March 9 marks the anniversary of The Notorious B.I.G.’s Los Angeles murder. It has now been 20 years since he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. His death, however, is shrouded in mystery as no one has been charged with the homicide. There’s a sense Biggie (real name Christopher Wallace) knew he was in danger. On March 5, 1997, four days before his murder, he said he had hired security guards because he feared for his safety during an interview with KYLD’s The Dog House in San Francisco. It turned out his intuition was right on.
While stopped at a red light at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and South Fairfax Avenue, a dark Chevrolet Impala SS pulled up alongside Wallace’s SUV. The driver rolled down his window, drew a 9 mm blue-steel pistol and fired at the GMC Suburban. Four bullets hit Wallace and he was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead 30 minutes later. He was 24 years old.
The phenomenal catalog of music he left behind immortalized him in Hip Hop culture forever. Several members of the Hip Hop community took to Twitter and Instagram to express their love and respect for the fallen Brooklyn MC, including widow Faith Evans, Questlove, Common, Nas, Talib Kweli, DJ Premier, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony manager Steve Lobel (who organized “Notorious Thugs” from Life After Death), Danny Brown, DJ Cease (who was Big’s DJ and in the car at the time of the murder), and of course, P. Diddy. Check out the posts below.
