The Notorious B.I.G. - легенда рэпа Бигги Смолз

BROOKLYN BOY

Less than two weeks after Christopher Wallace's birth, the mother and son moved into a large, three-bedroom apartment in a Brooklyn brownstone on St. James Street, situated between the notorious Bedford-Stuyvesant and affluent Clinton Hill neighborhoods. They lived blocks from a methadone clinic, a few feet from dealers and addicts, and a breath away from the streets that claimed so many young men.

A neighborhood marked by unemployment and limited options, the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant spawned many notable rappers, including Busta Rhymes, Aaliyah, Jay-Z, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Big Daddy Kane, the GZA, and members of the Junior M.A.F.I.A., including Lil' Kim. The area has been directly impacted by many of the social changes throughout history, from the white flight of the 1950s to the racial riots of the 1960s to the crack epidemic of the early 1980s to the gentrification of the early 1990s, a trend that continues today. The neighborhood, though originally mostly white, became almost all black in the early 1960s, a trend that has reversed as its spacious brownstones have become attractive to many whites wanting out of the cramped, expensive Manhattan. Still, though, the neighborhood boasts a 70 percent black population, and although gentrification continues to creep into its blocks, the neighborhood is much the same as it was when Voletta Wallace first moved there with her young son Christopher.
The young, single mother worked full-time while attending school and taking care of her son. By the time Christopher was two, Letore had quit coming around altogether, and Voletta Wallace took full care of her son, whom she nicknamed Chrissy Pooh because of his love of Winnie the Pooh stories. She said she doted on her Christopher, giving him every¬thing he wanted, including plenty of food.

"The name Biggie, he earned that," Voletta Wallace wrote in her book about her son. "During that time, the mindset was that the bigger the child, the healthier and happier he or she is" (Wallace and McKenzie, 2005, p. 51).

A young Christopher Wallace always drank whole milk (never skim), ate burgers instead of vegetables, snacked often, and always cleaned his plate. From childhood on, his favorite meal was waffles topped with ice cream and a side of bacon, a meal that easily added to his already bulky size.