The Notorious B.I.G: A Psychological Portrait of a Rap Star - Essay Example

?The Notorious B.I.G: A Psychological Portrait of a Rap Star Essay This essay analyzes the life and work of one of the most celebrated rappers of all time, Christopher Wallace, or more commonly known as Notorious B.I.G. This essay is a psychological analysis of his personality as influenced by his family life and experiences as a resident of one of the most infamous places in New York-- Brooklyn. The analysis focuses on the specific traits that were apparently shaped by external or environmental factors, as well as the inner strengths and weaknesses that developed later in his life. Introduction One of the most respected and celebrated rappers of the contemporary period, Christopher Wallace, more popularly known as Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G., influenced hip-hop in a remarkable and exceptional way. A genuine musician and an artist, Christopher created songs that narrated his life experiences, originally putting emphasis on the challenges of being an inner-city hustler or a crack trader and afterward celebrating the gangsta dreams that would eventually become his reality (Coker, 2013). But even in spite of the controversies he faced later on, Christopher’s life is significant to anybody who has ever tried and aspired to succeed because his is a perfect narrative of success despite numerous challenges. His is a narrative that is important to those who defy the rules and norms of the society. Christopher lived in a fatherless home, raised by a single mother who worked two jobs at a time to provide for his needs and wants. His early education was well-grounded but eventually lost its way because of his exposure to the inner-city life of Brooklyn, which was characterized by violence, drug dealing, gangsta wars, and so forth. He eventually took part in the crack trade (Hess, 2007). All these experiences greatly influenced his character or personality. This essay analyzes how his family life and his later experiences influenced his psychological, social, and emotional attributes. The discussion mainly focuses on his personality as a child, an adolescent, and as a rap star. Background and Family Life Christopher George Latore Wallace, popularly known as Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G., was born on the 21st of May 1972 (Coker, 2013). Voletta Wallace, his mother, was occasionally on bad terms with her husband, Selwyn Latore. Voletta came from Jamaica and decided to migrate to the United States. Voletta was a single mother who kept different jobs to provide for her family. When she migrated to the United States in 1969 Voletta had a plan (Hess, 2007). It required a rigid work ethic and strong dedication to self-reliance. After two years she made a decision to permanently live in the U.S. After giving birth to Christopher, she focused much of her time and effort on her son. On the other hand, Selwyn was uncertain about Christopher (Hess, 2007). He was practically absent throughout Christopher’s childhood. Voletta applied her extensive experience in early childhood education to educate Christopher. When he turned five, Christopher was a lot bigger than his counterparts, although he allegedly never took advantage of his size to bully or terrorize others. Rather, he showed charisma, which he carried on until his death (Lang, 2007). Hence, Voletta was the only parent whom Christopher really knew. Voletta’s effort to raise her son alone had a huge effect on the young Christopher. Voletta reveals that Christopher got the nickname Biggie because he was plump as a child. She later admitted that, “If I had it to do over again, that’s one area where I would have done things differently. I would not have fed him so well. But during that time, the mindset was that the bigger the child, the healthier and happier he or she is” (Wallace, 2005, 51). Voletta also valued and rigidly practiced education in their home. Because she was raised in Jamaica where education was stringent and firm, she highly respected and valued public education in the U.S. When Christopher was only a young child, Voletta worked as an early childhood teacher. On the other hand, Christopher spent most of his childhood and teenage years in Brooklyn and even though he did not go to a private school to acquire her early education he sooner or later insisted to be enrolled in a public school due to security and social concerns (Lang, 2007). This disagreement between Voletta and Christopher over education eventually started to explode. When Voletta heard the news about Christopher’s truancy and utter disregard and lack of respect for education, she immediately questioned him. This altercation did not only happen once but numerous times, especially during the teenage years of Christopher. Christopher believes that he would gain more as a garbage collector than as a teacher (Hess, 2007). Hence Voletta’s persistence was futile. However, this was merely one of the reasons why Christopher disliked traditional education. Christopher, according to Voletta, was a very curious, insightful, and intelligent child (Wallace, 2005). But by the 1980’s, during the adolescent years of Christopher, Brookly was inflicted by the crack cocaine outbreak that beleaguered the United States during that period. Drug addiction was not the problem confronted by Voletta or Christopher, but the economic appeal of the drug enteprise was the attraction of street life where in