Charli Baltimore: The B.I.G Picture, Pt. 1

Those who have seen the Notorious

biopic will question the absence of one key figure in the life of the

Notorious B.I.G. shortly before he died: Miss Charli Baltimore. Tiffany Lane

aka Charli Baltimore broke out on the scene following the death Christopher

Wallace. Her breed of raw rap—comparable to Lil’ Kim in her explicit

style, though not quite as suggestive—brought Charli

to the spotlight without a constant cosign as a former love of Biggie. The

Philly native’s place in the Commission was sealed, but sadly that project

never came to fruition. Here, Miss Baltimore discusses in depth some aspects of

Notorious that hid the truth and how

she feels the world is handling Biggie’s posthumous presence.

 

 

AllHipHop.com: First

off, have you seen Notorious?

 

Charli Baltimore:

No, and I don’t really want to see it either. I feel as though it’s

not—it wasn’t portrayed realistically.

 

AllHipHop.com: People

have been questioning why you were left out of the film.

 

Charli Baltimore:

From what I’m understanding, the one particular scene which I guess bothered me

more than anything was that me and B.I.G. were in a really, really, traumatic

car accident. I almost died in that car accident and for them to downplay

it—and again I didn’t see the movie so I don’t know how much it’s

downplayed or not—but for them to downplay it the way that it was, the

way that it occurred…it bothered me. That’s what probably bothers me more so

than anything. I don’t usually do too many interviews regarding Big.

Stand Up (Featuring Ghostface Killah) – Charli Baltimore

AllHipHop.com:

The scene is where they show the car accident, there is a girl in the backseat

who I assume is you and then the accident just kind of happens…

 

Charli Baltimore:

I went through the windshield. I was in the backseat, that’s true. Cease lost

all of his teeth… every last one of his teeth got knocked out. He was the

driver. From what I understand it’s portrayed in the movie like it was really

lightweight, and it had a lot of bearing on Big’s album. And again, everybody

in that car almost lost their life. So I don’t play that, it’s not cool at all.

 

Big had to have the Jaws of Life remove him, and that was a

really pivotal moment in his career because that’s what caused him to do the

double album for Life After Death.

So, you know, the movie is his mother’s story, which is how I’m getting it, but

again she wasn’t there and I had 22 stitches under my hairline that…I was the

first person that was taken out of the scene of the accident because any sort

of head injuries they take you first.

 

That was a really serious accident. It wasn’t a fender

bender. It was an accident where we went over the divider and were on to the

other side of the oncoming traffic going the opposite direction and almost went

over an embankment. So for them to downplay that particular event was a little

shocking to me the way that I got it. Like I said, I didn’t see it so I don’t

know but I know that I still got plenty of stitches and plenty of sometimes

ailments to prove that the accident was no joke. Big had a metal rod that had

to be inserted into his leg and it had a lot to do with him having a life

changing experience that in all actuality Big was not supposed to walk again.

Because of his weight, he had sleep apnea, he was told that he would probably

always have a wheelchair or possibly even a walker and he kind of defied all

odds. We sat in the hospital and he had to go through therapy and he had to

basically learn how to walk again.

 

[Big] was in a rehabilitation facility for three months

because he had to learn how to walk, and he was determined to do that. Not to

mention he still had a deadline to do this album. You gotta remember when this

happened that Big’s album was almost done. When we got in the hospital and all

this craziness happened, he said, “You know what ma, I’m going to do a double

album.” I’m like, “Get the hell out of here.” People weren’t really doing that

kind of stuff back then. So he really sat and he like…he did it. It was very

inspiring to watch someone do that under the circumstances that he was under,

which was craziness. People telling him that you might never walk again

properly, you may be in a wheelchair, he wasn’t trying to hear any of that

sh*t. He was like, “Hey, I’ma walk again. I’ma be fine.”

 

AllHipHop.com:

Are you angry about your absence in the movie?

 

Charli Baltimore:

Well you know, if anybody has a right to be mad about

the movie it should be maybe Un or D-Roc. I think that a lot of people who are

portraying themselves in this movie have no idea what type of person that Big

was and one of the funniest things I could recall is that…I was thinking about

something Big used to do everyday at a certain time. I can’t remember the exact

time, but I remember everyday at a certain time Big would have at least a

45-minute to an hour conversation with Lance “Un” Rivera, his business partner.

And from what I understand, he’s barely in the movie. That was one of Big’s

closest confidants. I feel as though if anyone should be mad really…I’ll even

go so far as to say let’s skip Un, I would say D-Roc. I know how much Big loved

D-Roc, and I know that that was unconditional love. That was real just

brotherly just, straight out I’ll do anything for this dude, and vice versa.

 

AllHipHop.com:

D-Roc isn’t portrayed much in the movie either following his prison term.

 

Charli Baltimore:

I don’t understand any of that. I really don’t. I mean, D-Roc lived with Big.

Big loved D-Roc, that was his brother you might as well say….brother from

another mother. So if anybody should be telling Big’s story…I’m not mad about

the movie…but if anybody should be telling Big’s story, it should either be

D-Roc or Un because these are the people that Big confided in the most. Not

Puff, not these other people or whoever claimed to be a part of this film. I

remember these everyday phone calls [between Big and Un]. It didn’t matter what

the situation was, what country we were in, Lance and Big had this conversation

every day.

