Brooklyn, N.Y. n Even before the group of journalists boarded a bus to tour the Brooklyn stomping grounds of late rapper Christopher Wallace n a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a. Biggie Smalls n for added effect prior to a screening of biopic Notorious, we already knew he was a B.I.G. deal.
More than 10 years after he was gunned down in Los Angeles at the age of 24, “Biggie” is in nearly every new school hip-hop head’s top three M.C. list. There’s Pac (Tupac Shakur), Biggie n or vice versa, depending on who you ask n and everybody else.
But when you consider that B.I.G.’s musical catalogue only consists of two studio albums, there is an added sense of awe at a career that continues to influence the industry to this day.
“Right there, that’s where Biggie and Jay-Z went to high school,” said tour guide and Biggie’s former manager Wayne Barrow while pointing at Westinghouse High, shortly after the bus crossed the Brooklyn Bridge.
“They used to battle in the hallways, in the stairways and sometimes in the street.”
Being a part of the hip-hop generation, it was a bit overwhelming. Before Nelly and the St. Lunatics, the Midwest translated to “the middle of nowhere” for the national rap scene n so standing in the backdrop for so many verses of the songs of “my day” was an amazing experience.
But what was most striking was how ordinary it all seemed n which added to the appreciation for Biggie’s knack for telling stories. With one rhyme he could make a simple early morning call seem like a major event.
“Who the [expletive] is this? Pagin’ me at 5:46 in the mornin’, crack of dawn, and now I’m yawnin’. Wipe the cold out my eye, see who’s this pagin’ me and why,” he rapped on the classic “Warning” from his multi-platinum debut Ready To Die.
Biggie had a way of making listeners connect with every element the experience that he detailed through his rhymes n and a distinct cadence that hit each word like a hammer.
Which is how he managed to rep hard for New York at a time when West Coast rap seemed to rule the hip-hop world.
And here we were spectators to the source of inspiration. Seeing the ordinariness n if you will n of the block shed light on his true genius.
Barrow continued to add his illustration to the street with his stories of the dice games, the house parties and pointed out the freestyle battle spot on the corner near his home at 226 St. James.
The group crowded around Biggie’s former stoop and was met by his mother, Voletta Wallace, who was to continue the tour. She could have been anyone’s mother or aunt n aside from the full-length fur coat.
Her eyebrows were raised along with everybody else’s when she heard Barrow give limited insight into the unsavory activities that went down on their block.
Wallace talked about feeling protected and like somewhat of a matriarch for the Bed-Sty neighborhood.
“I had no fear, that’s something that I’ll always remember,” Wallace said with a heavy Jamaican accent n and so soft-spoken that she was barely audible. “They would call me Mom or Mother Wallace.”
But she felt a change in the atmosphere once Bed Sty’s son was tragically snatched from its community in 1997. Not long after his death, she was mugged while walking down her street. Not long after the incident, Wallace moved to Connecticut, where she manages her late son’s estate.
She now works to make sure that the present generation of young people, especially the ones who currently inhabit the environment of Biggie’s humble beginnings, are aware of her son’s contributions.
Wallace is one of the producers’s of the film Notorious. Written by Reggie Rock Bythewood and Cheo Hodari Parker, directed by George Tillman Jr. and starring Angela Bassett, Derek Luke and newcomer Jamal Woodard as B.I.G., the film attempts to offer a comprehensive look at Biggie as a boy, a man, an rap icon, a father and a son. Notorious sheds light on the life B.I.G. from childhood, his days in the streets and his rise to the top of the rap game spearheaded by Sean “Diddy” Combs to his untimely death at the height of his career.
Through Notorious, Wallace hopes to give fans more insight to Christopher Wallace, just as his music taught her about Notorious B.I.G. n which she confessed that she didn’t truly embrace until after his death.
“I listen to his words, they were intelligently written,” Wallace said. “He told me a story.”
Biggie was not afforded the opportunity to be prolific, but the profoundness he offered to his genre in 30 tracks n give or take the remixes and guest verses n speaks volumes.
Notorious opens in theatres nationwide on January 16. The film is rated R with a running time of 100 minutes.
