angle nor the gang dispute theory has been ruled out. The sources refused to say which theory, if any, was being given more credence and pursued more vigorously. Over the years, the sources said, different detectives have not always agreed on which investigative path to follow or on which of the open leads might be most productive. One high-ranking police official familiar with the case said crimes committed within the rap music industry often are difficult to solve because witnesses are hostile toward authorities and fear retribution if they do cooperate.
     Detectives have previously identified Knight as a key suspect, theorizing that he may have ordered Wallace's killing while he was in jail on a parole violation. He currently is serving a nine-year prison sentence in connection with an unrelated 1992 attack on two aspiring rappers in a Hollywood recording studio. In addition to Mack, detectives continue to look at other possible associates of Knight in connection with Wallace's death.
     As for Mack, investigators are intrigued by several pieces of circumstantial evidence that they believe may tie him to the crime.
     Mack came under scrutiny after his December 1997 arrest for robbing a bank of $722,000--money that to this day remains unaccounted for. In the wake of his arrest, detectives received tips that Mack drove a black Impala similar to the car seen speeding away after the Wallace slaying.
     As investigators began to probe Mack's possible involvement in the killing, they found that the officer apparently had ties to Knight and his record label.
     A friend of Mack told detectives that Mack offered to arrange an off-duty job for him with Death Row Records. "Mack stated the job was providing security for a . . . wife or girlfriend . . . of [a] Death Row executive," according to confidential LAPD investigative notes.
     A former Compton police officer who worked security for Death Row told investigators that Mack and another LAPD officer, Kevin Gaines, sometimes socialized in Death Row circles. The ex-Compton officer said neither Mack nor Gaines worked for the company's private Wrightway Security, but rather appeared to be associates of Knight.
     Mack grew up in the same Compton neighborhood as the now-imprisoned rap executive. Since Mack's own incarceration, sources say, he has renounced his law enforcement background and instead claims to belong to the same street gang, the Piru Bloods, as Knight is reputedly associated with. Mack also boasted of shooting people and allegedly tried to arrange a contract killing of his former lover and co-defendant in the bank robbery.
     "The weak and those who talk too much get eliminated," he was quoted in court documents as saying.
     When detectives searched Mack's house in connection with the bank robbery, they found what one police source called "a shrine" to rapper Tupac Shakur, who, until his own slaying, was Death Row's leading artist. Although Shakur's murder remains unsolved, police investigators say that Knight blames Wallace and his record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, for the crime.
     As detectives delved further into Mack's possible involvement, they noticed similarities between his work schedule in the periods surrounding the bank robbery and the Wallace killing. In both instances, the officer took days off before and after the crimes, according to sources and documents.
     Then, the investigation into Mack dovetailed with an earlier clue in the case. Several months after Wallace was killed, but well before Mack was arrested, a jailhouse informant told detectives that the rapper's killer went by a "Middle East" sounding name, possibly "Amir."
     The day after Christmas 1997, Mack was visited in jail by his longtime friend Amir Muhammad.

