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Biggie Smalls

March 10, 2012 by · Comments Off on Biggie Smalls 

Biggie Smalls, It was 15 years ago today that Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls, or the Notorious BIG, was shot to death while leaving a Los Angeles magazine party. Only 24 at the time, he was riding in the middle of a three-car caravan when a dark Chevy Impala pulled up next to his GMC Suburban and opened fire.

Four armor-piercing bullets of a rare European origin struck the rapper in the chest. He died in the hospital shortly after the attack. Witnesses described the shooter as a light-skinned African American male wearing a blue suit and bow-tie.

Despite the public nature of his killing, the hip hop icon’s murder remains unsolved.

In 2002, Rolling Stone reporter Randall Sullivan published the book LAbyrinth, detailing former LAPD detective Russel Poole’s investigations into the murder. Poole accused officer David Mack and his friend Amir Muhammad – and possibly other officers – of carrying out Wallace’s assassination.

Mack was allegedly an associate of hip-hop mogul Marion “Suge” Knight, a member of Knight’s gang and his off-duty bodyguard. Knight’s west coast record label, Death Row, was involved in a highly-publicized feud with Wallace’s east coast label, Bad Boy Records, at the time. Six months before Biggie was killed, another hip hop titan – west coast rap legend Tupac Shakur, who was signed to Knight’s label – was murdered on the Las Vegas strip in a similarly public, and unsolved, execution.

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