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Voletta Wallace, the mother of the late rapper The Notorious B.I.G., died at the age of 78. She died of natural causes at her home in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. She was known for continuing her son’s legacy after the rapper’s untimely murder at the age of 24. Fans wondered who would inherit Biggie’s estate after his mother worked hard to build it to a $160 million fortune.

The Notorious B.I.G in the music video of Warning | Credits: Bad Boy/Arista

The Notorious B.I.G. had daughter T’yanna with high-school sweetheart Jan Jackson in 1993 and later son Christopher Jordan, aka Cj Wallace, with wife Faith Evans in 1996. It is believed that his eldest, T’yanna, would now be in charge of the rapper’s estate.

What happens to The Notorious B.I.G.’s estate after Voletta Wallace’s passing? Voletta Wallace, mother of The Notorious B.I.G | Credits: @volettawallace/Ig

The Notorious B.

Voletta Wallace, the mother of late rapper The Notorious B.I.G, has died. She was 78.

Wallace died at her home in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, of natural causes after spending time in hospice care, the local coroner told The Associated Press.

Wallace was an outspoken advocate for her son, born Christopher Wallace, and his legacy after he died in a shooting in 1997. The case remains unsolved.

In a particularly memorable public appearance, she attended the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, which took place roughly six months after Biggie died.

She accepted an award he won for “Hypnotize” and noted that if her son were there, he’d say, “big-up to Brooklyn.”

Though she initially called her son’s music “noise,” she told The Associated Press that when she listened to his songs, she understood his gifts.

“I cried so much that day just listening to the music,” she said. “I remember I sat,...

“For Khadija” is billed as a documentary about French Montana, but there’s a reason that it’s named not after the hip-hop alter ego of Moroccan expatriate Karim Kharbouch, but his mother. “I felt like my mother’s story, the beginning to the end, the closure of her going back to Morocco, is when I was like, okay, now the story has a meaning,” French tells Variety. “This goes out to all the mothers that struggle, that have kids, that was forced to sacrifice.”

Given the other films made about rappers and their families — including “Dear Mama,” about Afeni and Tupac Shakur and “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell,” which heavily features Notorious B.I.G.’s mother Violetta Wallace — it’s not necessarily an unexpected place to start. But the documentary, which premieres June 16 at the Tribeca film Festival, uses the relationship between Karim and Khadija to highlight the...

Maverick artist Nam June Paik will be the subject of a new feature-length documentary that will highlight unseen footage and archival materials. The currently untitled production will be completed in 2022. Oscar nominee and “Minari” star Steven Yeun and hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy have joined the project as executive producers.

Paik is often referred to as the “Father of Video Art” and was a prophet of the internet, as well as a visionary and futurist. Adopting technology to transform the way we see the world, he was one of the first to use television as an artist’s canvas and invented the video synthesizer. In the 1970s, he coined the term “Electronic Superhighway” and predicted the future of communication in the digital age. He launched a series of the world’s first global satellite art events, bridging the gap between East and West, pop and avant-garde and all genres of art...

Grierson Awards: Netflix And BBC Neck-And-Neck

Netflix was nearly neck-and-neck with the BBC at last night’s Grierson Awards, winning five gongs including for David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet in Best Single Documentary – Domestic. The streamer was only one behind the BBC’s six wins as the pair dominated on a night where the BBC tends to be out in front. Netflix’s other victories came for Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell (Best Music Documentary), Athlete A (Best Sports Documentary), My Octopus Teacher (Best Natural History or Environmental Documentary) and A Love Song For Latasha (Best Short). BBC2 doc Once Upon a Time in Iraq won two awards (Best History Documentary and Best Documentary Series) while all other BBC awards went to BBC4 shows. Channel 4 won for The School That Tried To End Racism (Best Constructed Documentary Series) and Yinka Bokinni (Best Documentary Presenter), while...

WME has inked the Estate of the Notorious B.I.G., the latest signing for the agency since it launched WME Legends, its new division that is focused on managing estates and brands. The deal, unveiled Tuesday, was struck with the Brooklyn-born rap icon’s mother Voletta Wallace and his family.

Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls and real name Christopher Wallace, was of the most influential hip hop artists of his generation when he was shot and killed in 1997 in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles. The four-time Grammy nominee fueled the East Coast rap surge with his 1994 debut album Ready to Die. He was one of the top-selling male solo artists and rappers on the U.S. pop and R&b charts at the time of his death; the killer has never been found.

Several posthumous Biggie albums were released including 1997’s Life After Death, 1999’s Born Again and 2005’s Duets: The Final Chapter,...

