20 Years Later, Biggie Smalls’ Mom Has a ‘Very Good Idea’ Who Killed Him
On the 20th anniversary of her son’s death, Voletta Wallace says she “genuinely believes” an LAPD conspiracy hides the identity of his murderer.
On September 7, 1996, West Coast hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas. Six months later, Brooklyn heavyweight Biggie Smalls—The Notorious B.I.G.—was fatally targeted in a L.A. drive-by shooting. Biggie’s death was also the final nail in the coffin of the West Coast-East Coast, Death Row Records-Bad Boy Records feud that came to define hip-hop’s 1990s glory days. On the anniversary of Biggie’s murder 20 years later, it’s difficult to remember a time when coastal allegiances amounted to more than a preference for Shake Shack or In-N-Out.
While Biggie and Tupac may have been enemies by the end—with Tupac rapping about sleeping with Biggie’s wife, and ‘Pac turning against Biggie in the wake of the 1994 Quad Studios shooting — death is the great equalizer: Now, the once-beefing rappers are equally likely to be found immortalized on the dorm room wall of a college freshman, or momentarily resurrected as a headlining hologram. But incredibly advanced lasers aren’t the only forces bringing these hip-hop legends back to life. Two decades later, the lives and deaths of Tupac and Biggie are getting the USA network treatment. The upcoming series Unsolved, which dives deep into the two cold case murder investigations, stars Wavy Jonez and Marcc Rose as Biggie and Tupac, respectively. For Rose, it will be his second time playing 2Pac, reprising his role from 2015’s Straight Outta Compton.
And while watching Jonez and Rose channeling the rappers on set is unsettling, life is even stranger than fiction. In a new Daily Mail interview Voletta Wallace, the 64-year-old mother of Biggie Smalls, insists that a “conspiracy” is standing in the way of justice being served. Wallace confidently points fingers at the LAPD, claiming, “I have a very good idea who murdered Christopher and I genuinely believe that the LAPD knows exactly who did too.” She adds, “They’ve done their investigation, but they just refuse to move forward. I don’t know why they haven’t arrested…
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