Biggy Smallz

:For the New York rapper Christopher Wallace (Biggie Smalls), see The Notorious B.I.G..

Biggy Smallz (197? - 1994) was a Los Angeles rapper and songwriter known for the few collaborations he had with famed hip-hop producer Johnny J. He is the subject of Tupac Shakur's controversial tribute song “God Bless the Dead”. This person should not be confused with The Notorious B.I.G., who went by a similar name: Biggie Smalls.

Career

Very little is known about the rapper outside of his music, which to date only consists of a handful of tracks released during the early part of the 1990's as minor singles - the most famous being “Cruisin'” and “Nobody Rides for Free”, both produced by Johnny J.

Confusion with Notorious B.I.G. and Big D the Impossible

The rap moniker of Biggy Smallz has a striking resemblance to one of New York rap legend Christopher Wallace's (Notorious B.I.G.) aliases: Biggie Smalls. Before Wallace's mainstream rap career began, he rapped under this name. Biggy's companion Tupac Shakur reportedly requested Wallace to change his rap name from 'Biggie Smalls' to The Notorious B.I.G., his current one, when he was just an up-and-coming underground rapper. Wallace complied with this request, but by then his prior rap name 'Biggie Smalls' was already too reputable and well known to the public for the name change to be fully successful. To this day, many of Wallace's fans still refer to him as 'Biggie'. By the time he released his debut album Ready to Die in September 1994, Wallace's fame had completely overshadowed Biggy Smallz' rap career. It is believed that Biggy died around that time period.

Biggy Smallz was mentioned in the 2Pac Greatest Hits track “God Bless the Dead”, in which Shakur paid his respects to a "Biggy Smallz" during the intro, saying:

Due to the name's similarities with Notorious B.I.G.'s alias, the overwhelming majority of Shakur's listeners took this as a shout-out to Christopher Wallace, who died a year prior to the song's official release. This generated a great deal of confusion due to the fact that the song was recorded in late 1994, before Shakur's imprisonment in February 1995. Subsequently, rumors claiming 2Pac's death was a hoax began surfacing. On Live Squad's official biography, however, this topic was brought up in order to clear up the rumors:

In addition to this, Biggy Smallz is often mistaken with Deon Evans, also known as Big D the Impossible. Evans (who is still alive) is a producer who had worked with Tupac Shakur on his earlier albums 2Pacalypse Now and Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z..

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