Immediately making good on its promise to sign superstar estates, WME’s Legends Group has brokered a deal to represent the assets of late rapper the Notorious B.I.G.

Born Christoper Wallace, the Brooklyn-raised icon’s enduring brand and all subsequent transactions around it will flow through the agency, which launched the speciality unit in March under Phil Sandhaus.

The deal was made with B.I.G.’s mother, Voletta Wallace, and family members, joining existing estate clients like Andy Kaufman, Eartha Kitt, Peter Tosh, the Cbgb brand and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation.

Noted as one of the greatest rappers of all time, B.I.G. was a four-time Grammy nominee who gained solo success after releasing his first single, “Juicy,” followed by his 1994 debut solo album, “Ready to Die.” The album produced two further hits, which helped east coast hip-hop gain prominence in a chart landscape dominated by west coast stars.

Emmett Malloy's new documentary, Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell, made its Netflix premiere on March 1, 2021. The intimate look at the personal and professional life of beloved New York rapper Christopher Wallace aka The Notorious B.I.G. joins a long line of hip-hop documentaries dating back to the early 1980s.

Related: 5 Hip Hop Movies That Worked (& 5 That Didn't)

With such recent releases as The Defiant Ones, Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men, and most recently Hip-Hop Uncovered, the musical documentary subgenre has proliferated on the small screen. Some have a narrow focus on one artist or group in particular, while others take a more holistic approach.

While watching Netflix's Notorious B.I.G. documentary, Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell, you might be curious about the late rapper's best friend, Roland "Olie" Young, who championed Smalls up until Young's murder in 1992. The rapper's closest childhood friend, supporter, and running pal, Young was known to support Smalls's career even at the very beginning. Tragically, Young was murdered by his own uncle and gang boss Carl Bazemore, aka I-God, just months before his best friend became famous, and was never able to see their dreams come into fruition. Smalls then showed through interviews and lyrics that he would never forget his friend.

According to Distractify, Young was one of Biggie's closest friends, working with the rapper as crack dealers in New York City. As they earned more than $2,000 a week on Fulton Street, the two continued to be close. In fact, it was Young who urged Biggie to pursue a career in music,...

After going all out during an awards season in which the company was uniquely well-situated to run the table, Netflix is rolling into March with a release slate that doesn’t suggest the dawn of spring so much as it does a garage sale. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t any good movies dropping on the platform this month, only that few of them seem poised to make a big splash, and the ones that might (the Eric Andre prank comedy “Bad Trip” comes to mind) haven’t been made available to critics yet. That’s also true of the many international titles that will be made available to stream over the next few weeks, some of which seem promising (we have our eyes on the Olga Kurylenko “Taken” riff “Sentinelle”), but none of which have made an impression on the festival circuit.

Other Netflix Originals of...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

17 Films by Anand Patwardhan

One of the greatest chroniclers of Indian history over the past half-century, Anand Patwardhan has caused controversy in his native country for his searing, in-depth political documentaries . Now, his complete filmography is available to view, from his first film Waves of Revolution made in 1974 through his most recent film Reason completed in 2018.

Where to Stream: Ovid.tv

Ammonite (Francis Lee)

Calling a Kate Winslet performance career-best is no easy statement, but her turn as 19th-century English paleontologist Mary Anning in Ammonite is certainly in consideration. Few writer-directors trust their actors to do so much with so little dialogue as Francis Lee. Like Josh O’Connor’s Johnny in Lee’s debut,...

Michelle Obama, the Notorious B.I.G. and the college admissions scandal are just some of the big names and phenomena coming to Netflix this month.

The Notorious B.I.G. is the subject of the documentary, Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell; Michelle Obama appears in Waffles + Mochi, as the series’ eponymous puppet pals learn to cook with fresh ingredients as they explore international cultures and cuisines; and Operation Varsity Blues investigates the headline-making controversy involving sneaking children of the rich and famous into top colleges.

Original films hitting the streaming service throughout the month include Amy Poehler’s latest ...

Michelle Obama, the Notorious B.I.G. and the college admissions scandal are just some of the big names and phenomena coming to Netflix this month.

The Notorious B.I.G. is the subject of the documentary, Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell; Michelle Obama appears in Waffles + Mochi, as the series’ eponymous puppet pals learn to cook with fresh ingredients as they explore international cultures and cuisines; and Operation Varsity Blues investigates the headline-making controversy involving sneaking children of the rich and famous into top colleges.

Original films hitting the streaming service throughout the month include Amy Poehler’s latest ...

