DISGRACELAND - The Notorious B.I.G. Pt. 2: A Dead Rivalry, New Inspiration and a Murder Mystery for the Ages

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

In part two of the Notorious B.I.G. story we see the young star trying to deal with life after the death of his rival (and one-time friend), Tupac Shakur. We also get a glimpse into the motivation behind the making of his final album, the aptly titled, Life After Death and get deep into the mystery behind his still unsolved murder. This episode was originally published on May 25, 2021. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠ ⁠X⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠ ⁠TikTokSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court. On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history,

including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.

A story about the notorious BIG, his background, his beginning days as a crack dealer and an artist, and his path is a man and a musician, not to mention his beef with friend Tupac Shakur, is so complex that two episodes were needed to properly tell this story. If you're just getting hip to this now, I suggest you hit pause and go back to the last episode of Disgraceland, part one of the notorious BIG story. Or if you're looking exclusively for a deep dive

into the East Coast West Coast beef between Biggie and Tupac, check out the entire episode dedicated to this site, subject in Season 1 of Disgraceland. You'll also want to check out the two-part episode dedicated entirely to Tupac Shakur, his career, and his artistry that is available earlier in Season 7 of Disgraceland. Here we get into the famous rivalry, but we also get into the notorious BIG's life after Tupac, his inspiration as an artist and the mystery behind his still unsolved murder. We also, of course, get into the great music that the notorious B.I.G made. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show,

that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Gangster White Walls, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to wannabe by the Spice Girls. And why would I play you that specific slice of greasy girl-powered cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America

on March 9, 1997. And that was the day the notorious B.I.G. was shot and killed, kicking off one of the most mysterious music industry murders of all time. On this episode, a dead rivalry, new inspiration, a mysterious murder in the Notorious BIG. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. The notorious B.I.G was laid up in the hospital with a shattered leg, A result of the car accident that had occurred the night before and would keep him in the hospital for three months.

His head was full of confusion, his big belly filled with fear. His boys had come by to visit, brought him a boombox in some of his old mixtapes to help him pass the time. Who shot you, the B-side from his hit single Big Papa, came on and immediately began to irritate him. This was the song Tupac used against him.

The song Pock claimed, Big had written about him. The song that supposedly proved Tupac's insane theory that Big and Puff were behind Tupac shooting at Quad's studios at night. The song was instrumental in the beef narrative between the two men, despite the fact that Big and Puff had recorded who shot you before Tupac was shot. It made no sense. A lot of things about Tupac Shakur made no sense. For all his paranoia of fear and public fretting about dying young, he lived. He lived. Liberally insulted some of the most dangerous gangsters on both coasts. And for someone who frequently rapped about equality and oppression and individual freedom,

Tupac had no problem aligning himself with a man who was seen as one of the most violent, oppressive forces in the music industry. Shug Knight, owner and label boss at Death Row Records. Unable to move from the bed, Big grabbed an open can of Pepsi from his bedside table and launched it at the boombox in hopes of names. nailing the stop button. He missed, laid his head back on his pillow, let the painkillers do their thing, closed his eyes and passed out. The song played on. The Mitsubishi Montero wasn't known as a gangster's whip, which suited its owner just fine. From the outside, it looked like any other

modern-day SUV tooling down Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles, practical but popular, overbuilt by its Japanese makers with more horsepower than needed. The Montero was a sneaky monster, just like its driver. Inside, the SUV was tricked out with a television set in VCR, ridiculous indulgences for the interior of a mid-market automobile, especially back in the 1990s. Now the 80s Arabla punk wired to the massive subwifor in the back of the SUV, that was a necessity for any player, low-key or not.

A man's car stereo was his calling card on the block. Without that bass rolling out of your ride's windows at nausea-inducing volume and middle-earth rattling low frequencies, well, let's face it, you were just another geek on the street. Much like the geek and the LTD who just pulled up next to him. What the fuck was he yelling about? Stupid motherfucker with his men's warehouse shirt and tie telling him to turn down his shit. Fuck you, motherfucker.

The driver of the Montero ignored the driver in the Ford LTD and then decided that he wasn't not only going to turn down his music, he was going to turn it up. He cranked the stereo. The sub raged. The driver of the LTD, white, middle-aged, was beyond offended. It didn't help matters that he hated rap music, the same type of music that was inconsiderably blasting from the Montero,

whose driver was black. So Mr. LTT began shouting out of his window even more furiously. Mr. Montero shouted right back, and was animated, now in fact, more angry than the originally agreed man in the LTD, who started this whole mess by telling him to turn it down in the first place. Of course, Mr. LTD would claim that Mr. Montero started the mess when he had the disrespect to blast his rap music at ear-splitting volumes in the middle of the day, on a public street, no less.

