Notorious BIG’s mother Voletta Wallace dies aged 72

Wallace kept her son’s musical legacy alive after his drive-by murder in 1997

Voletta Wallace attending an orchestral tribute to her son, Notorious B.I.G, at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City in 2022 (John Lamparski/Getty Images)

Voletta Wallace, mother to rap icon Notorious BIG, has died. She was 72.

Wallace came to public prominence after her son’s drive-by murder in 1997 and was responsible for handling his estate and keeping his musical legacy alive.

Variety reports that Wallace died of natural causes while in hospice care at her residence in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Her death was confirmed by the Monroe County Coroner’s Office.

Wallace was born in Jamaica in 1953. She gave birth to her son Christopher, better known as Notorious BIG or Biggie Smalls, in Brooklyn, New York in 1972.

Her son’s father, a Jamaican welder and politician named Selwyn George Latore, left the family when his son was around 2 years old. Wallace raised Christopher in Brooklyn as a single mother while working as a preschool teacher.

Her son’s musical success brought her material wealth that the family didn’t have when he was young. In one of his biggest hits, the 1994 hip-hop classic “Juicy,” Biggie rapped about being able to buy his mother mink coats and an Acura luxury car: “Thinkin' back on my one-room shack / Now my mom pimps an Ac' with minks on her back.”

Voletta Wallace with the artist Kehinde Wiley in front of his portrait of her son Christopher, better known as Notorious BIG, in 2005 (Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images)

After the rapper’s death in 1997, Wallace helped to run his estate and preserve his musical legacy. In 2005, she published the memoir Biggie: Voletta Wallace Remembers Her Son, Christopher Wallace, aka Notorious BIG.

In 2009, she was a producer for the biopic Notorious, in which she was played by Angela Bassett.

Wallace continued to be an outspoken figure until the end of her life. Last May, she announced that she wanted to “slap the daylights out” of Diddy, a former associate of her son’s, after viewing the shocking hotel footage of the music mogul punching and kicking his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura.

“I’m sick to my stomach,” Wallace told Rolling Stone in an interview regarding allegations against Combs. “I’m praying for Cassie. I’m praying for his mother. I don’t want to believe the things that I’ve heard, but I’ve seen [the hotel video]. I pray that he apologizes to her.”

“I hope that I see Sean one day and the only thing I want to do is slap the daylights out of him. And you can quote me on that,” Wallace continued. “Because I liked him. I didn’t want to believe all the awful things, but I’m so ashamed and embarrassed.”

She added: “He needs to apologize to his mother. I hope to God he sits her down and spills his guts and apologize to her.”

Wallace is survived by her grandchildren, Christopher “CJ” Wallace and T'yanna Wallace.