Voletta Wallace, mother of the late Christopher Wallace aka “Notorious B.I.G.” has passed on, aged 72, sources close to the family have said.
Reports indicate the retired schoolteacher and Jamaican native died of natural causes. She is said to have moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she and her husband, George Latore, welcomed their son, Christopher.
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Christopher later became known as rapper Biggie Smalls before taking on the stage name “The Notorious B.I.G.”
Voletta is said to have raised her son as a single mother while working in education. After the loss of her son, she preserved the legacy of The Notorious B.I.G. and took care of her two other children.
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In 2005, she released the book “Biggie: Voletta Wallace Remembers Her Son, Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious B.I.G.”
Actor, Will Smith, recently revealed the last conversation he had with Biggie Smalls and another artiste, called Prince, hours before they died.
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In an interview on the Broken Record podcast, he explained the connection he had with the two musicians.
“I don’t even want to say this out loud cause it’s like a terrible jinx…I met Biggie four hours before he got killed, and I talked to Prince eight hours before he died,” Smith said, emphasizing the effect of Biggie’s death.
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“It was stupid and just centred on hip-hop for rapping… That one hurt me. It scared me, too,” he added.
The actor recalled Prince had called him to pitch a business venture, which he and others were interested in pursuing.
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“He had talked to Jay and he wanted to do it. We talked that night, and in the morning, he was gone,” Smith said.
Records indicate Biggy Smalls was murdered aged 24, during a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles in March 1997. Prince, on the other hand, died in 2016, aged 57, from an accidental overdose of the painkiller, fentanyl.