     Composite Drawing Is Questioned
     Investigators' suspicion grew when they obtained a driver's license photo of Muhammad and it resembled a composite sketch of Wallace's killer compiled from descriptions given by witnesses to the murder.
     The composite, drawn a day after the slaying, was withheld from the public and differs from the one that was provided to the media more than two weeks later. One witness criticized the sketch that police ultimately released, saying police added details to the drawing that he and others never suggested.
     Detectives searched for Muhammad, but many of the addresses that came up in a background check were either false or led to post office boxes, according to LAPD robbery-homicide documents. Police surveillance of some of those locations failed to find him. Numerous attempts by The Times to locate Muhammad through public records and a former friend were unsuccessful.
     Mack, who has refused to cooperate with authorities since his arrest in the bank robbery, was placed at the scene of Wallace's slaying by a witness who was riding in the rap star's motorcade, LAPD documents show.
     Damien Butler, who was in the same vehicle as Wallace, picked Mack out of a photo lineup of six men during an April 15, 1998, meeting with LAPD homicide detectives in New York.
     "I'm sure this guy was standing just outside the door to the museum, as we were entering into the party," Butler said, according to notes of the interview obtained by The Times.
     Sources associated with Bad Boy Entertainment said that the last time LAPD investigators contacted witnesses linked to the record label was about six months ago. At that time, investigators again showed them a composite sketch of the gunman, but no photographs.
     Although police officials refuse to comment about the ongoing investigation, the former Compton police officer who worked security for Death Row said in an interview with The Times this month that he was shown pictures of Muhammad earlier this year, shortly after detectives served the search warrants on the locations linked to Death Row.
     Two other sources, including a former police officer, said they were questioned about Mack's possible role in the rapper's killing. The ex-officer said detectives also queried him about Mack's longtime friend and Mack's vehicle.
     A family friend of Mack who provided information to authorities about Mack's role in the bank robbery before being sent to prison on unrelated charges said he was also asked about Mack's possible involvement in the Wallace slaying. Speaking on the condition of anonymity in an interview at Corcoran State Prison, the inmate said he began to cooperate with investigators, but stopped when he felt it was no longer in his interest.
     According to LAPD documents, detectives seized at least one gun belonging to Mack and had it test-fired to determine whether the weapon matched the gun used in Wallace's slaying. It did not, the records show.
     There also are weaknesses in the circumstantial evidence linking Mack to the rapper's killing. The jailhouse informant who told detectives that the assailant's first name might be Amir said it could also be Ashmir or Abraham, police records show. Moreover, the informant said that the gunman's true name could be Kenny or Keeky and that the killer is a former member of the Southside Crips street gang and at the time of the shooting belonged to a security force connected to the Nation of Islam, a Muslim group.
     That information does not appear to match Muhammad's background, and could in fact lend support to the theory that the killing was the result of a dispute over money with the Crips. At one point in the investigation, detectives interviewed Dwayne Keith "Keefee D" Davis, a Crips member, who also owned a Chevy Impala. Some detectives, however, say privately that Davis is not considered a suspect.
     Rumors have swirled for years in law enforcement circles about ties between Mack and other former LAPD officers and Death Row Records.
     Gaines, the officer who allegedly attended Death Row parties with Mack, was dating Knight's estranged wife Sharitha at the time. Gaines also was under investigation by the LAPD's Internal Affairs division and sported a personalized license plate on his Mercedes-Benz reading, "ITS OK IA"--a taunt aimed at Internal Affairs.
     Gaines was shot to death March 18, 1997, during an off-duty traffic dispute with a fellow officer who was undercover. An investigation found that Gaines was hostile toward the other officer, threatening to "cap" or shoot the officer and eventually drawing a gun on him. The other officer, Frank Lyga, was cleared in the shooting.
    Meanwhie, Perez, the ex-officer cooperating with authorities in the ongoing corruption investigation, does not implicate Mack in any crimes--a silence detectives have greeted with skepticism.

REPORT: 'SUGE' KNIGHT EYED IN
SLAYING
Linked to Death of Rapper Notorius B.I.G.

April 21, 1999

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Police suspect jailed music producer Marion
"Suge" Knight played a prominent role in the ambush slaying of rapper
Notorious B.I.G., the Los Angeles Times reported today.

Authorities declined to give details on what evidence they have linking
Knight to the killing, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed police
sources. No charges have been filed against Knight in the case.

Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace, was riding in
his GMC Suburban when he was shot several times on March 9, 1997. He
was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Warrants executed

On Tuesday, detectives served search warrants on four locations linked to
Knight. Police seized a Chevrolet Impala that matches witnesses'
description of the car used in the drive-by killing, the Times said.

Police also searched the offices of Death Row Records, the company
Knight founded and built into one of the hottest rap labels in the country.

Knight was in jail at the time of Wallace's death and is currently serving a
nine-year prison term for violating probation in connection with a 1992
attack on two aspiring rappers in a Hollywood recording studio.

Knight's lawyer, David Kenner, declined comment.

Tensions in the Rap world

At the time of Wallace's death, rap industry observers had acknowledged
tensions between Death Row and Wallace's producer, New York-based
Bad Boys Entertainment.

Wallace's shooting apparently was payback for previous squabbles
between the two labels, police sources told the Times. "This was a
professional hit," one source told the newspaper.

Six months before Wallace's death, rapper Tupac Shakur and Knight were
in Las Vegas when someone fired on their car. Shakur, one of Knight's
most successful artists, later died of his injuries.

Police sources told the Times that Knight believes people at Bad Boy may
have been behind that attack, though a link has never been proved.
Shakur's shooting has remained unsolved.

Rap musicians vow to end violent rivalries

CHICAGO (AP) - Several rap musicians promised to end
violent rivalries and announced plans to tour the country to
promote unity and uplift the black community.

The musicians gathered in Chicago on Thursday at the
urging of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. They
promised to forgive each other for professional and
personal insults that may have motivated the killings of
two prominent rappers, Tupac Shakur and The Notorious
B.I.G.