It was offensive. The shouting continued until Mr. Montero killed the volume so that Mr. LTD could hear clearly what he was about. about to say next. And what he said was this. You better shut the fuck up, white boy, or I'm going to put a cap in your ass. And with that, he drew his piece.

The light then turned green and Mr. LTT blasted through the intersection. Something clicked in Mr. Montero, and he instinctively gunned it in hot pursuit of the LTD. The chase was short-lived at the next stalled intersection, with Mr. Montero once again pulled up alongside his Ford, Mr. LTT wasted no time and drew his own gun. And before Mr. Montero knew what was what, Mr. L.T.D, in a tragic case of reverse road rage,

aimed, fired, and very efficiently shot and killed Mr. Montero. Mr. L.T.D., the shooter, it turns out, was a white LAPD undercover narcotics officer named Frank Liga. Perhaps more shocking, however, was that Mr. Montero, the dead black dude who brandished his piece first, was a seven-year veteran of LAPD's Pacific Patrol, another cop named Kevin Gaines. And perhaps most interesting about this entire fiasco

was that the green Mitsubishi Montero with the tricked-up Blopunk, the car Officer Kevin Gaines was driving, again, Officer Kevin Gaines, was registered to death row records. Officer Gaines was driving the death row, Montero, because he was on Shug Knight's payroll, as paid security.

Many LAPD officers moonlighted as security detail, and many of them were gainfully employed by Shug Knight and death row records, because having cops on your payroll was smart for many reasons. Number one, people didn't fuck with cops. Number two, when they did and shit hit the fan and you and your gang-banging buddies found yourself in trouble with other cops, other cops tended to believe other cops, as in the one Shug paid to protect him slash pull him out of the fan-spitting shit when he needed them to. Further connecting Officer Kevin Gaines to Death Row was the fact that he was dating Sharitha Knight, Shugnight's soon-to-be ex-wife, and Snoop Dogg's ex-manager. Anyway you cut it, Officer Gaines was down with Death Row.

So believed another officer, the decorated detective Russell Poole, who was assigned to the case to figure out why one white L.A. cop Mr. L.T.D. shot and killed another black L.A. cop, Mr. Montero, also known as Officer Kevin Gaines. The press was gunning for the easy narrative of undercover racist white cop kills defenseless off-duty black cop. But the facts uncovered by Detective Poole led him into an entirely different investigative direction, one that involved a different murder entirely, the murder of the notorious BIG's friend in rival, Tupac Shakur. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And Rule 2, never mess with her friends either. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me?

The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secret. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves.

My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything. And me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever.

And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else? that you can do rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance. Like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises.

And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been sleepwalking. David O'Yellow-O. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Durbin. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead.

Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Madarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena, monjeu. Camilla Moron. Kenny Silver and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tupac's death, the car accident that shattered his leg and felt

like a near-death experience and the painful recovery time alone in the hospital. It all gave Biggie Smalls a newfound sense of creative urgency and purpose. He set out to not only finish his next record entitled Life After Death, but to make it a better and more impactful album than his highly successful debut ready to die. With Tupac dead, with Shug Knight now in jail, sentenced in 1996 for an attack on a Crips gang member and serving a nine-year prison sentence, and with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog making noise about leaving death row records, the white-hot flames of the East Coast West Coast beef from the previous year had been reduced to flickering embers.

Big saw it as his duty to use his platform, to use the deeper success and brighter spotlight that his new album would bring, to do something more than rep the aspirational hip-hop high life, Blount's Bras' expensive cars. He wanted to unite the coasts, bring the West Coast rap family peacefully into the fold with his beloved East Coast. Perhaps it was hubris, but for whatever reason, Biggie believed he could do this. And so, too, did Sean Puffy Combs, if ford. no other reason than the financial windfall a bi-coastal audience would bring to bad boy entertainment, which was in part why they were both currently out on the West Coast in February of 1997. With Shug in prison, L.A. was wide open. No more beef, or so big and puffy thought. The two and their

entourage were able to come and go as they pleased. During the day, they set up Biggs' new record, video shoots, interviews, that sort of thing. And at night, they freely bounced from this club to that club without fear of any sort of beef, but old wounds cut deep, and Biggie was still paranoid enough to wish that on that night, as he and Puff and their entourage made their way through the streets of Los Angeles and their fleet of rented GMC Chevy Suburbanes, that they'd opted for the bulletproof armored siding they'd scoped earlier in the week at Beverly Hills motoring. Nothing he can do about it now.

