In just a few short years, the Notorious B.I.G. went from a Brooklyn street hustler to the savior of East Coast hip-hop to a tragic victim of the culture of violence he depicted so realistically on his records. His all-too-brief odyssey almost immediately took on mythic proportions, especially since his murder followed the shooting of rival
Tupac Shakur by only six months. In death, the man also known as
Biggie Smalls became a symbol of the senseless violence that plagued inner-city America in the waning years of the 20th century. Whether or not his death was really the result of a much-publicized feud between the East and West Coast hip-hop scenes, it did mark the point where both sides stepped back from a rivalry that had gone too far. Hip-hop's self-image would never be quite the same, and neither would public perception. The aura of martyrdom that surrounds the Notorious B.I.G. sometimes threatens to overshadow his musical legacy, which was actually quite significant. Helped by
Sean "Puffy" Combs' radio-friendly sensibility,
Biggie re-established East Coast rap's viability by leading it into the post-
Dr. Dre gangsta age. Where fellow East Coasters the Wu-Tang Clan slowly built an underground following,
Biggie crashed onto the charts and became a star right out of the box. In the process, he helped
Combs' Bad Boy label supplant Death Row as the biggest hip-hop imprint in America, and also paved the way to popular success for other East Coast ...
