Voletta Wallace,
mother of slain rapper Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace, told
AllHipHop.com in a recent interview that critically acclaimed director Antoine
Fuqua well direct an untitled picture based on the life of the slain rapper.
The movie, which
is funded by Fox/Searchlight Pictures, is being produced by Ms. Wallace and
B.I.G.’s former managers, Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts and will tell the life
of the legendary Brooklyn rapper, who was gunned down Mar. 9, 1997 in Los Angeles,
after attending a party by Vibe magazine at the Peterson Automotive Museum.
"The film
[will be] directed by Antoine Fuqua – a very nice director. He’s very talented,"
Ms. Wallace told AllHipHop.com. "Who is gonna play Biggie? I don’t know
yet. Who is gonna play me, I don’t know yet. But we are in the process of casting
now."
Fuqua has directed
such critically acclaimed films as The Replacement Killers, the Bruce
Willis driven Tears Of The Sun, and Training Day, which starred
Denzel Washington, who won an Oscar for his role in the film.
While many suspect
B.I.G. was murdered as a result of his feud with Tupac Shakur, police have never
solved either murder. Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sept.7
1996 and died from his wounds on Sept.13, 1996.
Smalls was gunned
down just six months later on Mar. 9, in Los Angeles after attending the 11th
Annual Soul Train Music Awards at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Center.
In June of 2004,
Ms. Wallace won a decision to bring a wrongful death suit against the LAPD,
which the Estate accuses of being complicit in Smalls’ death.
The investigation
into both murders continues and in July of 2005, the Estate of Christopher Wallace
won a major victory against the city of Los Angeles, after it was learned that
the Los Angeles Police Department withheld evidence that could have linked two
police officers and Death Row Records co-founder Marion "Suge" Knight
to both murders.
In a dramatic turn
of events, an unnamed tipster told the court that a significant amount of evidence
had not been given to lawyers of the estate.
The unnamed source
offered evidence that disgraced LAPD officers David Mack and Rafael Perez worked
in cahoots with Knight to gun B.I.G down.
U.S. District Judge
Florence-Marie Cooper declared a mistrial in the case, after Detective Steve
Katz allegedly "forgot" about critical documents pertaining to the
trial that were found in his desk drawer after a search of his office.
The city of Los
Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department were ordered to pay the legal
costs the family of Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” incurred during
the trial, for withholding the evidence about the rap star’s murder.
Wallace said a
new lawsuit was being planned to include Mack’s former partner Perez. The trial
is scheduled to resume this summer.
"All I want,
all I ever wanted is justice for my sons death," Ms. Wallace told AllHipHop.com.
"All I ever wanted was the truth. And that’s not asking too much."
In related news,
The Notorious B.I.G.’s posthumous album The Notorious B.I.G. Duets: The Final
Chapter, has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association
of America (RIAA) for sales of over a million copies.
The album spent
seven consecutive weeks on top of Billboard’s Top Rap Album chart when
it hit stores in Dec. of 2005. The album debuted at #3 on Billboard’s Top
200 charts and featured the hit "Nasty Girl" featuring Diddy, Nelly
and Jagged Edge.
The album took
two years to craft and features verses B.I.G. recorded during his career paired
with new versions from a who’s who in Hip-Hop, including 2Pac, Big Pun, Scarface,
Ludacris, Snoop, Eminem, Jay-Z, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Nas, Juelz Santana, T.I.,
Missy Elliott, Jim Jones and many others.
B.I.G.’s three
previous albums, Ready To Die, Life After Death and Born Again
are also certified platinum by the RIAA.