Christopher was to perfect his talents and acquire the experiences that would eventually lead him to his success in the music industry. A neighborhood plagued by scarce opportunities and joblessness, the street of Bedford-Stuyvesant produced quite a few talented and exceptional rappers, such as Big Daddy Kane, Mos Def, Jay-Z, Aaliyah, Lil’ Kim, and Busta Rhymes (Mcphaul, 2005). The neighborhood has been strongly influenced by numerous of the social changes throughout the 20th century, from the white flight to the racial unrest to the crack outbreak, a trend that persists until now. The area, even though originally populated by white people, became an entirely black neighborhood in the 1960s (Mcphaul, 2005). Even though Christopher earned some money as a bagger at a local grocery store, he still did not have the luxury he dreamt of. Christopher, initially enrolled at a private school, eventually realized that he did not belong to a private school and so he insisted to be transferred to Westinghouse High School, a public school where the students terrorized teachers, where riots run rampant, and where the police were the ones who control and discipline the unruly students (Coker, 2013). There Christopher became acquainted with Trevor ‘Busta Rhymes’ Smith and Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter. While spending his early years in a public school, Christopher eventually realized that education is not for him; the streets called him. To him, engaging in the drug game was more financially rewarding than going to school. He experienced the freedom he always wanted on the street, and later on, he decided to drop out from school (Coker, 2013). Christopher believed he could earn the money he wanted trading crack, an alternative that became more and more attractive. Christopher became known as Cwest before becoming popular as Biggie Smalls. He and the Techniques, his DJs, would get together after classes and hone their talents. They would also see Donald Harrison, a saxophonist, who motivated them to surpass the limitations of their neighborhood (Hess, 2007). He helped them harness their craft and he shared bits and pieces of knowledge about music, especially jazz. Christopher’s attraction to street life did not stem from financial difficulties in their home. In fact, Christopher had a dual life as an adolescent. He was his mother’s son and her only love of her life in their home. But in his private world, or, in the streets, Christopher was Biggie Smalls, aspiring to be a prominent rapper. Big Daddy Kane, Run-DMC, and LL Cool J were all great influences on Christopher (Lang, 2007). But these aspirations did not have the guarantee of the swift cash in crack trade, particularly once Christopher discovered that he could earn greater cash more rapidly if he smuggled his Brooklyn goods in the South. He chose Biggie Smalls as his permanent MC moniker in North Carolina. He arrived at this decision with one of his trade buddies, while they were trading and watching Let’s Do It Again starred by Billy Cosby and Sidney Poitier (Lang, 2007). Biggie Smalls was a gang member in the movie and thus the perfect match. Regrettably, even though he made the name Biggie Smalls widely popular, he did in the end have to give it up, because of legal problems, for the less appealing Notorious B.I.G. The Controversy of Notorious B.I.G. Replacing his main moniker Biggie Smalls with Notorious B.I.G., the budding rapper got his first recording debut in 1993 in Real Love, a Mary J. Blige remix (Coker, 2013). This was the beginning of his success in the music industry. Becoming increasingly popular, the Notorious B.I.G. made his major album, Ready to Die, in 1994. His album reached platinum sales and had sold millions of copies which made Notorious B.I.G. a hip hop superstar—the only superstar the East Coast had brought into being since the stardom of West Coast G-funk by Dr. Dre (Coker, 2013). Immediately after the album was made public, Notorious B.I.G. married R&B artist Faith Evans. Tupac Shakur, the gangsta celebrity from the West Coast, was shot in 1994 in the entrance hall of a recording studio in New York. Shakur managed to survive the incident and charged Notorious B.I.G. and Combs of being the masterminds of the assault, an accusation both of them ardently refuted. The hostility and hard feelings ballooned into an impassioned rivalry between the East Coast and the West Coast (Lang, 2007). In the meantime, Notorious B.I.G. focused his time and effort on other activities. He collaborated with singers like R. Kelly and Michael Jackson. With the album Ready to Die still topping the charts, Notorious B.I.G. concluded 1995 as the greatest solo male artists on the R&B and pop charts, and the highest selling rapper (Lang, 2007). However, Notorious B.I.G. got into mayhem and legal troubles on numerous instances. A concert organizer charged Notorious B.I.G. and his partners of attacking him when he declined to give the agreed payment after the cancellation of the concert. Soon after the incident, Notorious B.I.G. was found guilty of criminal disobedience after assaulting two pestering fanatics with a baseball bat (Hess, 2007). The following year was to be a doubly chaotic and turbulent period. More legal issues arose after law enforcers discovered weapons and drugs in a break-in on Notorious B.I.G’s home in New Jersey. In the meantime, Lil’ Kim released his very first album with the help of Notorious B.I.G., and the two did not