Farrakhan called for the summit after those killings, which
came in September and March, respectively.

Among the rappers at the meeting were Snoop Doggy
Dogg, Busy Bone, C Low and Doug E. Fresh.

Several rappers will cut an album together to kick off the
tour, Farrakhan said. The tour will end Oct. 16, the
second anniversary of the Farrakhan-orchestrated Million
Man March on Washington.

Sales of Biggie album explode on first day

By LARRY McSHANE
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - Fans from coast to coast snapped up
copies of The Notorious B.I.G.'s posthumous album
Tuesday, with the rapper's murder barely two weeks
earlier fueling sales of the eerily-titled "Life After Death."

"Death is a commodity, you know?" said Ramsey Jones,
a clerk at Tower Records in Greenwich Village, where he
couldn't keep the CD on the shelf. "I have to keep stocking
it every five minutes."

At one point, the store sold 105 copies of the double-CD
in a single hour, Jones said. Uptown at HMV Records,
fans of the Brooklyn-born rapper were just as anxious for
"Life After Death."

"It's flying out of here," said manager George Romero. "...
This album was going to be big already. After this (the
shooting), forget it."

The album itself was rife with violent images and sounds
on tracks like "Somebody's Gotta Die," "Kick In the Door"
and the chilling album closer "You're Nobody (Til
Somebody Kills You)." Industry experts expect "Life After
Death" to debut as the nation's No. 1 record.

The record's pull was as strong in the city where he died,
Los Angeles, as it was in Biggie's hometown of New York.

"It's just the morbid curiosity of having his last album,"
said Laurie Miller of the Tower Records on Sunset
Boulevard in Los Angeles. The store sold 150 copies of
"Life After Death" in a midnight sales promotion.

Whatever the reason, retailers were happy. "It's absolutely
fantastic," said Jack Gattineille, manager of a
Strawberries record store in downtown Boston. "It's the
No. 1 top sale."

The Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, was
murdered in a still-unsolved drive-by shooting on March 9
following a Los Angeles music industry party. The
24-year-old had just completed work on the new album for
Bad Boy Records.

Sales of his debut album, "Ready to Die," more than
tripled in the week after the rapper's slaying. "Ready to
Die" sold more than 10,000 copies nationwide after the
slaying.

The equation of untimely deaths equaling big record sales
was nothing new. Similar sales boosts followed the
murder of Tupac Shakur and the suicide of Nirvana's Kurt
Cobain.

Chaka Zulu, music director of Atlanta radio station
WHTA-FM, said requests for music from the doomed
rapper's album were brisk on Tuesday.

"Definitely requested more today than any other," he said.
"The album is bangin'. I knew it was going to be hot."

March 19, 1997

Biggie Smalls' last ride to Brooklyn

By TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - "Gangsta" rapper The Notorious
B.I.G., whose harsh tales of ghetto life forecast his own
murder, toured his Brooklyn neighborhood for the last time
in a coffin Tuesday following a farewell from rap's royalty.

The rapper's body, fitted with a double-breasted white suit
and matching hat, was driven in a motorcade of black
stretch limousines from a service on Manhattan's tony
Upper East Side to Brooklyn's inner city
Bedford-Stuyvesant section.

Thousands of his fans lined the Brooklyn block where
Christopher Wallace was a familiar presence before and
after his recording success as The Notorious B.I.G.

Wallace, who also went by the name Biggie Smalls, had
told of selling crack on neighborhood corners before
releasing his debut album, "Ready to Die."

The crowd cheered wildly as the funeral cortege - a
hearse bearing the rapper, two black Cadillacs filled with
flowers and more than a dozen stretch limousines - drove
down St. James Street for more than 10 minutes. Riders
in the motorcade held pictures of Wallace out limousine
windows as the fans screamed and applauded.

There were several skirmishes between police and the
crowd once the motorcade left, and pepper spray was
used to disperse the group. Ten people - including a
reporter for The New York Times - were arrested on
disorderly conduct charges, with three of those also
charged with resisting arrest and one also charged with
felony criminal mischief, said Officer Olga Mercado, a
police spokeswoman. Seven officers suffered minor
injuries, she added, and seven vehicles were damaged in
the melee.

The reporter, Julia Campbell, said she was arrested after
asking a police officer why he had used pepper spray
against her. Dunne declined to provide details of her
arrest but Campbell, who was released with a ticket, said
she had an earlier verbal altercation with the same officer.

