March 9 1997- Biggie Smalls


In 1997, Gangsta rapper TheNotorious B.I.G. (Christopher
Wallace) was killed in a still-unsolved drive-by shooting in Los Angeles; he was 24, The 24-year-old rapper, who had earned rave reviews and big sales in giving voice to the violent edge of the streets, was declared dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at 1:15 a.m. His body was identified Sunday afternoon at the Los Angeles coroner's office by his ex-wife, singer Faith Evans, and his mother, who flew in from New York, officials said. Although more than 1,000 people were said to be at the party, police said they had few eyewitnesses and even fewer solid leads to the shooting at the intersection of Fairfax Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard.

At the time of the shooting, hundreds of industry executives and musicians were pouring out of the Petersen museum after organizers decided to shut the party down, apparently because of the overflow crowd, according to police. Many of the guests fled in panic as the shots rang out. Some detectives are worried about a repeat of the stalled investigation into the murder of Tupac Shakur. That rap star--a rival to Wallace--was fatally shot on the busy Las Vegas Strip in September, but police there have complained that witnesses refused to cooperate. The Shakur case remains unsolved.

Detectives said they are investigating whether Wallace's death is linked to bicoastal tensions within the rap world, but had nothing solid to go on.  Wallace, a 6-foot-3 man who weighed 380 pounds and also went by the name Biggie Smalls, lived in New Jersey and was in Los Angeles to record music and to attend Friday night's Soul Train Music Awards and related festivities. His next album was scheduled to come out in two weeks.

It's title was kind of grimly ironic:Mr. stated that "Life after Death. ‘til Death Do Us Part." Wallace had said in an interview with The Times last week that his injuries in a car accident a few months ago had convinced him to "slow down. and think about what you're gonna do with the rest of your life." But he remained stoic about his future, saying he had stopped believing that his stature in the rap industry could insulate him from its volatility. 

 "There's nothing that protects you from the inevitable. If it's going to happen, it's going to happen, no matter what you do," he said. "It doesn't matter if you clean up your life and present yourself differently, what goes around comes around, man. It's crazy for me to even think. That a rapper can't get killed just because he raps. I'm stupid for even thinking that it couldn't." An ex-crack dealer from Brooklyn who had several brushes with the law, Wallace often found himself at the center of speculation about a cross-continent feud between himself and West Coast rap players such as Shakur and industry mogul Marion "Suge" Knight.