Voletta Wallace, mother of The Notorious B.I.G., dies at 78

Voletta Wallace, the mother of The Notorious B.I.G., has passed away. According to Monroe County coroner Thomas Yanac, she died under hospice care and of natural causes Friday morning in her Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, home. She was 78 years old.

In the years since The Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, was fatally shot in 1997, Voletta fought to find out who killed her son. She filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department, claiming some of its officers were involved in the killing. It was eventually dismissed. She also helped to keep B.I.G.'s legacy alive, working as executive producer on the 2021 Netflix documentary Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell, among other things.

"They never knew me. The public never knew me. I was thrust into this environment, I should say, after he passed away, because I'm a very private person. Extremely private," she once told The Associated Press. "What he was doing out there, maybe I should have known. But honestly, I didn't. And to this day, there are people who are saying, 'Oh, she knew.' (whispers) But I never knew."

Notorious B.I.G.'s 1994 debut album, Ready to Die, is six-times Platinum, while his sophomore album, Life After Death, released two weeks after his death, sold over 11 million units.

B.I.G's case remains unsolved.