 

Like I said I’m not bitter about the film because for me, I

always felt like my relationship really was nobody’s business. I know what I

had with Big; I didn’t really need to explain it to anyone. But I also…you know

Big confided in me as a boyfriend would confide in a girlfriend. So I know a

lot of things about Big that I would never discuss with anyone.

 

AllHipHop.com:

What about you in this equation? You were with Big when he passed; you were a

very important part of his life.

 

Charli Baltimore:

I had just left L.A. when he died. I had left I think two days prior. I had

some personal things I had to take care of, and I had actually just lost one of

my best friends on Valentine’s Day; they had just gotten killed. That was one

of the main reasons Big wanted me to come to L.A., just so I could take my mind

off that. Actually me and Big had a lot of drama in L.A. What was funny was the

homicide police came to my house after Big died, which was kind of weird to me

but they were just going in all angles. But yeah I was with Big two days before

he died and the funny thing was, he was loving Cali, and he was so happy that

he kind of defied all the odds and was able to walk.

 

If you notice in the “Hypnotize” video he just has the

cane…he defied all of the things with the walker, with the wheelchair…he was in

the hospital for three months undergoing intensive therapy. So that particular

moment in time was what lead to Life

After Death. That’s why that album was called that. Big was just determined

to make it the best that he could make it. I don’t think that people realize

that. I think that if they were going to make a movie about Big’s life, it

should have concentrated more on his music. His personal life was really

honestly nobody’s business, and if he was alive I don’t think he would have

wanted that.

 

I mean if someone was going to make a movie about Big’s

personal life then it should have been Faith, not Ms. Wallace. I mean come on;

we’re all adults. As an adult, your mother doesn’t know every waking detail of

your personal life. That’s just not realistic. Not to say anything bad about

[Ms. Wallace], but you know I had a relationship with her as well and I have no

idea what she was thinking when she made that movie and kind of just left out

that whole portion of Big’s life that I was there. I was very young when I was

dealing with Big so that was a huge life experience for me, as far as

experiencing death. I had actually experienced a lot of death at one time…my

father died, my best friend died and Big died, all within an eight month period.

I had never experienced anything like that so that was a lot for me to deal

with.

 

Maybe it made [Voletta Wallace] feel better [to leave Charli

Baltimore out of the film], I don’t know. Maybe it made for juicier story lines

to just use Kim and Faith, I have no clue. It really doesn’t bother me, I

really don’t care. I just don’t like the simple fact that…the one thing that

really bothered me was the car accident thing because again, I have two

daughters and I could have lost my life in that accident and Big also was very

hurt in that accident.

Down Ass Chick – Ja Rule ft Charli Baltimore 

AllHipHop.com:

After Ms. Wallace saw the movie and saw the sides of Big that she didn’t get to

see as a mother, she said that it made her not like that side of Big very much.

She said the person that she saw on the screen was a monster at times.

 

Charli Baltimore:

I mean if that’s the case, everybody’s a monster sometimes. That’s human

nature. I just don’t feel as though if someone was going to tell Big’s story it

should have been his mother, unless he was a child. Christopher had already

become Biggie and he loved his mother to death, but at the end of the day she

can’t tell the accurate story of where Big was in that place in his life. The

only person that could do that were the people that lived in his crib and were

with him everyday and she was not one of those people.

 

She’s saying she saw something on screen she didn’t like; of

course you’re going to see something on screen you don’t like. I’m pretty sure

if anybody made a movie about anybody’s grown child, they’re going to see

things they don’t like about their child. Like I said if somebody was going to

do a movie about Big, it should have been Damien…D-Roc. I would continue to say

that over and over again, I wouldn’t care if me and Damien hated each other.

It’s the truth.

 

Big was one of those people that he’ll tell you what he

wants you to know, but he’s not going to confide in you every little waking

detail of his life. When Damien lived right up the hall from Big, he knew every

intimate detail about Big. Damien’s kind of like me in a sense like he doesn’t

speak out too much about it. He lets people say whatever it is they’re going to

say. Everyone benefited from the Big situation but to me, Damien didn’t benefit

from it. You know what I’m saying? Again, I just feel like the things that Big

is legendary for didn’t have anything to do with his relationships. It should

all have to do with the music because that’s what Big is known for.

 

AllHipHop.com:

Were you asked at all to have any input in this movie?

 

Charli Baltimore:

I was never asked to have any input in this movie and I do know the person that

was putting this movie together and actually me and him

were tight, so I have a little issue with that. That person also, he knew Big

but he didn’t know Big like that. 

It’s funny to me, the people that put this movie together, it’s almost

like they were picking and gathering information and like sticking it together

and it’s not accurate. I don’t need to see the movie to know that it’s not

accurate so, it is what it is.

 In The Long Kiss, Pt. 2: Charli Baltimore explains her relationship with Lil’ Kim and not playing Faith in that music video, CLICK HERE.Get the latest AllHipHop Features on twitter @ twitter.com/ahhfeatures