NOTORIOUS B.I.G: 29 YEARS AFTER RAP ICON’S DEATH

New York – It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to say that everything in rap changed on March 9, 1997. On that day 20 years ago, just after midnight, Christopher Wallace, b.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G.—hip-hop’s biggest artist at the time and arguably the greatest rapper ever—was shot dead in the passenger seat of a green Chevrolet Suburban after leaving a Vibe magazine party in Los Angeles. Paired with Tupac Shakur’s also-unsolved murder six months earlier, Biggie Smalls’ demise set off a whirlwind that rerouted the course of music history. Nas once told Zane Lowe that he thought Biggie’s death marked “the end of rap.” – wires