New York’s mayor Eric Adams has honored one of the city’s most famous lost sons: rapper Biggie Smalls.
Adams paid tribute to the Notorious B.I.G.’s life and legacy at a City Hall ceremony with his family.
The mayor called himself a son of the music of Biggie Smalls. Both men were brought up by single mothers in public housing in Brooklyn.
He used his music to define what was happening in everyday life, said Adams.
Smalls – real name Christopher Wallace – would have turned 50 on Saturday. His brother C.J. was at the mayors side.
He was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in March 1997, aged just 24. The crime has never been solved.
His funeral was a vast outpouring of grief, with mourners lining the streets of his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
Hailed as the greatest rapper by many, his impact on popular culture goes beyond music, with his face still a fashion icon.
And in New York his old home is honored with a mural while on Saturday the Empire State Building will be lit in his honor.
