Voletta Wallace, the mother of rap legend The Notorious B.I.G., has passed away at the age of 78.
She died at her home in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, on Friday (Feb. 21) while in hospice care, Monroe County Coroner Thomas Yanac confirmed. Wallace’s death was attributed to natural causes. TMZ first reported the news.
A Jamaican immigrant, Wallace gave birth to Christopher Wallace—known to the world as The Notorious B.I.G.—on May 21, 1972, in Brooklyn. She worked as a preschool teacher while raising him as a single mother. Biggie rose to fame in the mid-1990s under Diddy’s Bad Boy Records, releasing two landmark albums: Ready to Die and Life After Death. The latter debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, arriving just weeks after he was tragically shot and killed in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997, at the age of 24.
Biggie’s music remains a cornerstone of East Coast hip-hop’s “golden era,” with timeless hits like “Juicy,” “Hypnotize,” “Mo Money Mo Problems,” “Ten Crack Commandments,” and “Going Back to Cali.”
Following her son’s death, Wallace dedicated herself to preserving his legacy. She established the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation, safeguarded his estate, and served as a producer on Notorious (2009), the biopic about his life, in which she was portrayed by Angela Bassett. In 2020, she accepted Biggie’s posthumous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “As a mother, I’m extremely proud of his accomplishments,” she said at the time. “Sadly, he’s not here to witness all this. But it’s an astute honor.”
Recently, Wallace’s Instagram account celebrated her son’s ongoing impact on music, highlighting his 992 million Spotify streams in 2024 and over 2.5 billion all-time streams on Apple Music.
She is survived by her grandchildren, C.J. Wallace and T’yanna Wallace, who are Biggies kids.
