Notorious B.I.G.'s Mom Voletta Wallace Dead at 72 — 28 Years After Her Son Was Killed

Voletta Wallace, the mother of late rapper Notorious B.I.G., died on February 21 in her Stroudsburg, Penn., home at 72 years old.

Monroe County coroner Thomas Yanac confirmed the news, stating she had been in hospice care and died of natural causes.

Voletta dedicated her life to preserving the legacy of her son, Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace, following his tragic murder in 1997.

She established the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation, aiming to contribute to the community through arts education.

Voletta, who was a teacher in New York schools for over two decades, also repurposed her son's famous moniker "B.I.G." to promote education and steer youth away from violence by advocating for "Books Instead of Guns."

Voletta said she was unexpectedly thrown into the spotlight after her son's tragic death and previously scoffed at the preconceived perception the media had of her.

"They weren't looking for an intelligent mother, a school teacher mother," she told the Pocono Record in 2003. "They were looking for a bum."

While Voletta was vocal about her distaste for rap music, she still respected her son’s art throughout the years.

"I didn't like it because I didn't know what they were saying, but my son, I knew his words," she shared. "He could articulate his story. I never liked profanity. I still don't, but I understand what he was saying."

Born in Jamaica, Voletta and Biggie's father, Selwyn George, raised Christopher in Brooklyn until Selwyn left when B.I.G. was only 2 years old, leaving Voletta to raise him on her own.

The preschool teacher saw her son break out in the late 80s and appeared in Biggie's Juicy music video in 1994.

According to the rapper, his mother inspired the lyrics: "She loves to show me off of course // smiles every time my face is up in The Source."

Voletta continued to seek justice for Biggie's killing up until her death.

"As long as I have life, there's hope," she told Entertainment Weekly in 2021 while promoting the Netflix documentary Biggie: I Have a Story to Tell. "I'll never give up. And I hope when I'm not in this world anymore, my friends and family will carry on the fight. There is always hope."

Voletta also claimed she connected with her son through his music after he died.

"After his passing, I heard a lot of positive and negative things that were being said about him. As a mother, I only wanted to hear positive things because I'm biased," the mom told EW.

"I decided then I wanted to know more about his music. I read something in a magazine about him where the writer said something like, 'What do people expect when you give a bum from the ghetto a million dollars?' I was very hurt by that," she continued. "I never raised my son to be a bum or a drug dealer. So I listened to his music, and I asked a lot of questions. I cried like a baby while listening because what I heard was an intelligent human being."