BlackmanVision Film Production

Notorious is  a film about the life and death of Notorious BIG aka Biggie Smalls born Christopher Wallace, legendary East Coast rapper and protege of Sean Combs aka Puff Daddy/P Diddy.

When Biggie Small’s mother Violetta Wallace came to the USA from Jamaica,  like all immigrants from the Caribbean she was chasing the American Dream. Little did she realise that her dream would also be the American Nightmare.  Her son became one of the most successful and respected rappers in a classic rags to riches story, but did not live to see his 25th birthday. His memory lives on and he is a cultural icon to many rap aficionados. But the flip side to his success was also the darker side of rap which eventually led to his early demise.

The film is a simple story about his life, moving from the inevitable chase for “bling” through drug dealing, to eventual worldwide fame on the musical stage.  Notorious is simplistic and superficial in the way it smooths over the testosterone-driven violence that infiltrates inner city neighborhoods like toxic gas. Collecting “benjamins” by exploiting  drug addiction in order to purchase symbols of success drives people to insane acts of terror and immorality. There was a telling scene in the film where Biggie sells drugs to a pregnant woman when his homies refuse. His retort is “I’m not a social worker!’  And as for the the “beef” between himself and Tupac Shakur, Notorious goes all out to present Biggie as the peacemaker and good guy. But then Notorious was produced by Sean Combs, so that would explain the Biggie bias.

The film oozes African American masculine bonding and culture which is handled brilliantly by George Tilman Jr who is also best known for directing Soul Food. This is a man’s film, so don’t come looking for any insight into the women in Biggie Small’s life apart from his amazing mother, played stunningly by Angela Bassett. Other memorable poerformance are given by Jamal Woolard as the adult Biggie, Christopher Jordan Wallace, his own son, as the young boy Biggie. The musical interludes are fantastic and will give fans much to love and rap along with.

And for Violeta Wallace maybe this film has allowed her to come full circle to realise her son fulfilled his dream if not her American one.

Notorious opens in the UK on 13th February 2009

Official Movie site

Tags: AngelaBassett, Biggie Small, Faith Evans, Jamaica, JamalWoolard, Lil Kim, Notorious B.I.G, P Diddy, Puff Daddy, Sean Combs, Tupac Shakur, Violeta Wallace

This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Black Film Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.