One wonders what Notorious B.I.G would have thought about smartphones. The late New York Mc, who is the subject of a new Netflix documentary titled Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell, was an eager evangelist of the humble camcorder. Early on in the documentary, his longtime friend Damion “D-Roc” Butler explains how Biggie instructed him to capture the audiences at their concerts. The resulting footage is electric — a preserved vision of a hip-hop golden era, shown from the vantage point of one of its most culturally influential stars.

Just finished Netflix's latest documentary Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell? You might be wondering about the late rapper's children. Although the doc primarily focuses on rare footage of The Notorious B.I.G., aka Christopher Wallce, and analyzing his out-of-the-park fame and success, it also leans into his personal life and family. Securing interviews with his best friend Diddy, plus his mother, grandmother, and ex-wife Faith Evans, the just-released film gives us a never-before-seen glimpse into what made the rapper who he was - including his kids.

Smalls had his first child, T'yanna Wallace, on on August 8, 1993 with his high school sweetheart Jan Jackson. However, the two broke up before T'yanna's birth, as the rap king focused on growing his music career. Jackson spoke to Xxl Magazine about this time in her life, telling them that Smalls got his record deal right around when T'yanna was conceived.

Biggie Smalls, born Christopher Wallace but Aka Notorious B.I.G., is a contradictory legend. A rapper who was always heard singing, a serious artist who never stopped clowning, he took the streets with him knowing it would take him down. His first album was called Ready to Die and his next was Life After Death, but he had a life in between. It is sad how his legacy is posthumous. But, as Sean Combs says at the very start of Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell, “This story doesn’t have to have a tragic ending.”

Combs, who co-produced the film, celebrates the contradictions and how they informed the music. When Biggie rapped he had “so much style I should be down with the Stylistics” he was being artistically autobiographical. Smalls had been singing those soul classics and listening to jazz greats from the earliest age. It’s...

At this point, it’s practically a given that any HBO, Showtime, Netflix, Amazon or Hulu documentary with a running time of over two hours is going to be padded; that any eight-hour documentary probably should have been six; that any six-hour documentary probably should have been four; that any four-hour documentary probably should have been a movie; and that anything related to Nxivm probably should have been made two years ago.

The inverse is that there are the 100-minute documentaries that probably could have been a six-hour miniseries, like Netflix’s Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell or HBO’...

At this point, it’s practically a given that any HBO, Showtime, Netflix, Amazon or Hulu documentary with a running time of over two hours is going to be padded; that any eight-hour documentary probably should have been six; that any six-hour documentary probably should have been four; that any four-hour documentary probably should have been a movie; and that anything related to Nxivm probably should have been made two years ago.

The inverse is that there are the 100-minute documentaries that probably could have been a six-hour miniseries, like Netflix’s Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell or HBO’...

A new Netflix documentary aims to tell the unheard story of a tragic rapper, focusing on the personal, speaking to those who knew and miss him

“This was a four-year journey for us,” film-maker Emmett Malloy tells the Guardian of his ambitious new documentary that aims to tell the story of Christopher Wallace, more famously known as the Notorious Big. He was murdered at the age of 24 in Los Angeles and a week away from the 24th anniversary if his death, Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell is landing on Netflix.

Malloy partnered with Biggie’s estate manager Wayne Barrow, and the late rapper’s 68-year-old mother, Voletta Wallace in order to bring to fruition a true representation of the rapper’s real upbringing – the glorious moments and the glorified.

March brings breezes loud and shrill/stirs the dancing daffodil. Bit of poetry for you there. What Sara Coleridge fails to mention is that March also brings season seven of Brooklyn Nine-Nine to Netflix UK, more weekly episodes of Riverdale season five, a brand new sci-fi series from the creators of Misfits, a new film directed by Amy Poehler and a host of cool animated series.

The One (pictured above) is an eight-part British series created by Howard Overman about a near-future world in which a DNA test can track down your perfect partner. It’s adapted from John Marrs’ novel of the same name, and yes, has a strikingly similar premise to US anthology sci-fi Soulmates. Another fun new UK addition is The Irregulars, a period supernatural fantasy set in the Sherlock Holmes universe in which a bunch of ragtag kids not only have to save the world from darkness,...

The streaming wars are just as fiery and competitive as ever. Disney+ now has one Marvel TV show under its belt (WandaVision), with another one to come in March (The Falcon and The Winter Soldier). In response, Netflix is broadening its reach with its list of new releases for March 2021.

Netflix always features plenty of international options for viewers across the globe, but March is the first month where it seems as though international releases make up roughly half of Netflix’s originals. And that’s great! China’s The Yin Yang Master and Spain’s Coven of Sisters both look to be intriguing films this month.

