![]() ![]() ![]() His first child, daughter T’yanna, was born in 1993 with ex-girlfriend of four and a half years, Jan Jackson. Ready to Die would be the only studio album released in his lifetime. featuring friends of Smalls’ including Lil’ Kim - to chart success. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning a 1996 nomination for Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance, the same year he led his protégé group Junior M.A.F.I.A. Smalls initially gained recording attention by appearing on other artists’ singles, but it was his partly-autobiographical debut album, Ready to Die (1994), that received critical acclaim and delivered the hits “Juicy,” “One More Chance” and “Big Poppa,” the latter reaching No. Photo: Scott Gries/Getty Images As his career took off, Smalls' personal life suffered Voletta Wallace poses for a photo with a wax figure of her son, Biggie Smalls ![]() “I’m definitely a writer,” he added of his skill. Combs signed the baritone-voiced rapper immediately, taking him to his new label, Bad Boy Records, when it launched in 1993, “’cause he said it sounded like I could just rhyme forever,” Smalls told Rolling Stone in 1995. With friends, Smalls made demos in his basement, one of which was passed to the Unsigned Hype column editor at The Source magazine before catching the ear of Sean “Puffy” Combs who was working at Uptown Records. By age 13 he was nearly six feet tall and heavyset, his physical presence earning him the childhood nickname “Big” which he would capitalize on in his emcee career as Biggie Smalls, Big Poppa and the Notorious B.I.G. Interested in rap from a young age, he began performing with local rap crews including the Old Gold Brothers where his skill with words - both verbal and written - was soon being celebrated and appreciated. Such encounters with the law and his honesty regarding his drug dealing helped Smalls construct a gangsta rap persona built on authenticity. He was arrested in 1995 on robbery and aggravated assault charges and again in 1996 when police found marijuana and firearms in his home. “I read this thing and said, ‘Huh? I never knew.'”Īrrested on weapons possession charges in 1989, he received a five-year probationary sentence he violated the following year after that Smalls was charged with dealing cocaine in North Carolina and spent nine months behind bars. “I found out about my son and his little antics through his music and through magazines,” she told The New York Times. Smalls began dealing drugs around the age of 12, plying trade along Brooklyn’s Fulton Street, activities his mother says she was unaware of. He used his early experiences to help create an authentic rap persona ![]()
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