Bad Boy, the label Puffy started in 1993 after mentor Andre Harrell booted him from Uptown Records, represented 1997’s most conspicuous industry coup, the total transformation of hip-hop/R&B into the pop music of the moment.īut when all the Cristal is drained and Mariah is dating another old white guy, what we’ll hopefully remember is the singular voice of 24-year-old Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Biggie and Puffy held the guest list, and their friends-Platinum sellers Lil’ Kim and 112, VIPs Faith Evans and Mase, new buddy Mariah Carey-took the backstage entrance up the charts. U2, Aerosmith, Sugar Ray, Foo Fighters, Oasis? Please. In many respects, the Notorious B.I.G.’s six million-selling Life After Death double-CD and Puff Daddy & the Family’s triple-Platinum No Way Out rendered rock’n’roll a modest novelty genre. It was matched in omnipresence only by Puffy’s lament, “I’ll Be Missing You” (with a sample of, ironically, the Police), and its tragically absurd video, directed by Hype Williams. The Paul Hunter directed video, as common on MTV as a station ID, set the tone for a year of gloriously absurd excess. Fresh and MC Rick D’s “La-Di-Da-Di” (courtesy of Puffy’s Kostabi-like production team, the Hitmen) jolted parents awake every Saturday morning for months. The subway-rumbling electro-bass, car-alarm echo, and sly chorus adapted from Doug E. Riding Biggie’s casually waggish voice (“Poppa’s been smooth since the days of Underoos”), “Hypnotize” was the year’s definitive hip-hop/R&B phenomenon-presumptuous, playful and shamelessly entertaining. on Sunday, March 9, 1997, most everybody did think about B.I.G. Before, and definitely after, his death by drive-by shooting in Los Angeles at 12:30 A.M. Was he serious? Stoned? Certified? Then we all fell out laughing. The impassive host replied, “I want everybody to think about B.I.G.”įor an instant, the entire room froze. One, his voice almost cracking, managed a question: “What’s the ‘Think B.I.G.’ campaign all about?” Huddled in a Times Square studio next to worshipful fans, hangers-on, employees, and journalists overwhelmed by a Sensurround-like sound system blinded by BET flashing on countless video screens and staring straight into the dark sunglasses of producer Sean “Puffy” Combs and the serene sultanesque countenance of Biggie Smalls, both flanked by Lurch-size bodyguards, I was part of what could only be properly described as a “captive” audience.Īfter the music boomed to a close, journalists sheepishly accepted offers to pose for photos with Biggie. The first time I heard the Notorious B.I.G.‘s “Hypnotize,” the preeminent single of 1997, I fell in love with it. One thing you learn early on, whether you’re a li’l ghetto boy or a spice girl, is that pop music, like life, is often beyond your control. We are republishing the story in remembrance of the 20th anniversary of Christopher Wallace i.e. This piece first ran as the cover story of the January 1998 issue of Spin.