give much effort hiding their intimate relationship (Coker, 2013). Tupac, still harboring resentment against Combs and Notorious B.I.G., released Hit ‘Em Up’, a fierce criticism of the East Coast, where in he ridiculed Notorious B.I.G. about having a love affair with Faith Evans, who was by that time on bad terms with her spouse (Hess, 2007). Tupac was finally killed in a shooting in Las Vegas on September 1996. Due to their highly publicized dispute, Notorious B.I.G. was eventually rumored to be involved in the murder of Tupac, even though none of the allegations were proven. He was also condemned for failing to make an appearance in an anti-violence hip-hop convention following Tupac’s death (Hess, 2007). Spectators hoped that the death of Tupac would be a reality check for gangsta rap on the whole, that too much publicized boldness had went unbridled. Unfortunaely, it would require another misfortune for the gangsta rap world to finally understand what is going on. On the 9th of March 1997, Notorious B.I.G. was shot. His bodyguard took him immediately to the hospital, but the rap star died instantly (Coker, 2013). His murder was possibly even more tragic and alarming than that of Tupac; it revealed that the death of Tupac was not an unrelated event, and that the greatest stars of the hip-hop world may be trapped in the middle of a growing feud. As expected, hearsays began to escalate that Notorious B.I.G’s killers were getting revenge for Tupac’s murder, and since the case is still unanswered, the public has no way of knowing for sure. Analyzing the Lifestyle of Notorious B.I.G. Party and Bullshit is one of the first recordings of Notorious B.I.G. The messages of these songs, which basically narrate Biggie’s lifestyle, depicts his experience with partying, drinking, and having to cope with the every so often harsh realities of urban living. Even with this chain of guest appearances, albums, and remixes, Notorious B.I.G. remained discontented with the flow of money from the music business (Cobb, 2007). To further aggravate the situation, his former girlriend was pregnant with his child. The demands of looming fatherhood alongside the slow financial return from the music industry pushed Biggie to go back to crack trading (Mcphaul, 2005). Nevertheless, there are a number of lesser recognized reasons to the standing of Notorious B.I.G. as a symbol in hip hop culture. Several of these reasons and aspects were already established even before he started working on his important album with Bad Boy. His experiences, personality, and voice, those aspects that make up his artistic creations, are at least partly an outcome of his childhood training or upbringing and the different neighborhoods or areas with which he popularized himself. Primarily, he lived in Brooklyn, New York, a neighborhood with unmatched reputation in the hip hop culture. Although hip hop began in the Bronx, Brooklyn had occupied its position as the leading neighborhood of New York in the world of hip hop. Some of this emanates from the many rap celebrities, who came from Brooklyn, but a great deal of it also arises from the global status of Brooklyn as one of the roughest, most culturally or ethnically diverse metropolises in the world, particularly in relation to unlawful activities like drug trading and criminal operations (Rome, 2004). Hence Notorious B.I.G. is from Brooklyn, a symbol from a symbolic city. The artistic lifestyle of Biggie may be analyzed in terms of the obvious independence and individuality that he possessed. Drevdahl (1956) argued that eccentricity and individuality were essential requirements for creative endeavor in the artistic field. Creative individuals, like Biggie, avoid the habitual, routine, and traditional attitudes toward new ventures and the methods of performing them. Roe (1961) observed that among their major attributes was their independence. The level of independence integral to various kinds of creative activities may differ though. In music, abilities and methods have to be learned and honed. Several researchers found out an inclination for the more creative artist to be deviant and troublesome (Miller, 1991). This may explain Biggie’s lifestyle, which was largely characterized by eccentricity, originality, and nonconformity. For the African American, expression through music has offered them an outlet to release distress, hurt, anguish, and happiness, while simultaneously becoming a potent channel which is heard by people who can relate to it and those who are not eager to. For contemporary youth of the Black community, hip hop or rap is this medium (Cobb, 2007). Rappers, like Biggie, used this music genre to express their disapproval of an unfair and hostile society or neighborhood where in they live. As stated by Federic (1998, 94): Rappers and hip-hop music have been getting a bad rap. This music is no different from the many other forms of expression used by Blacks of a different generation. The blues, jazz or even spirituals reflect the concerns of Black people as a whole. To devaluate this form of expression is to miss the point, the point being our youth’s way of telling us the kinds of things that amuse and anger, and the experiences they go through in today’s world. To ignore these feelings would be to deny their very existence. Even though Notorious B.I.G. grew up in Brooklyn, his Jamaican blood is of remarkable importance to hip hop. Even though Biggie did not frequently mention Jamaica as his