Wallace, 24, was murdered in a still-unsolved drive-by
shooting in Los Angeles on March 9. Reports have
suggested he was a victim in the East Coast-West Coast
rap rivalry, although the Los Angeles Times reported
Tuesday that a gang member acting alone had emerged
as the primary suspect.

A gunman pumped several shots into a parked car where
Wallace was sitting after the Soul Train Music Awards.
Wallace died a short time later at a Los Angeles hospital.

A virtual who's who of the rap industry turned out for the
funeral inside the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on
posh Madison Avenue. Dr. Dre, Flavor Flav of Public
Enemy, Treach of Naughty by Nature, Spinderella and
Pepa of Salt-N-Pepa, R&B diva Mary J. Blige and Queen
Latifah were among the high-profile mourners.

Wallace's estranged wife, Faith Evans, sang at the
service, while Sean "Puffy" Combs - the head of
Wallace's record company Bad Boy Entertainment and a
key player in the East Coast-West Coast feud - delivered
a eulogy.

"It was a peaceful event," said mourner Juanita
Preudhomme, an old family friend. "It wasn't all sorrow.
Everybody was hugging and kissing, just like Biggie would
have wanted."

Wallace's dark, wooden casket was open from the waist
up at the service, where 350 invited guests arrived on a
windy March morning to remember the 280-pound rapper.
His body was scheduled to be cremated in New Jersey.

Blige exited the funeral home weeping, her limp body
supported by several friends. Rapper Mase, a fellow Bad
Boy Entertainment artist, was also in tears as he walked
onto Madison Avenue. Other guests included ex-mayor
David Dinkins, who reportedly did not know Wallace but
was invited by the rapper's mother, and Arista Records
boss Clive Davis.

As his family and friends mourned, the Times cited
unidentified police sources as saying a member of the
Crips gang involved in a financial dispute with Wallace
was suspected in the slaying. The Times also reported
there was no connection found to the Sept. 7 slaying of
Tupac Shakur, who also was gunned down in a drive-by
shooting, in Las Vegas. Police have not made an arrest in
that slaying.

The turnout on the Upper East Side was in contrast with
the tour of the rapper's old Bedford-Stuyvesant haunts.
The procession there went past graffiti and boarded-up
buildings - including one with posters promoting the
rapper's new album, due out next week.

Thousands of fans lined the block where Wallace once
lived, leaving candles, pictures and empty malt liquor
bottles at a makeshift shrine to the slain rapper. A copy of
his CD "Ready To Die" was also left at the scene.

"He never changed," said neighbor Cynthia Haynes,
whose daughter once dated Wallace. "I saw him a year
ago and told him I was so proud of him."

On top of a parked car, three small children held a sign
that showed Wallace's death might not be in vain. "We
love you B.I.G.," it read. "Stop the violence. From future
stars of tomorrow."
 

Hip-Hop Stars Honor B.I.G.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- Rap's royalty turned out this morning
for a final farewell to rapper The Notorious B.I.G., the
Brooklyn-born "gangsta" gunned down nine days ago in a
still-unsolved Los Angeles drive-by shooting.

A funeral for the beefy rapper was held at the Frank E.
Campbell Funeral Home in Manhattan, where the crowd
included members of Junior M.A.F.I.A., Spinderella of
Salt-N-Pepa, Mary J. Blige, Queen Latifah, Lil' Kim, Sister
Souljah and Flavor Flav.

Ex-mayor David Dinkins and Arista Records head Clive
Davis also attended, as did the head of Notorious B.I.G.'s
record company, Sean "Puffy" Combs of Bad Boy
Entertainment. Combs records under the name Puff
Daddy.

The rapper -- also known as Biggie Smalls -- lay in a
wooden casket open from the waist up. He wore a white
hat, and his 280-pound body was dressed in a
double-breasted white suit, said a source close to the
funeral arrangements.

Reports have suggested the dispute between Combs'
company and West Coast rap impresario Marion "Suge"
Knight's Death Row Records may have played a role in
the slaying. Tupac Shakur, who rapped for Knight's label,
was gunned down in similar fashion in Las Vegas on
Sept. 7.

But The Los Angeles Times reported today that the
primary suspect in the slaying of The Notorious B.I.G. is a
Crips gang member involved in a financial dispute with the
rapper. The Times, citing unidentified law-enforcement
sources, said authorities have found no connection to the
Shakur slaying.

Born Christopher Wallace, the rapper moved from
slinging crack on Brooklyn street corners to topping the
Billboard charts. His often-violent tales of ghetto life even
forecast his own March 9 murder.