To ease his anxiety, he let his head sink back into the Suburban's leather headrest and allowed the music to wash over. The bass boomed. Everyone get on the ground! This is a fucking robbery! The police issued M84 stun grenade did the trick. Non-lethal, sure, it didn't kill anyone, but it scared the fuck out of everyone inside the Bank of America on South Hoover on that day in Los Angeles. A flash grenade of thunderous proportions immediately upon its death. nation pants were pissed. The taste of copper crept into everyone's mouths, customers and bank workers alike, instantly feared for their lives. It was sudden chaos. Despite their being only

one assailant, the situation was immediately well within his hands. With one gun drawn, the infamous Tech Nine semi-automatic, a gun that it seemed was designed for one purpose and one purpose only. The quick massacre of scores of people in seconds. A fact not lost on anyone within the confines of the bank that day. The bank robber beelined it to the pretty assistant branch manager behind the desk, one of the only people in the bank not rendered into a useless puddle of fear. She loaded two bags with more than 700 grand in cash and calmly handed them to the bank robber who instantly fled the scene. Brazen, bold, stupid. The pretty assistant branch manager, it was later discovered, had ordered twice as much cash from the Brinks truck on that day. Why? When her cool demeanor at the scene was

revealed to investigators. She immediately fell under suspicion as being an accomplice in the bank robbery. A suspicion later confirmed when the pretty assistant branch manager cracked under questioning and admitted that yes, she was indeed in on the robbery. Her boyfriend was the robber. But it wasn't her idea. It was all his, and his name was... And was, you guessed it, another LAPD officer who grew up in Compton, a childhood friend, of Shug Knight. Was arrested, tried for the bank robbery, convicted, and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Legal documents revealed in a 2017 documentary that a quote-unquote reliable jailhouse informant

went on record to say that... ...needed the money from the bank robbery to pay off a contract killer, a killer who went by the street name, Amir. We'll be right back after this... Word, word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either.

We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands.

I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a Secret History. I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves.

My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets,

starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary.

I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. You're like, making karate noises. And here's the entire the Kardashian family over there. Everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been asleep walking.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things.

Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone at Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It wasn't known whether it was at the party that night. But lots of Shug Knight's other friends sure were. Shug may have been locked up, but this was still L.A., still his town. As for any quote-unquote Amir character, if he wasn't at the party, he was at least aware of one member of the party's Megawatt guest list. 1997 Soul Train Music Awards After Party was officially the hottest ticket in town on the night of March 8,

which is saying something considering that this was Hollywood, where A-list movie and music stars get after it in public on any given night. Even still, this party was different, especially for Big and Puff. The industry was fully aware that the notorious BIG's much-anticipated follow-up album was about to drop at the end of the month. So this party, though not directly thrown by Biggie and Puff, did serve as a celebration of sorts for them. A sort of unofficial record release party given the maelstrom of industry hype

surrounding life after death at that moment. Bad Boy Entertainment was in full flex out on the West Coast. If anyone in the history of the music industry was ever serious about Manifest Destiny, it was the supremely ambitious Sean Puffy Combs. Conquering the West was high on his agenda, so on that night, Bad Boy rolled deep. The party was held at the Peterson Automotive Museum on Fairfax in Wilshire. If you've been in Los Angeles any time during the past few decades,

you've probably seen this building. It's the massive, amorphous, candy-stripe blob of architecture that looks like something out of one of Jack White's nightmares, which is to say it's a cool-looking building. And on this night, it was packed with some of the coolest-looking people. And when I say packed, I mean way-packed, like way past whatever the fire code allowed for. Shaquille O'Neill, Chris Tucker, Wesley Snipes, Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown,

Missy Elliott, Genuine, and too many other celebrities to mention crammed into the venue, which was also stacked with models, wannabe starlets, and industry suits all there to celebrate. Biggie's new single, hypnotized, came on and the place went nuts. Big and Puff sat back in their booth and took it all in. It was the success they long hoped for, playing out right in front of their eyes. Being celebrated out on the West Coast like this, it was special, something that a year ago was unimaginable. 1997 was going to be there. their year, the year of bad boy. But real bad boys were also in attendance.

A mix of bloods and crips gang members circulated throughout the crowd in their respective reds and blues. An ominous presence. But on this night, so far anyway, there was no static, no gang signs being thrown, no flexing of any sort. It was that kind of party. People just wanted to get down, celebrate blow off steam. until the cops showed up with the fire department to shut the whole event down. The place was packed to dangerous proportions, with thousands of people jammed inside and hundreds more outside still waiting to get in at well-past midnight.