native soil, it still should be recognized that his cultural training and parental tradition resemble that of the pioneers of the hip hop culture (Hess, 2007). This legacy influences his iconographic status quite unnoticeably, but the musical influence is obvious, particularly in the initial stages of his career. If his Brooklyn orientation and Jamaican heritage are combined with his experience with the crack trade in the South a precise image of the artist Black hip hop star surfaces. Even though Notorious B.I.G. never really resided in North Carolina, trading crack everywhere is perhaps the most excellent way of getting a rigid investigation. Notorious B.I.G.’s visits to North Carolina were certainly profitable, but they should have also introduced him to the Black community of southern America (Coker, 2013). It is easy to believe the hardships Notorious B.I.G. sang about for they have traditionally been widespread in the ghetto. Nevertheless, when the childhood of Biggie is deeply evaluated, according to his family and other significant others, against the image he fashioned in his rap music, there is an evident disparity. Biggie was behind all the hip-hop grandeur. He was without a doubt a talented rhyme creator, and one of the best urban narrators of hip hop. But the question is, was Notorious B.I.G. singing about his actual experiences or about the events that took place around him? The difference is essential, because maybe if it actually was more about the events that happened around him, Biggie may be more convincing in terms of being a genuine believer of the ghetto life, in a historical point of view. The Personality of Notorious B.I.G. Voletta Wallace has maintained in all her interviews that Biggie did not experience any financial or material hardships while growing up. More significantly, she has claimed that Biggie always stayed at home and did not have unruly and rebellious friends (Wallace, 2005). Possibly therefore, Biggie’s character was merely that, an embodiment of all the things that occurred around him in the inner-city Brooklyn community where he lived for most of his life—of all its sinister and sheltered features, the killers, the street bandits, the pimps, and the drug traders. Maybe, Biggie did see much of the hardships he vibrantly portrayed in his lyrical stories; he just witnessed them, but did not take part in any of them. This is also the reason portions of his rhymes, from time to time, sounded weird or absurd. His lyrics and rhymes were quite realistic and graphic that a listener could exactly imagine Biggie in the situation. One may claim he was performing his own ghetto desires or imaginations in his songs, which in several cases, were quite gloomy or pessimistic that they actually became unbelievable. Yet, in order to become a successful as a rap star, particularly to reveal to the world Brooklyn as it really was, he had to turn into a ghetto champion, an omnipotent, ever-present entity that had seen and heard everything directly or personally (Hess, 2007). Biggie had to become a drug trader who had both experienced and endured the rough and rigid upbringing of numerous inner-city Black youth. In his songs, there were hints of the actual person, the player—nobody will refute the image of Biggie as a ladies’ man—entwined with different bits of narratives and personalities that would have been practically impossible for one individual to have experienced in a short lifetime (Coker, 2013). Biggie’s personality was apparently shaped by the pressures to conform to social norms in their home, and, and at the same time, the pressures to reject these same social norms in the streets. The extent to which individuals adhere to social norms may be ruled by their sensitivity to outside pressures to comply or, in contrast, their rejection of such demands. Individual differences with regard to this may involve the development of self-concept and conscientiousness. Essentially, these aspects have to do with whether the individual feels pressured or controlled by others, for instance, by parents (e.g. Voletta Wallace), or whether the person decides to pursue a more independent and personal attitude toward ‘morality’ where in s/he declines to be governed by rules. Biggie chooses to follow his own path and did not allow his mother to get in his way. This choice put him in frequent confrontations with his mother, especially with regard to the value of education and the morality of trading crack. A Psychological Analysis of Biggie’s Personality An interesting transformation happened in Biggie’s personality, specifically, as regards aspects concerning self-concept and conscientiousness. Conscientiousness, at times called ‘superego strength’, is greatly associated with respect for parents, affectionate upbringing, and family background (Kemp, 1996, 62). The high level of conscientiousness that Biggie possessed was manifested in his determination, perseverance, and in the way his mother reared him which was mostly based on love and affection rather than force and punishment. Biggie also had a ‘high self-sentiment’ (Ajzen, 2005) attribute which was shown in the way he nurtured a strong self-awareness or identity which he strictly held. Biggie was also susceptible to compulsive behavior patterns, which may be attributed to how he was raised and educated by his mother. There are many factors that have to be considered at this point. Biggie’s gradual transition from conscientiousness, as influenced by