We're talking, of course, about the drive-by attack of his onetime friend-turned-West Coast rival Tupac Shakur, which took place in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, with the rapper succumbing to the four. It's impossible to talk about Biggie's murder-which, as we've said, remains unsolved to this day-without talking about another unsolved murder that occurred just six months, almost to the day, prior.
Upon hearing the gunshots, Combs' car had pulled over to the side of the road and the Bad Boy CEO raced back to his friend, jumped into the vehicle, and sped off to the nearby Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where it took six people to lift the six-foot-three tall, nearly 300 pound Wallace onto a gurney. The Impala sped off and the Land Cruiser made another U-turn and left the scene as well. The only person hit by bullets, Biggie was shot four times. The driver, alone in the car and described by witnesses as a black male wearing a blue suit, bow tie and fade haircut reminiscent of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam sect, looked Biggie in the eye before pointing his automatic pistol at him and emptying it into the passenger seat of the vehicle. As a white Toyota Land Cruiser attempted a U-turn and tried to cut between Biggie and Offord's vehicles, a black Impala pulled up on the right side. directly in front of the museum, which lies in the heart of Los Angeles' Miracle Mile, after Combs' sped through the yellow ahead of them. Trailing behind them in a third vehicle was Bad Boy's director of security, Paul Offord.īy 12:24 a.m., the streets crowded with people leaving the event, Biggie's car came to a stop at the intersection of Wilshire Blvd.
READY TO DIE BIGGIE SMALLS FACE FUNNY DRIVER
Combs was in the other car, alongside his driver and three bodyguards. Leaving with his entourage, Wallace got into one of two GMC vehicles that had been rented for the evening, posting up in the front passenger seat with associated Damion "D-Roc" Butler, Lil' Cease and driver Gregory "G-Money" Young alongside him. A half hour later, the entire thing was shut down. By midnight, the fire marshals came to the conclusion that the event was dangerously overcrowded. The party was apparently the place to be that night, with 2,000 people crowding the museum space and another 200 outside trying to find a way in. The chilly reception left the rapper not entirely in the party spirit, but with Life After Death dropping later that month, his producer and protector Sean Combs (not yet Puff Daddy, years away from Diddy) asked him to make an appearance at the after-party hosted by Vibe and Qwest Records, reminding him it would be good for promotion. During his appearance at the ceremony, held on rival turf at the height of the East Coast-West Coast rivalry, the Brooklyn native was booed. There remain so many questions over who, exactly, orchestrated what happened in those early hours on March 9, 1997, but first, the facts.īiggie, who had admittedly been traveling with a security detail out of fears for his safety, was in town to present an award to Toni Braxton at the 11th Annual Soul Train Awards, held on March 8. Though, that hasn't stopped fans and conspiracy theorists from running wild with idea over who took Big Poppa out-and why.
And in the over two decades since his life was cut short, we're no more certain on the identity of his assailant than we were in the immediate aftermath. It's been 22 years since the rapper was gunned down in cold blood in his GMC Yukon outside the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, felled just as his star was ascending. It's there in songs like "Suicidal Thoughts" (the closer on his first album that ends with the sound of a self-inflicted gunshot), "Long Kiss Goodnight," "Last Day," and the eerily titled "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)." While it wasn't the only thing he rapped about, it's certainly the most prevalent theme in.Īnd so, it seems only fitting that, in a perverse bit of kismet, his death has left us fascinated with Biggie's life. It's present in the titles of the albums he released under his stage name The Notorious B.I.G.: Ready to Die and Life After Death.
In his all-too-brief life and even briefer career, Christopher Wallace had something of a fascination with death.
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