Following the East Coast rapper’s 1997 murder, three songs tied to him dominated the Billboard Hot 100’s top spot for months.
The Notorious B.I.G. had been dead eight weeks when he earned a distinction that eluded him in life: his first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
On March 9, 1997, the rapper, who was born Christopher Wallace but preferred the nickname Biggie Smalls, was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles after traveling to the West Coast to shoot a music video for “Hypnotize,” the first single from his second album, Life After Death. In the wake of his death, the track rose from No. 2 to No. 1 on the May 3, 1997, chart. “Biggie wasn’t there with us to enjoy it,” recalls the song’s co-writer and producer, Sean “Diddy” Combs. “So it was bittersweet.”
The Brooklyn-born Biggie became the face of East Coast hip-hop after his 1994 debut album, Ready to Die, spawned three Hot 100 hits. The success rendered him a chief figure in the ’90s West Coast/East Coast hip-hop rivalry, which devolved into a dual tragedy, first with Tupac Shakur’s murder on Sept. 7, 1996, then Biggie’s slaying six months later. (Both crimes remain unsolved.)
Biggie’s death fueled three Hot 100 No. 1s in 1997. In addition to “Hypnotize,” “I’ll Be Missing You,” a tribute to Biggie that Combs recorded with his widow, R&B singer Faith Evans, spent 11 weeks at No. 1 before being replaced by Biggie’s “Mo Money Mo Problems” (featuring Puff Daddy and Mase).
Biggie’s third studio album, Born Again, containing unfinished material, topped the Billboard 200 in 1999. Evans is finishing a Biggie duets set, The King & I, and a hologram of the rapper reportedly will appear in the video for the first single and, possibly, at a reunion concert that Combs says he’s planning with Evans, Lil’ Kim and others. The show is set to take place in Brooklyn on May 20 — what would have been Biggie’s 44th birthday.
Meanwhile, “Hypnotize” “still plays on dancefloors all over the world,” says Combs. “All you need is that beat to get the crowd going.”
A version of this article first appeared in the May 7 issue of Billboard magazine.
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