his mother, toward disrespect for externally established norms or rules (e.g. hustling) alongside inclinations to be ruled by personal desires (e.g. wealth and fame) matches perfectly with the transition from dependence to independence. A number of psychologists explain it quite briefly in portraying introverts as individuals who “maintain independence from the judgment of others, being bound by inner moral law” (Kemp, 1996, 64). Definitely, these attributes were displayed by Biggie as a creative artist. Chambers (1969) explained that introverts like Bigger were “… independent non-conformers, relatively unconcerned with group approval of their actions, and relatively uninterested in socialization. On the whole they… have chosen not to conform to a given mould but rather to express their sensitivities and other characteristics through their creative abilities” (Chambers, 1969, 791-92). The transformation of Biggie’s personality has possibly less to do with the absence of moral consideration than a manifestation of emerging personal independence integral to advanced artistic abilities. Myers (1993) portrayed introversion, which characterizes Biggie, as “maintaining an independence from the judgments of others, being subject to an ‘inner moral law’” (Kemp, 1996, 74). This may be interpreted specifically as a need to break out of his mother’s, as well as society’s enforced, well-worn, and traditional norms, beliefs, and values, which, while they seem to have their impact on the initial stages of human development, wield declining influence later on. Biggie was once a vulnerable adolescent, absorbing an urban culture that he eventually portrayed in his album Ready to Die. Young Biggie would unquestionably witness this inner-city life first hand. Whether he actually experienced all of it, or merely was an exceptionally keen observer- but perhaps a combination of both—he was still creating another identity in his mind that would represent bits and pieces of everything he observed or witnessed in the street. As admitted by his mother, “My rule for him was he had to stay at the stoop… play right in front so I could see him. I trusted my son; it’s just the street I never trusted” (Brown, 2004, 33). Consequently, Biggie as a personality developed as Christopher matured into an insightful adolescent, who, according to Chico Del Vec, Biggie’s childhood pal, “Every day I’d see him at the same time in that same spot (on his stoop.) One day I was like ‘Yo, come with me around the corner and meet some of my old timers, and he was like ‘Alright.’ And he was standing there, like, in shock” (Brown, 2004, 33). Biggie unquestionably matured in Brooklyn’s inner-city part, but he never lived in a publicly funded apartment building, as he stated in one verse, “celebrating every day no more public housing,” (Brown, 2004, 34). Instead, he lived in a comfy and posh two-bedroom high-rise, although he grew up in home without a father. Furthermore, as recalled by his mother, the young Christopher usually visits Jamaica, where in “we would go to Jamaica every year. Christopher loved the Reggae beat. He had an uncle who was a DJ, and on Saturdays Christopher would go to clubs (with his uncle) and play the music” (Brown, 2004, 34). Biggie, in his interviews, revealed snippets of his personality, especially his disregard for what other people think of him and his independence of mind. He told one reporter, “nobody that buys Ready to Die knows me, they just know the Notorious B.I.G.; and that’s all I really want them to know. Everybody needs their privacy, everybody needs their own time to be to themselves” (Brown, 2004, 34). In another interview, Biggie said “my shit comes off so strong and my hardness is so sincere because I’ve lived all that shit” (Brown, 2004, 34). It is certain, that as he matured, Biggie, regardless of how poorly he lived, had matured as Christopher the child. Moreover, he became very engrossed in street hustling that engulfed him within his neighborhood. It is at this point, starting from Biggie’s teenage years that any reliable psychological analysis of his experience with street life and, particularly, the crack businesses, before becoming a celebrity must begin. Although he admitted in numerous interviews that he engaged in the crack trade because he had no real chance to make progress financially, he was apparently engrossed in the activity for motives that were not totally practiced: “Hustlers were my heroes. Everything happened on the strip I grew up in. It didn’t matter where you went, it was all in your face” (Brown, 2004, 35). However, although Biggie may have denied having been personally involved in the frequent irrational violence that characterizes inner-city life, he still seemed to have become extremely used to it during his adolescence. He revealed this in one of his interviews (Brown, 2004, 39): “I’m expecting something to happen, because it’s nothing special to me. It happens on every corner I go to in Brooklyn. I’m immune to it. The only time that hearing someone got killed is a surprise to me when it’s somebody I was close to. So then I have a feeling: I have mourning for them.” Nevertheless, in spite of Biggie’s unsentimental and toughened appearance in interviews, just like what is shown in the picture below, many of his loved ones and friends see him as one of the wittiest and most comical personalities in the neighborhood (Lang, 2007). Through this point of view, another personality of Biggie