On the outro to Christopher Wallace’s second posthumous album, Born Again, his mother, Voletta Wallace, says, “The thing that my son loved most about life was the fact that he was in a position to help, position to share, position to give to others who needed, to others who wanted to others appreciated the gifts that he gave.” It isn’t hard to see where this quality came from, both in nature and nurture. It was from his mother, who passed away this morning in hospice at age 78.
On the unhappy occasion, I spoke this afternoon to the writer/director dream hampton, the journalist who came as close as Biggie Smalls had to a confidant/chronicler in his life and afterlife, who of course developed a relationship with Ms. Wallace as well. “What occurs to me in this moment is how young she was when I met her,” hampton says. “She must’ve been in her thirties.They were close in the way that only a single mother and her only child could be.”
Voletta Wallace was just over 50 years old when her son was murdered on March 9, 1997, inheriting an estate then worth $10 million dollars, along with a lifetime of grief. Today that estate, administered by the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation, is estimated to be worth approximately $160 million. She managed it alongside Biggie’s widow, Faith Evans, and his merchandising manager, Wayne Barrow. From all appearances, the estate was managed judiciously. Wallace, a former preschool teacher, made sure it provided educational opportunities to children, and above all ensured the execution of her son’s wish that her grandchildren would never want for anything in their lives.
During Biggie’s life, Ms. Wallace knew little of the art form her son was perhaps better at than anyone who came before or who followed. But she learned to appreciate it after his gift cost him his life. A self-described private person, she was thrust into a role that she handled with aplomb, becoming his most vocal and visible ambassador. In her words and through the example she provided, she taught dream hampton something valuable when it came to how to deal with the unimaginable. “When I went to visit her in New Jersey about seven or eight months after [Biggie’s] murder, she admonished me for not having been in touch,” hampton says. “I told her the truth: That I didn’t know how to show up. That simple interaction helped me to learn that showing up is all that’s required when grief is so enormous.”
Editor’s picks
In 2020, when Christopher Wallace was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Ms. Wallace visited the Breakfast Club radio show. When asked what she would do if her son was still here she said, between the good-natured laughter of a tough but loving first-generation Caribbean single mother in Brooklyn, “I’d strangle him….because some of his associates I still want to strangle.” This is the real service, the love and care she was able to provide for her son that lasted far longer than his brief life. Which isn’t to say his legacy has survived without blemish.
On March 25 of last year, Biggie’s frequent collaborator Sean Combs had his properties in Miami and Los Angeles raided by Homeland Security investigators; he was later arrested and charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and other horrific alleged crimes, all of which he has denied. Critics and rubberneckers were quick to point out that the date coincided with the 27-year anniversary of the classic Life After Death, Christopher Wallace’s first posthumous album, released just two weeks after he was murdered.
This literalized a great fear that a fan of Christopher Wallace, the artist and the human being, could envision: a scenario in which the sins allegedly committed by a member of Big’s inner circle could attach themselves to the work he left behind. And perhaps that might have come to pass, if it wasn’t for Ms. Wallace, who always made herself available for comment when milestone anniversaries occurred, who always comported herself with grace, dignity, and humor in openly discussing the grief that marked the second half of her life, and who never let us forget the man, the young father, her warm and funny child whom she could always see behind the rapper’s facade. She was quick to speak out after the exposé published in Rolling Stone last year, making it clear she didn’t condone Combs’ alleged behavior, and noting that she wanted to “slap the daylights” out of her son’s former collaborator. She continued, very much in her trademark disapproving rap-mom patois, “He needs to apologize to his mother……I hope to God he sits her down and spills his guts and apologizes to her.”
Related Content
Biggie’s estate was seemingly never overtaken by the public feuding and backbiting we’ve seen far too often when other great artists pass away. It was always clear who was in charge, who knew him best, who had the firmest sense for what her son would’ve wanted, and who guided his legacy with that certainty above all other agendas or concerns. It was his best friend, his mother. “I am in awe of the steadfast way she helped manage his estate,” hampton says. “No one, least of all Puff, wanted her as an enemy. These things can go south so quickly and often do, but she was formidable.”