Biggie, Puff, and their entourage hung back a bit while most everyone else made for the exits. They took photos with fans, enjoyed the last sips of their drinks, took it all in, savoring it. And when they finally got to their cars, they broke out from the Peterson Automotive Museum in a five-car entourage. Puff was being driven in the lead suburban, big chauffeur behind him in a green suburban, behind him some friends in a Chevy Blazer, an off-duty cop they'd hired for extra security

trailed that vehicle, and bringing up the rear some more friends in a white limousine. And they were, of course, headed to the after-after party. But not if the man in the black Chevy Impala had anything to say about it. The 64 Impala, particularly the low-rider model from 1964 is the gangster whip, especially for West Coast gangbangers in the 90s.

EasyE had both a 64 Impala and a 63 model. Dre featured the car in his videos for nothing but a G-thang Let Me Ride in Still Dre videos. Ice Cube, not to be outdone by his former bandmates, shows off the 64 gangsta Paula in his iconic tribute to South Central L.A. in the video for It Was a Good Day. And that's just the former members of NWA. Skiilo did the same in his hysterical I Wish video, as did countless other hip-hop stars. You didn't need a fancy tricked-out Cadillac, provided you whip around in a 64 Impala,

or so went the thinking of gangsters, real players, and West Coast car aficionados in the 90s. The 95 Impala was not gangster, but its gangster lineage would have been impossible to overlook. In fact, for the criminal-minded, the 64 Impala's gangster appeal would have most certainly given the special shine to its late model offspring. Owning a 95 Chevy Impala SS back in the day was kind of like owning a Mini Cooper now. Lame as those cars are, if you own one, you're at least signaling and understanding of something cool from the past, I guess. Except to understand the Impala's past coolness, you need to be aware of a gangster life, and by extension the criminality.

that accompanies gang life. But again, the 95 Impala was not gangster. It was a cop car. Gangsters could give a shit about the 95 Impala, but wannabe gangsters and cops, well, that was a different story. The 95 Impala was a low-key muscle car, which was rare in the 90s and was why cops loved them. Different departments used them all over the country.

The 7th generation Impala had a big V8 and was built like a tank. But still, in comparison to the 64, the 95, was pretty lame. Even the SS model, even in black. And especially on that night, contrast against the glittery beamers, Benz's limos and SUV caravans. The SUV at the head of the bad boy caravan, the one with Puffy in it made it through the light at Fairfax and Wilshire. Biggie's SUV, just behind Puss, didn't make the light

and rolled to a stop in the left-hand turn lane at the intersection. As it stopped, a black 95 Chevy Impala SS rolled up quietly next to it. The driver of the 95 Impala did not take his eyes off the road ahead, despite the fact that it would have been pretty clear to anyone with a sense of Hollywood, that there was more than likely a famous person sitting just feet from him in the passenger seat of the car next to him. There was music blaring from the SUV that was obviously part of a fleet of SUVs, And they were so close in proximity to the Peterson Automotive Museum

that was at the very moment surrounded by beautiful people exiting into the night. Given the glitz and hubbub, it was beyond odd that the driver of the Impala didn't turn to his left to sneak a look at who the famous person riding next to him might be. It was like he already knew who it was, like he was the one trying to go unnoticed rather than the celebrity next to him. Lil Cease in the back seat behind Biggie, street smart that he was, immediately grew suspicious.

The man behind the wheel of the Impala was dressed in a sharp white shirt with a bow tie. He was black, wore black glasses, kind of had a nation of Islam look. Sees noted that he had his left hand on the wheel, his other hand, in his lap. And then he saw it, the gun, a 40-calibre automatic. It appeared in a flash and immediately started blasting. Seven quick shots at close range direct into the passenger side window and door of the SUV parked next to him.

Five of the shots hit the notorious BIG. The man in the Impala slammed his foot on the gas and took off into the night. The shots rang out loud. Up ahead, Puffy's SUV slammed on the brakes. Puff immediately sensed what had happened and bounded out of the truck in an instant began sprinting back toward the intersection.

And there was chaos all around him. The party goers outside Peterson immediately picked up what had happened. They were shouting, they just shot Big, they just shot Big. Scream, squealing tires, and the final bars of going back to Cali still bumping from Big's truck with the track's author bleeding out in the passenger seat. Little Sea screwed out from behind Big in the back and started pointing in the direction of the escaping Impala. Puff made it back to Big Suburban in what seemed like an eternity but was really no time at all.

His own driver arrived on foot behind him. They both jumped into the suburban. Puff began to comfort Big, who, by the looks of it, was in bad shape. Puff's driver put the truck in key. and floored in the direction of nearby Cedar Sinai Hospital. They ran every red light along the way, but it didn't matter. Despite arriving in minutes, the damage was done. Biggie was hauled out of the truck and into the emergency room, unconscious and barely alive.