The 24-year-old, who most recently lived in Teaneck, N.J.,
was leaving a party celebrating the Soul Train Music
Awards when a gunman pumped several shots through
the passenger door of a GMC Suburban with the rapper
inside. He died a short time later at a Los Angeles
hospital.

As a line of well-dressed mourners filed into the funeral
home this morning, several dozen fans stood across the
street listening to the rapper's music and holding pictures
of him. A motorcade carrying Wallace's body will tour his
Brooklyn neighborhood this afternoon.

"It was a big, total loss," said Felicia Daniels, 30, of
Brooklyn. "A young life, taken away just like that. ... He will
be missed."

Lenny Person, 42, knew Wallace when the rapper was
growing up in Brooklyn. He was impressed by Wallace's
efforts to stay in touch with his community, even after his
huge success.

"When they shot him, they shot a lot of people in Brooklyn
as well," he said. "He lives on, because a guy that's
helping his community affects a lot of people."

March 14, 1997

Big Brooklyn homecoming awaits slain
rapper Biggie Smalls

NEW YORK (AP) - The body of rapper Biggie Smalls
rested in a posh Manhattan funeral home Friday, awaiting
a nostalgic funeral procession through the Brooklyn
streets where he boasted he once sold crack.

Five days after he was killed in a drive-by shooting in Los
Angeles, the 24-year-old rap star, born Christopher
Wallace, may not have been resting in peace.

As his 280-pound, 6-foot-tall body lay embalmed on
Madison Avenue, his relatives had argued over how the
funeral should be handled, a source close to the
arrangements, speaking on condition of anonymity, told
The Associated Press.

By Friday afternoon, it appeared a compromise had been
worked out.

His mother, Voletta Wallace wanted a low-key, private
service, said the source, in order to play down the
violence so often associated with the lyrics of the East
Coast rap star ("You wanna see me locked up, shot up,
Mom's crouched up over the casket screamin...")

But singer Faith Evans, the mother of his 6-month-old
son, Christopher, had pushed for a lavish funeral
procession Tuesday through the Bedford-Stuyvesant
neighborhood where Wallace was born, with his hits
playing on loudspeakers as the soundtrack, the source
said.

By Friday afternoon, the two women released a joint
statement saying they hoped for "a quiet, dignified
procession through the streets," and urging that anyone
from outside the neighborhood "not make special trips to
see the procession. ... We are concerned that large
crowds could create an incident."

Smalls - aka The Notorious B.I.G., whose new double
compact disc is titled, "Life After Death," - grew up in
Brooklyn and learned to rap there. He especially loved to
hang out near the corner of Fulton and St. James streets,
where run-down, graffiti-filled brownstones house a
barber shop and a laundromat. On Friday, there were also
posters of the slain rapper.

"Biggie said that he once sold crack on that corner," said
Jesse Washington, managing editor of Vibe magazine,
which sponsored the Soul Train Awards in Los Angeles.
Wallace was honored minutes before he was gunned
down.

"That's where he grew up and where he developed all of
his skills - drug-dealing and rapping among them,"
Washington said in a telephone interview.

On Friday, the rapper lay at the corner of East 81st Street
and Madison Avenue in the Frank E. Campbell Funeral
Home, a last stop for many of New York's rich and
famous.

The funeral home, on an avenue filled with designer
shops, is just a block from the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, and near the apartment of the late Jacqueline
Onassis.

Visitors paying last respects are whisked by elevator to an
upper floor where the deceased are laid out in rooms with
heavily draped walls.

On Tuesday, a wake open only to family and invited
guests was to precede the public funeral motorcade
through Brooklyn in the afternoon. Later in the day,
mourners planned to attend a small service, also private,
in a Campbell's chapel.

The rapper's body was then to be cremated, most likely at
a New Jersey crematorium owned by the funeral
company, not far from his Teaneck condo, said the
source.

Since the shooting, the two women said they've been
"keeping the faith and clinging tightly to one another for
support," their statement said.

They had identified his body after it arrived at New York's
La Guardia Airport from Los Angeles just after 6 a.m.
Wednesday, the source said.

It was the second high-profile death of a rapper in the past
six months. Smalls' musical rival, West Coast rapper
Tupac Shakur, was shot to death in Las Vegas. No
arrests have been made in either shooting.
 

The Notorious B.I.G. lived and died the
way he rapped

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Notorious B.I.G.'s lyrics
mirrored the hard and fast life he lived.

"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."
 

