How the Unsolved Murder of Notorious B.I.G. Became an Obsession-Worthy Mystery for the Ages

eonline.com:

On April 12, 1997, Life After Death hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album sales chart, skyrocketing from No. 176 in the course of a week—the biggest one-week leap ever in the chart's history.

Prompting the meteoric rise of the double-disc release, still the third best-selling rap album of all time with more than 10 million copies sold, was the arrival into the mainstream consciousness of the artist responsible, Notorious B.I.G., who had been murdered on March 9, 1997, at the age of 24, two weeks before Life After Death's release.

Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls and born Christopher George Latore Wallace at St. Mary's Hospital in Brooklyn, was already a hip-hop mega-star, his 1994 debut Ready to Die also cited as one of the most.