Remembering Biggie Smalls
“A few weeks after the issue was on the stands the phone woke me up at home on a Sunday morning with news that Biggie had been killed. I guess everyone remembers where they were when they found out. I turned on MTV, and watched the news coverage as his words — the ones about wanting to move past controversies, live a slower life, and show the world how he’d grown as a person — were repeatedly quoted from the story. It was all so surreal and senseless. I’ll never profess to have known Christopher Wallace, I just interviewed him for a magazine. But I think what I wrote captures things he felt at the time, that upon reflection I think were always a part of his music even at its Ready To Die-bleakest: a belief in the power of artistry to make life — despite its stress and adversity — something still worthy of celebration.”
— Ego Trip’s Chairman Mao on the experience of writing a cover story, a great one, for The Source about Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace a couple weeks before the MC, the greatest one, died on today’s date, March 9, 1997. The original story’s up at Ego Trip site, if you’re in the mood to reminisce, or learn what the rap scene felt like 14 years ago.