Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. “The Notorious B.I.G” was a man who never saw the age of 25, yet became a legend and left behind a legacy to the hip hop world. “Notorious” tries to reenact the drama of his life into a feature length film, achieving mixed results.
Wallace grew up in the neighborhood of Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, New York. In his early childhood he was heavily sheltered by his Jamaican mother who would not let him out beyond the stoop of their building after school. After continuous harassment from schoolmates, he decided to get up off the stoop and see what his friend D-Roc was really doing down on the corner. This was the beginning of Wallace’s street life. Right then and there he made his first drug transaction, and simultaneously started to develop his ability to write rhymes. As he grew older, he became a more frequent corner drug dealer and developed into a local rap icon in the emerging world of New York hip-hop.
Wallace continued on his destructive path, resulting in his mother kicking him out of the house. At this point, he took his criminal life to a whole new level, stepping off the corner and into the kitchen (where the drugs were made). Growing to be a larger and larger criminal boss, he was eventually arrested and sentenced to jail time for his actions. This was the starting point for Wallace to completely focus on rapping, and leave behind his criminal life to reach his dreams.
“Notorious” was largely overseen by Wallace’s mother Voletta Wallace and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, who was the executive producer on all of B.I.G’s albums. The film does provide a very real depiction of the rise and fall of the B. I. G. Much of the Brooklyn shoots were filmed in the exact locations where he lived. All of the film was either shot in Los Angeles or New York City. Except for touring, these were the places where the most influential happenings of his life took place.
