Biggie's Family Sues Officers

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Five years after the murder of Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G. and Biggie Smalls), his widow, singer Faith Evans, and his mother, Voletta Wallace, and his two children have filed a wrongful death suit against the city of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Bernard Parks, former Police Chief Willie Williams and others.

Filed April 9th in federal court, the lawsuit claims that members of the LAPD were aware of an "atmosphere of violence and alleged criminality" among members of Death Row Records and a street gang who "had consistently exhibited significant animosity" toward Wallace. The suit also alleges that the LAPD was aware of a specific threat to Wallace, who was gunned down in 1997, and could have prevented the murder, and that the crime was not fully investigated subsequently.

Details of the LAPD's affiliation with Death Row Records and the possible link between Wallace's murder and the police department were reported in the Rolling Stone feature "The Murder of Notorious B.I.G.: Gangster Cops, Suge Knight and the LAPD Scandal" last June.

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Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

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