‘Biggie’ doc offers intimate look at rap legend
THE Notorious B.I.G., the rapper whose deep-bellied delivery thrust hip hop forward and earned him the designation as one of rap’s all-time greats, has proven a fount of fascination since his shock murder at age 24.
Now Brooklyn’s favourite son is the subject of an intimate documentary entitled Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell that draws upon candid interviews with his closest family members and friends, released on March 1 via Netflix.
The feature-length look into the astronomic ascent and heartbreaking death of the artist born Christopher Wallace comes nearly a quartercentury after he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting as he visited Los Angeles on March 9, 1997, having released just one studio album – Ready To Die – in his lifetime.
Its sequel, Life After Death, came out 16 days after the rapper’s slaying.
The estate-approved film, co-produced by his mother, traces Biggie’s brief but explosive life: a Catholic schoolboy raised by a
Jamaican immigrant in
Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighbourhood, who went from king of the corner selling crack to overnight rap sensation with indelible influence.
It renders a sympathetic portrait of a man who desired the trappings of fame and success but also security for his family, an artist’s artist whose creative energies made him the pride of his city.
“He had a life that had such a profound effect,“said music mogul and documentary coproducer Sean Combs, who then went by Puff Daddy and now is known as P. Diddy.
“It really gave birth to the future of hip hop.” – ETX Studio