And the doctors did their best, but the five bullets to the chest and abdomen did more damage to the big man than they could handle. Twenty minutes later, Christopher Wallace, Biggie Smalls, aka the notorious B.I.G. was pronounced dead. slaying of his arch rival California rapper Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas. A federal law enforcement task force currently is investigating the rap music industry and possible links to drug and gun violations and other crimes. It didn't take long for Detective Russell Poole's phone to start ringing.

He was a detective in a city full of rats. Rats now emboldened by the white-hot light of celebrity and the opportunity to alter music industry mythology in real, time. As far as informants connected to gang and hip-hop culture in Los Angeles in the mid to late 90s went, the death of the notorious B.I.G. was like that light that shines suddenly in a dirty apartment with an army of scurrying cockroaches. One of Detective Poole's first tips indicated that Officer Gaines, he of the Mitsubishi Montero, the dead man and the cop-on-cop murder he was investigating, the security guard for death row records, that guy, the

tipster told Poole that Gaines had something to do with Biggie's murder. Poole chased it down but came up empty. But more tips followed, and despite coming up with anything immediately tangible, it was clear to Detective Poole that the street certainly thought that the dead officer he was investigating, the one with the Shug Knight connection, had something to do with the murder of the notorious B.I.G. Other tips also indicated that Biggie's murder was connected to Tupac's murder six months prior, though Detective Poole could find no hard evidence directly connecting the two killings.

In fact, his gut initially told him that the two murders were pretty different. Tupac was murdered just after a massive melee in a Las Vegas casino with gunmen frantically shooting at Tupac, gangland style, spraying bullets from the back of a flashy Cadillac. Tupac would hang on for days before succumbing completely to his gunshot wounds. Biggie's murder was almost surgical by comparison. A clearly disciplined shooter using patience, cunning, and quiet, used an unassuming car favored by police to get up close to the target,

avoid eye contact, and then at the last minute, point, aim, and shoot off seven shots, connecting with five of them and killing his target almost instantly. This isn't to say that Detective Poole didn't chase down tips with better results. He did. Poole, after some time, became convinced that the two murders had some connection. It wasn't long before we figured out that his former fellow LAPD officer, remember him, the dude who robbed the bank using his pretty girlfriend as an inside mold to help him make off with 700 large. Yes, that dude, who was now sitting behind bars.

Detective Poole learned was also, like Officer Gaines, connected to Shug Knight. Grew up in Compton, a childhood friend of Shugnight, and it was learned, as we mentioned previously. supposedly robbed the bank to pay off a contract killer who went by the street name of Amir. Through his investigation, Detective Poole learned that the name given by one of B.B.M. His first visitors at his new digs in federal prison was Amir. And the photo taken of this so-called Amir, upon entering the prison, looked eerily similar to the description of the shooter that was given on the night the notorious B.I.G. was shot. The description of the man in the bow tie with the receding hair.

airline. Detective Poole gathered his evidence and handed it over to the brass at LAPD in hopes of pouring gasoline on the investigative flames he'd stoked and to smoke out the killers. Instead, the brass shut him down without any real investigation. Supposedly, the FBI was on the case. It was no longer part of the department's purview. Detective Poole, an LAPD veteran with a decorated past, the son of an L.A. County Sheriff, a man with policing in his DNA, retired in protest. He then dedicated his life to solving the murder of the notorious B.I.G. Detective Russell Poole died in 2015 of a brain aneurysm. There are many theories about who killed Biggie Smalls, some less far-fetched than others.

But in almost all of them, certain names continue to pop up. Big died on March 9, 1997. Eight days later, Officer Kevin Gaines died. The mysterious Amir is in the wind. Shug Knight is back in jail. He swears Tupac is still alive. Who stood to gain from the death of the notorious BIG? It's just another question from a murder mystery that is short on answers, short on facts.

But there are facts there, out in the open. Detective Poole found them. You can, too. Like the fact that after his arrest for bank robbery, His house was searched. Among the items found, the very rare police issued Gecko 9mm armor-piercing bullets, the same bullets used to kill Biggie Smalls. And perhaps most illuminating in Biggie's garage, a 1995 black Chevy Impala SS.

Behind it on the garage wall was what was described as a quote-unquote shrine to Tupac Shakur, with numerous posters of the slain hip-hop stuff. An icon, like his friend and rival, the slain notorious B-I-G, who, it turns out, is more than notorious. He's immortal, having achieved life after death, forever in the hearts and minds of hip-hop fans everywhere, despite his killer's disgraceful motives. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis, for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com.

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