Today, March 9, marks 25 years since rap legend, Biggie Smalls, also known as the Notorious B.I.G., was killed. He was only 24.
Signed to Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs’ Bad Boy Records, Biggie, who would have turned 50 this year, is considered one of the greatest rappers of all time, and as a testament to this, he is the second solo rapper to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. His 1994 debut, Ready To Die – one of two studio albums recorded during his lifetime – is a classic in every sense.
JAMAICAN TIES
Biggie Smalls, who had ties to Jamaica through his mother Violetta Wallace, performed at JamWorld in Portmore, on what was billed as the greatest one-night show on earth, Sting, on December 26, 1996. Less than three months later, he was gunned down during a drive-by shooting while at a stoplight in LA.
Sting was the last show that Biggie performed on, and the annual Boxing Day bash played host to a sold-out, 30,000-strong crowd and the top names in dancehall. Biggie, who had broken his leg in a car accident three months earlier, performed in a wheelchair as his leg was still in a cast.
“It was a lady in New York who I asked to go source Biggie, and she used her contacts to find him. I fly him in the morning of the event. I took him to Pegasus and him do the show the night. It was a very successful Sting,” Sting promoter Isaiah Laing recalled.
However, the story of Biggie Smalls and Sting doesn’t end there. Fast-forward to 2005, and Sean ‘Contractor’ Edwards, head of the Contractor Music Group, steers a deal that sees the audio from that Sting concert being licensed to Sean ‘Puffy’ Coombs. A snippet of that Sting audio was used in a posthumous album titled Duets (The Final Chapter).
Edwards, who is quite proud of his involvement, told The Gleaner that Sean Kingston’s family, who knew he had links to Puffy, contacted him on behalf of the engineer, Barry O’Hare, who had the master audio tape of Biggie’s Sting performance.
“Barry O’Hare had his studio here in Ocho Rios. I didn’t know Barry at the time, but I did my research and found out that he was a highly respected engineer who go pon di road with artiste like Shaggy and Burning Spear and Beres Hammond. I met with Barry at his studio, and he explained that he was the engineer at Sting the year that Biggie performed and told me exactly why the master tape was in his possession. The law says that the owner of the master is the person who has authority to sell it. I knew somebody who was working with Puffy … Harve Pierre. I linked him, and he pitched it to Puffy. Puffy said he liked it. Puffy called me and licensed it. Barry died last year … may his soul rest in peace,” Edwards shared.
He stressed that the actual deal was with Barry O’Hare and Puffy’s company, “but I’m the one that got the work done, and Barry paid me”. Afterwards, he and O’Hare informed Laing of the deal, and he, too, received a piece of the financial reward. Edwards, however, would not reveal any figures at all.
Born Christopher Wallace in Brooklyn in 1972, Biggie Smalls was on his way to the Soul Train Awards after-party when he was gunned down on March 9, 1997. His murder is still officially unsolved.
HIS LEGACY
His estate recently announced details of a 25th-anniversary release of Life After Death, which will take the form of a new boxset that will contain the original album plus 12’’ releases of some of his hits. “The year-long campaign – Sky’s the Limit: A Year Celebrating the Legacy of the Notorious B.I.G. – will also see the release of an ‘enhanced digital version’ of Life After Death, a number of online events [and] upgrades of his entire video back-catalogue on YouTube,” the release said.
Writing on social media recently, Biggie’s mother noted, “If you would have told me that 25 years after Christopher was taken from us, this many people would still be listening to the two albums he made, I would have told you that you were crazy! Thanks to all the fans and my team for keeping my son’s legacy alive.”
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