Dozens Saw Notorious B.I.G. Die
by Elizabeth Johns
Mar 10, 1997, 6:00 PM PT

Police say they're still talking today to witnesses, numbering in the dozens, who were outside the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles early Sunday morning when Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious B.I.G. aka Biggie Smalls, was gunned down by an assailant who was "lying in wait."

During a late afternoon press conference, Lt. Ross Moen gave some sketchy details of the attack. Wallace and his entourage, which included producer Sean "Puffy" Combs, left the party and headed to their cars. Moen said the trigger-man, a black male in his early twenties driving a dark sedan, was "lying in wait" for Wallace. The gunman pulled alongside the rapper's Suburban and fired "numerous shots" before tearing off. Wallace's security guards gave chase, but lost sight of the car without getting a license number.

Police estimate there were as many 200 witnesses to the shooting, a majority of them in the rap industry and many from New York. Most of them are being cooperative.

However, some witnesses fled the scene and others are afraid to talk, fearing retaliation from the murderers, police say--another eerie parallel to the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas last fall. Police there complained that key witnesses haven't cooperated; although some of those witnesses claimed recently that the cops never seriously questioned them.

When asked if the attack was in retaliation for Shakur's murder, Moen said police were "not overlooking any possibilities." Investigators from New York, Atlanta and Las Vegas have been contacted.

Also on Monday, the coroner's office announced the 6-foot-3, 280-pound Wallace died from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen. A spokesman said routine drug and alcohol tests will also be performed.

 Reaction has been swift. Hip-hop stations in New York and Los Angeles have had daylong tributes to Wallace. Fans have created a shrine at murder site, with flowers, cards and photos adorning the sidewalk. "We are overwhelmed with grief by the death of a great artist, a family member and our friend, the Notorious B.I.G.," Wallace's label, Bad Boy Entertainment said in a statement.

Calling him a "gifted rapper," rival West Coast label Death Row also mourned Wallace's death. "The entire Death Row Records family is shocked and saddened by the death of Mr. Christopher Wallace...We would like to take this time to express our deepest condolences to the family and friends of B.I.G.," a spokesman said.

 "Having just had the untimely death of one of our own, Tupac Shakur, by way of the same senseless violence, we do sympathize with those closest to Mr. Wallace."

 And, in a rather self-serving press release, TV comedian Steve Harvey said, "These problems are deep seeded (sic) and it will take more than one appearance on my show to bring about lasting changes." Harvey's heavily promoted February 23 show featured Snoop Doggy Dogg and Bad Boy founder "Puffy" Combs declaring an end to the bicoastal war.

 Many in the industry hope Wallace's murder effects change in the brutal rap world. "I think that it's time that the authorities got serious about recognizing that the East Coast-West Coast thing is dangerous, and it's legitimate," said Don Cornelius, creator and executive producer of Soul Train.

 "Gangsta rap glorifies violence," chirped celebrated rap critic C. DeLores Tucker. "We hope his death will serve as a wake-up call to everyone."

From E! Online

Rapper Notorious B.I.G. Murdered
by Jeff B. Copeland
Mar 9, 1997, 11:25 AM PT

Gangsta rapper Notorious B.I.G.--born Christopher Wallace--was killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles at about 12:40 this morning. Wallace, 24, was leaving a party at the Petersen Automotive Museum celebrating the Friday night's Soul Train Music Awards when a car pulled alongside his Chevrolet Suburban and multiple shots were fired, police said. He was driven in his vehicle to a nearby hospital but died there about a half hour later.

The death of Wallace, who also performed as Biggie Smalls, recalled the still-unresolved murder of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas last September.

While there was no immediate evidence to connect the killings, Wallace and Shakur were enemies, the epitome of the East Coast-West Coast tension in the rap world.

Shakur accused Wallace of involvement in a robbery outside a recording studio in New York in 1994 in which Shakur was shot. Last fall, Wallace said he would attend--then canceled out on--a "day of atonement" in New York, billed as both a memorial to Shakur and a chance for the eastern and western sets to heal their differences.

 Other rappers have dismissed the bicoastal rivarly as more hype than reality. In any event, police have never made any statements implicating Wallace in Shakur's murder.

 Wallace was born in Brooklyn and said he'd been a crack dealer. He had a few arrests in recent years on some minor charges related to drug use and fights.

The 1995 Billboard Awards honored Notorious B.I.G. as rapper of the year in 1995. His debut album, Ready to Die sold over a million copies and he reportedly was about to release a new album, Life and Death/To Death Do Us Part.
 
 

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