C.J. Wallace And Rob Stone Discuss The Legacy Of The Notorious B.I.G.

Known as The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, Frank White or his given name, Christopher Wallace, many call him the best to have ever done it. 

The legendary rapper from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn had a meteoric rise to fame during what many consider a golden age of hip-hop, going from relative unknown, to one of the biggest artists on the planet, to a tragic death at the age of 24 all in the span of about three years. 

“His music was timeless, he spoke about all of his own personal struggles, everything he was going through at that time and a lot listeners could relate,” Wallace’s son CJ told Pollstar. “People were going through those things. I feel like he was way ahead of his time and had a huge impact with two albums, not even getting past the age of 24, which is pretty impressive.”

Pollstar does not have any recorded tour data on The Notorious B.I.G., which is a reflection on the times he lived in for a number of reasons.

Rob Stone, who was working for Arista Records at the time, was asked by Clive Davis to help bring Bad Boy Records artists Craig Mack and Notorious B.I.G on a radio tour promoting their singles, “Flava in Ya Ear” and “Juicy.”

“Clive brought me in to be on the front lines and handle the promotion, liaison with Bad Boy and the pop staff,” Stone told Pollstar. “My job was to figure out how to cross these records from just being urban, radio-mix show to this format that was emerging, which was happening on 40 stations around the country. Hot 97, 106.1 KMEL, Power 106 in LA, KBXX The Box in Houston, Z90 in San Diego, Power 99 in Miami, WPGC in DC, 92 Q. Some of these were still urban but they were starting to play more hip -hop and they were the crossover stations. Billboard gave them their own chart and the first record to really break through to pop radio was ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ by Coolio, which was in the movie ‘Dangerous Minds.’

“The thing that amazed me – if an artist goes to a station, they ask if the artist can do drops for them …. ‘This is [artist] and you’re listening to [program] on [station.] They have 30 of them on a sheet … most artists would mess these up and have to do them over four or five times, then get frustrated and end up only doing half of them. But I swear on my life, I did 40 stations with B.I.G., but I never saw him mess up once. He’d look at the sheet and he’d just start rambling ‘em off and every one sounded cool. He had the right annunciation and the right punctuation, he never got tongue tied, never messed up and never had to repeat them. He would do one take for like 20 different things, his mind was amazing.”

In those days, Stone said, the industry was completely oriented around record sales and all of the label’s marketing efforts were thus geared towards getting radio play, which ultimately drove record sales. That early “Big Mack” tour thus focused mostly on radio promotion, and most of Biggie’s career was defined by record sales, a category in which he was hugely succesful, as the RIAA attributes more than 21 million album units sold by him, with the Life After Death album going 11x Platinum.

Another reason Biggie may not have had a major touring career was that hip-hop tours in general were not booked at major venues through the ’90s, despite the genre’s incredible popularity. It would take more than a decade and an upending of the recorded music industry before a time when artists like Jay-Z, Eminem, J. Cole, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott or Kanye West would even be given the chance to fill arenas around the world.

That’s not to say The Notorious B.I.G. did not play live shows. Stone recalled Biggie’s set at KMEL Summer Jam in the San Francisco Bay Area as the stuff of legends and during his tour across the country Craig Mack and Biggie would schedule brief promotional performances at clubs, though some blessed enough to be in those rooms may not have appreciated what they were seeing at the time. 

There was a magnetism in Biggie’s performances that is impossible to miss, a la Tony Soprano or Al Capone. Despite his massive figure, self-described as “Heart throb never / Black and ugly as ever,” his presence was still enough to make “Girls pee-pee when they see me.”

That style and grace was apparent in basically every piece of art he did. He had hits, from “Hypnotize,” “One More Chance (Remix),” and “Big Poppa” and deeper cuts hip-hop heads still salivate over like “Notorious Thugs” with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and “Brooklyn’s Finest” with Jay-Z. 

Stone recently drew attention to a freestyle Biggie quickly wrote and recorded in ’96 about Pepsi, in which he rhymes “nothing can beat the P-E-P-S-I / Yes I, drink it constantly.” The freestyle was accompanied by an animation video from Antnamation which includes numerous Easter eggs related to some of Biggie’s most famous lyrics.

“From a technical aspect of rhyming, it was unbelievable how that guy’s mind worked,” Stone said. “He called himself the black Alfred Hitchcock and it was true, everything he did was a movie, not just a record. But he hit home runs on everything he did.”

The Notorious B.I.G is the second solo rapper to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, fitting when considering the first was his contemporary, friend and rival Tupac Shakur. Several films have been made documenting the intertwined lives of these legendary figures – including “Notorious,” which starred son CJ as a young Biggie. Both artists were murdered at tragically young ages – in 1996 and 1997 respectively – and both cases remain unsolved.

The conversation about who is the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) is always a fun one to have between hip-hop heads on a Sunday afternoon and Biggie’s name inevitably comes up in such conversations, as his rhymes, delivery and success are arguably unmatched in a career of only a few years. But in the realm basketball Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant both went on the record saying they don’t like the way conversations about who is the GOAT play out. Michael had to build on the legacy of those who came before him – Dr. J, Bill Russell, Kareem, Bird, Magic and many others – and Kobe has said he modeled his game directly after Jordan. 

Arguing about who would slay who in a rap battle or one-on-one basketball match during their prime is fun, but impossible to determine. Each generation is ultimately building on the accomplishments of the previous and pushing the craft forward and now hip-hop is not only one of the most popular genres of music in the U.S., but it is infused into music coming out of East Asia, Australia, South America and Europe. 

And artists do give B.I.G. his props. At an event promoting his book Decoded in 2010, Complex documented Jay-Z as saying: “Well, I guess I would choose [Biggie as one of my biggest influences] because of his ability to tell stories, to be humorous, to be dead serious. He just had it all.”

Stone noted that in his time working with The Notorious B.I.G., the artist was a loving family man and loyal to the people who helped him get where he was, always giving Bad Boy Records founder Sean “Puffy” Combs credit for his ability to engineer smash radio hits and to create a powerful business behind the art.

“The conversations I had with B.I.G. were about growing companies. He wanted to make Brooklyn the epicenter of wealth and success in America. It wasn’t ‘I’m just gonna rap.’ He was so gifted and talented, but he wouldn’t have rapped if he couldn’t make money from it. He rapped because he knew he could turn it into a business, he took it very serious and he worked his ass off.”

Wallace’s family is continuing his legacy with the Frank White brand, which releases clothing and cannabis products and has numerous projects in the works to celebrate Biggie’s life and legacy. 

“This induction means everything to my family. Continuing to push the Wallace name is my top priority and I’m always continuing to take it to new heights,” CJ Wallace said. “The Rock & Roll HOF is a huge honor and a milestone and I’m sure my father would be both honored and inspired by the continuation of his legacy. It means everything to our family.”