Who killed Biggie Smalls?

BROOKLYN-BORN rapper Biggie Smalls cemented himself as a legend during his short lifetime.

Also known as The Notorious BIG, he is considered one of the greatest rappers in history due to his distinctive laidback lyrical delivery and often grim content.

Who killed Biggie Smalls?

It is still not known who killed Biggie Smalls.

Decades later, his case remains unsolved.

In 1996, Biggie was entangled in the escalating East Coast-West Coast hip-hop feud.

Former friends Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur were at the heart of a rap war - fuelled by jealousy and brutal diss tracks.

Following the death of Tupac in September 1996, many accused Biggie of being involved in his shooting.

Biggie was then murdered in a similar circumstance six months later, on March 9, 1997, in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles.

The driver of a dark Chevrolet Impala SS, dressed in a suit and bow tie, pulled up alongside Notorious BIG's SUV at a red traffic light at 12.45am and began shooting at the rapper's car.

Biggie was shot four times and died in hospital at 1.15am.

His autopsy - released 15 years after his death - showed only the final gunshot was fatal.

It entered his right hip and struck his colon, liver, heart and left lung.

He was 24 at the time of his death.

What are the theories behind Biggie's death?

One theory suggests Biggie was killed by mistake and that Sean "Diddy" Combs was the original target of the shooter.

Leaked FBI documents reveal Combs had received multiple death threats, and his security guard confronted a man who had approached Combs' car just moments before the shooting.

Both rappers had been waiting for cars to pick them up outside the Peterson Automotive Museum in LA after an after-party.

The pair both got into the front passenger seat of their respective green SUVs.

Combs' security guard told his driver to run a red light rather than stop at a junction, knowing they wouldn't have been safe to sit at the lights.

Biggie's driver, however, didn't follow suit, and they sat at the lights for around a minute.

Meanwhile, an ex-FBI agent says he has evidence that the Los Angeles Police Department orchestrated Biggie's murder.

Philip Carson claims to have evidence against two "dirty" cops, and the LAPD could now face a $500million lawsuit.

He says bosses shut down his investigation, but when he retired in 2016, he took almost 3,000 pages of case documents with him.

Carson gave his evidence to filmmakers, and a film about the case - City Of Lies, starring Johnny Depp - was set to be released in 2018 but was put on hold.

The former agent said: "LAPD, all the way to the very very f**king top, knew exactly what was going on."

He believes that Marion "Suge" Knight, the former CEO of Death Row Records who signed rappers including Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac, employed the LAPD cops and ordered them to arrange Wallace's murder.

Who was Biggie Smalls?

Biggie Smalls was born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, on May 21, 1972.

The rapper, whose real name was Christopher George Latore Wallace, was signed to Sean "Diddy" Combs' Bad Boy Records when it first launched in 1993.

His debut album Ready To Die was met with widespread critical acclaim and included singles like Juicy, Big Poppa, and One More Chance.

Biggie's music was often semi-autobiographical, rapping about hardship and criminality; but also celebration.

His second album, Life After Death, was released two weeks posthumously and reached number one on the Billboard 200, eventually achieving a Diamond certification in the United States.