Read more Movies Pacific Rim 3 and Expanded Universe Possible By Don Kaye TV Best Anime On Netflix to Stream By Daniel Kurland

On the U.S. domestic side of things, however, pickings are bit slimmer. March 3 sees the release of the intensely American-sounding...

It’s hard to do a convincing warts-and-all portrait when your subject built a livelihood celebrating their warts and even harder when you’re determined to treat those warts as pimples.

That’s the challenge facing director Emmett Malloy with the new Netflix documentary Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell. This latest attempt to do a revealing, yet authorized depiction of the life of Christopher Wallace — b.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G., b.k.a. Biggie Smalls, b.k.a. Biggie, b.k.a. The Black Frank White, b.k.a. Big Poppa — suffers simply, but ...

It’s hard to do a convincing warts-and-all portrait when your subject built a livelihood celebrating their warts and even harder when you’re determined to treat those warts as pimples.

That’s the challenge facing director Emmett Malloy with the new Netflix documentary Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell. This latest attempt to do a revealing, yet authorized depiction of the life of Christopher Wallace — b.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G., b.k.a. Biggie Smalls, b.k.a. Biggie, b.k.a. The Black Frank White, b.k.a. Big Poppa — suffers simply, but ...

This weekly feature is in addition to TVLine’s daily What to Watch listings and monthly guide to What’s on Streaming.

With nearly 500 scripted shows now airing across broadcast, cable and streaming, it’s easy to forget that a favorite comedy is returning, or that the new “prestige drama” you anticipated is about to debut. So consider this our reminder to set your DVR, order a Season Pass, pop a fresh Memorex into the Vcr… however it is you roll.

More from TVLineWhat's New on NetflixMatt's Inside Line: Scoop on Flash, Legends, Million Things, Chicago P.D., Star, Good Girls,...

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic hitting the U.S., all of us have become professional bingers. On Wednesday, Feb. 24, Netflix announced all of the new TV shows, movies and original projects joining the streaming service in March 2021. The month kicks off with something for the music lovers with the Netflix original documentary, Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell, which will detail the life, career and untimely 1997 death of Brooklyn rapper Christopher "Biggie Smalls" Wallace aka The Notorious B.I.G. Speaking of originals, Last Chance U: Basketball is finally here. The series will follow the East Los Angeles College Huskies basketball team as they make their way to...

When the late Notorious B.I.G. was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November, he, like the other living or dead inductees, was celebrated in the HBO special that served as a virtual ceremony with a biographical short film — one that was just well done enough to make a lot of viewers wonder: Why has Christopher Wallace’s story never been made into a theatrical feature? It had, but that’s just how forgettable the 2009 biopic “Notorious” was; 13 years later, it’s as if that film never existed, leaving the life of the man many still regard as hip-hop’s greatest star ripe for re-mythologizing.

Some of the producers behind that earlier effort, including Sean “Puffy” Combs and Biggie’s mother, Voletta Wallace, have joined with new collaborators for another, much better try at burnishing the hip-hop titan’s legacy with Netflix’s “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell.

Christopher Wallace packed a lot of living into 24 years, and “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell” goes a long way toward capturing his personal story alongside the legacy of his relatively brief but deeply influential career as hip-hop paradigm-shifter Notorious B.I.G.

Unlike 2009’s docudrama biopic “Notorious” (also made under the auspices of the rapper’s estate) which seemed determine to sand down the music legend’s rougher edges, this new Netflix documentary takes a more clear-eyed approach — to Wallace’s childhood, his teenage years on the street absorbed in hip-hop and making a living selling drugs, the adults who taught and protected him, and the musical influences that made his work unique and important.

Producer Sean Combs notes early on that Biggie was the first rapper whose style couldn’t be traced to the roots of hip-hop, and that’s not just hyperbole. Director Emmett Malloy digs...

Christopher George Latore Wallace a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G. a.k.a. Biggie Smalls (at least until some kid named Tim threatened to sue him) was 24 years old when he was gunned down in Los Angeles in 1997, and would have turned 49 in May of 2021. At this point, the greatest rapper of all time has been a legend for longer than he was ever alive. Wallace is American history. He’s an eternal point of reference. He’s a mural at the intersection of Bedford Ave. and Quincy St. in his old Brooklyn neighborhood. The greatest value to Emmett Malloy’s “Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell,” a new documentary laced with intimate and never-before-seen camcorder footage shot by Damien “D-Roc” Butler, is how bluntly it reaffirms that Wallace was real, even if he always seemed larger than life.

There he is fretting over his facial hair in a hotel on tour,...