Biggie Murdered: Hip-Hop Loses Its King
The Notorious B.I.G. — Christopher Wallace — was shot four times while sitting in an SUV in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997. He was 24. Six months earlier, Tupac Shakur had been killed in Las Vegas in what looked like a connected rivalry. Nobody has been charged in either murder. Biggie released two albums while alive: Ready to Die and Life After Death. The second dropped sixteen days after he was shot. It went to number one. He weighed 380 pounds, walked with a cane, and rapped about money and death and Brooklyn with a storyteller's precision. Born in Clinton Hill. Died six miles from the Staples Center. The case is still open.
March 9, 1997
29 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on March 9
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