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

LIFE AS A HUSTLER

At first selling marijuana, Wallace soon discovered the fast cash of crack, a drug that was as easy to sell as it was to make and that didn't require a dealer to have too many connections in order to be successful. Because of this, Wallace was able to slip in quickly and swiftly, at first working with others on small deals and then stepping up fairly quickly to larger deals with repeat customers.

At home, his mother still reigned, and most of Wallace's friends still feared her. He continued to live a double life, hiding things he bought with drug money on the roof of their apartment building. He still wore the clothes his mom had purchased for him, changing into his new clothes after she left for work, though he was careful to put back on the clothes she had bought before she returned home, keeping up the guise of a poor teenager with no income. His mother had little clue of his new life, even when it stared her in the face. She once told a reporter that she had thought crack vials she had sometimes found in his room were perfume bottles. Another time, she discovered drying crack on a plate. Thinking they were mashed potatoes, she threw the drugs out. Later Wallace and a friend sifted through the trash trying the find the drugs, which held a high street value. Once they finally found them, they had to clean off hot wing sauce and other debris in order to sell the valuable drug.

Despite being an honor roll student, Wallace finally decided to quit school at just 16, during his junior year of high school, deciding that he wouldn't go to college or to art school, as he had always thought he might. Although he was a smart, talented artist, he saw his future only in drugs. He was chasing the cash and wanted the valuable daytime hours to sell to people cashing their welfare checks in the morning or trading their food stamps for change.