Seeing Big’s uncle creating music in Jamaica, or having a mentor in jazz musician Donald Harrison. But what was interesting to me was seeing these direct ties that he had. We all know that hip hop has roots in other black music across the diaspora. Everybody thinks Wayne bullied me but he didn't. So Emmett was the guy, and Wayne didn't twist my arm. You know when something feels right, and something don't. He was focused on really getting to know Chris, he wanted to know the artist before the rapper. Everybody's been talking about doing something –– the footage, the footage, the footage, the footage.
From the moment I met him, he’s just had a different vision.
LIFE AFTER DEATH BIGGIE SMALLS MEANING CRACKED
I think that let him know that we were on the right path, and that made him more excited to know that we were going after a story that he knew was a good one as well.ĭ-Roc: Emmett definitely cracked me out of my shell.
I mean, D-Roc even called me after I posted a picture of me sitting with Big’s grandma. But maybe I can bring some of these stories to life somehow in Jamaica. I can have these other stories, and then his footage will light it up because that's the real stuff. His friends saying, “he couldn't go to bed without country music.” Those stories I started to realize that I can do other things in this film beyond D-Roc’s footage.
LIFE AFTER DEATH BIGGIE SMALLS MEANING PLUS
So Big grew up absorbing Jamaican culture and music, plus country. And when she started to give me those stories about her growing up listening to country music-it was just on the radio every day. Wallace first time, hearing her roots of Jamaica and that they went on vacation there once a year, every summer, was just so interesting. Did any of you guys find new information about her that you didn't know before working on this?Įmmett: For me sitting down with Ms. She wasn't just Biggie’s mom you bring up her story of coming to the United States, what her dreams were when she came here, and what her son's success meant in the context of that. One thing I thought was beautiful about the film was the way that you guys humanized Voletta. “His story doesn't have to be a tragic ending,” says Puffy in the film. And instead of dwelling on the (still infuriating) murder, the film focuses on just how fragile his success was in the first place: on how many times he could have lost his chance at stardom altogether, and how he overcame it. Along with Sean “Diddy” Combs, Butler, and Biggie’s mother Voletta Wallace, the film includes his Jamaican uncle and grandmother, jazz musician and neighbor Donald Harrison, and other childhood friends. Director Emmett Malloy dives deep into the people and places that created Christopher Wallace: from his visits to his mother’s family in Jamaica, to the lesser known loved ones in the several-block radius that formed his Brooklyn stomping grounds. Instead, it tells an origin story as Big’s lifelong friend Damion “D-Roc” Butler for the first time reveals reams of personal footage shot in hotel rooms and backstage at shows, showing a vulnerable side of the rap legend rarely witnessed outside of his inner circle. I Got A Story To Tell, released this month on Netflix, does neither of those things. And since his life was cut so short after his murder in 1997 at 24 years old, there have been multiple films, books, and posthumous records, all focused on attempting to either preserve his musical legacy or to make sense of his senseless death. Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace was one of the most talented, influential rappers of all time, with pristine abilities on the mic, a glowing sense of humor, and a fly sense of fashion.