surfaces which is significantly more optimistic than the pessimistic, gloomy, and threatening personality he showed in the media; one where in people see indications of the flexibility and adaptability in Biggie as an individual. Biggie projects himself in the media as a tough, rough, stubborn, and independent rap star. This is the identity he chose for himself; this is the identity that his rap songs portrayed. But Biggie as an individual was more than this superficial identity (Lang, 2007). More significantly, his portrayals of the benefits of hustling give listeners the chance to know that there was actually a choice in the illegal routine he practiced, mostly apparent in the fact that he was aware of the immorality or the error of his ways, and still did it anyhow, and not entirely because he was compelled or obliged to, but, to a certain extent, because he benefitted or took pleasure from it as well (Lang, 2007). Hence, Biggie’s objective with his songs seemed to be to characterize the desolation and harshness of the inner city through his rhymes in terms of the impacts on its inhabitants. Biggie believes that America confronts the basic dilemma of his neighborhood, namely, gang violence, substance abuse, drug trading, unemployment, poverty, and so on (Hess, 2007). Strengths and Weaknesses of Biggie’s Personality While Biggie is uniquely introverted, there is also a confidence which emanates not just from his inner strength but also from his self-concept and independent mind. Biggie has an independent-type personality and less affected by other people and, with regard to emotional approach, he was more capable of taking a critical perspective of music and other observable facts of life. Independence is also firmly associated with other personal attributes like attraction to complicated ideas, imagination, and originality. Furthermore, the perception and intuition inclinations of the Myers-Briggs also show direct association with such attributes (Myers, 1993). Biggie’s introversion seems to be positively associated with the levels of his musical abilities. This personality seems to express itself specifically in Biggie’s inclination to channel his power or vigor inwards, leading to a snobbish, laid back, and reflective personality. Nevertheless, it also indicates high levels of personal inner strength, self-reliance, and originality or creativity. Biggie can be viewed as a confident introvert who has the ability to be at ease in privacy or isolation but at the same time is capable of exercising adequate levels of self-sufficiency in public performance. This kind of introversion seems to manifest attributes of the ‘schizoid’ character (Ajzen, 2005)—Christopher as a child and Biggie as a hustler—or Biggie’s attainment of a sense of control over his artistic abilities and creation of a sense of his own power. Biggie obviously developed a very unique kind of auditory approach, which enables him to compose an imaginative, creative, and inner dimension of sound, filled with imagery (Cobb, 2007). However, despite these strengths in Biggie’s personality, there were also weaknesses that may be attributed to various factors, such as the absence of his father. Some psychologists claim that almost all social problems confronted by children are associated with fatherlessness (Mcphaul, 2005). Some researchers reported that children who grew up in fatherless homes, like Biggie, are more susceptible to substance abuse, low educational attainment, and emotional and social difficulties (Rome, 2004). Fatherless boys are more vulnerable to crime, both as victims and perpetrators (Miller, 1991). Biggie, although he was showered with love and affection by his mother, still needs a father figure. Biggie’s low regard for education and engagement in unlawful activities may be attributed to his fatherlessness. The psychological theory is that boys like Biggie is dispossessed of a strong, concrete father figure at home who can provide a solid discipline, guidance, and nurturing (Kemp, 1996). For most boys it is crucial that their fatherless home provide an alternative father figure or role model to help ward off the depression, uncertainty, anxiety, and anger than arises from growing up without a father (Miller, 1991). Conclusions Christopher Wallace’s persona is not like those of any typical rapper. He is unique in every sense. His social, emotional, and psychological attributes were not disruptive. Even though he was raised in a fatherless home and in a chaotic and impoverished neighborhood, Biggie did not develop any destructive traits like excessive anger—this was shown in how he diplomatically handled Tupac’s constant mocking of his personal and professional life (Coker, 2013). In fact, as described by friends and loved ones, Biggie was cheerful and funny. Outside of the music world, Biggie was an optimistic, confident, and highly independent individual. His fatherlessness did not affect him that much (Lang, 2007). Although his eventual engagement in the crack trade and his hustling lifestyle may be attributed to the absence of a father figure, Biggie was still able to develop a strong sense of personality and an independent view of the world. References Ajzen, I. (2005). Attitudes, Personality, and Behavior. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press. Brown, J. (2004). Ready to Die: The Story of Biggie Smalls, Notorious B.I.G., King of the World & New York City. 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