In the late ’80s, Biggie Small’s mom, Voletta Wallace, was no different from any single mother in Brooklyn trying to manage an out-of-control kid. She had no idea her son Christopher Wallace, aka the Notorious B.I.G., was on his way to becoming a hip-hop superstar.
Biggie was smart and ambitious with the talent to back it up. But he also made many bad decisions, putting his mom through a lot. Here’s what happened before Biggie rose up the music charts.
The Notorious B.I.G. said he was ‘basically uncontrollable’ while selling drugs
Biggie created the “gangsta” persona he rapped about and lived it by choice. When he discovered the lucrative business of selling cocaine, he wanted to get involved.
“[My mom] didn’t know what I was doin’,” Biggie explained to Interview in 1994, the year his debut album Ready to Die dropped. He said, “I was basically uncontrollable. I wouldn’t stop, no matter what.”
Since his mom worked a lot, Biggie found it easy to hide what he did. Eventually, he admitted to his mom that he was selling drugs, specifically crack. She threatened to kick him out of the house. “And then I just started paying for stuff,” The Notorious B.I.G. said.
His mom never supported Biggie’s life choices, but she struggled to make him listen. “She’d just tell me to be careful because there was nothing she could do to stop it,” the rapper explained.
It seems like Voletta didn’t know the full extent of what her son was doing for a long time. She even threw out a plate of crack she found in Biggie’s bedroom, thinking it was mashed potatoes — and yelled at him not to leave food in his room.
Voletta never had the chance to follow through with her threats and toss her son to the curb. Biggie moved out before that happened. He went to North Carolina when he learned he could sell cocaine there for more money than in Brooklyn. Then, according to Biography, he was arrested and spent nine months in jail. His mom came to his rescue and bailed him out.
Biggie sold drugs because he wanted nice things
As a 12-year-old, the Notorious B.I.G. just wanted a quick way to make money so he could afford nice things, like the hottest sneakers. But he didn’t need a drug-dealing side hustle. Voletta often worked two jobs to give her son a good life. They lived in a spacious three-bedroom apartment in a brick rowhouse in Clinton Hill — not the “one-room shack” Biggie raps about in the song, “Juice.”
The Notorious B.I.G. even attended a private school, the Roman Catholic Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, before transferring to Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes’ old stomping grounds, the George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School.
When Biggie’s next-door neighbor suggested they start “hustlin’” on the corner, he thought it was a good idea. He told Interview he was seduced by a friend’s “big four-finger rings and Fila suits and Ballys.” Biggie’s friend Suif Jackson said, “We saw the hustlers. He saw a dude that was getting Jeeps, jewelry, Gucci, Versace,” The Sun reported. It wasn’t long before Biggie dropped out of high school to deal drugs full-time.
The Notorious B.I.G.’s posthumous success
Sean Combs, aka Diddy, now called Love, discovered Biggie and signed the rapper to his new record label, Bad Boy Records. The Notorious B.I.G. recorded his debut album, Ready to Die. Combs knew it was the beginning of a legend-in-the-making. But he also knew he had to convince Biggie to stop selling drugs and focus on his music.
Biggie seemed to have taken Comb’s advice to heart. In Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell, Voletta said her son’s life was finally getting on the right track when he worked with Combs. “Juicy” was about to hit the charts in 1994, when he raps the line, “You never thought hip-hop would take it this far.”
How far did hip-hip take him? Toward a small fortune. Today, Biggie’s estate is worth an estimated $160 million. The Notorious B.I.G.’s music continued to be released posthumously. Life After Death was released 16 days after Biggie was fatally shot in LA on March 9, 1997. It rose to number one on the charts and has been certified 11 times Platinum.
When he died, Biggie had an estimated net worth of $20 million ($10 million to adjust for inflation). Ready to Die went on to become certified six times Platinum. The Notorious B.I.G. is the only artist in history with two No. 1 singles after death, “Hypnotize” and “Mo Money Mo Problems,” which both reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
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