In honor of the Notorious B.I.G.'s 2020 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, here's a look at how the icon moved rap from a counterculture into the mainstream.
Biggie was an instrumental contributor to the soundtrack of a generation. Millions of fans experienced an outpouring of grief when the 24-year-old was assassinated by a still unknown assailant in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997. Despite his untimely death, he produced two of the most impactful and celebrated rap albums of all time. Prophetically titledThis number is sure to increase as many revisit his music thanks to the media's coverage of the Hall of Fame's class of 2020.
On a visceral level, Biggie's heavy, breathy, honest voice resonates with anyone going through a struggle, as well as anyone searching for an identity in hard times. He sugar-coated nothing in his guttural delivery. Like Biggie, we all ask the timeless philosophical question"Who am I?" The critical search for answers defines us and our place in a too often cruel world. Identity becomes defined by our membership in cultural, social, economic and political groups.
Despite the shock, it seems that little has survived gentrification better than Biggie. There are countless odes, and at times it seems that Biggie's popularly level is on par with that of pizza in Brooklyn; it is so rare that someone says they do not like him, so when they do it is hard not to be taken completely aback.
Funeral cars filled with floral tributes to rapper Biggie Smalls pass down St. James Place, the street in Brooklyn where his mother lives, in a farewell drive-by.Biggie was armed with an education gained in the proverbial school of life. He was quoted in aarticle, published the day after his death, as saying,"Me hustling and selling drugs, it schooled me to the streets a lot. I learned a lot.
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