So, who were Tupac and Biggie?

Tupac:


Tupac Amaru  Shakur was born on the 16^th of June 1971 in East Harlem, New York. He was an American hip-hop artist, poet and actor who have sold over 75 million albums worldwide. His whole family were members of the Black Panther organization, which influenced Tupac to talk about social problems, racism and poverty. Shakur was gunned down on September 7 1996 In Las Vegas in a drive-by shooting. Died on the 13 September 1996 in the hospital. He is officially one of the top Hip-Hop artists of all time.

Biggie:

Christopher Wallace aka Notorious B.I.G. was born 21^st May 1972 in Brooklyn, New York. He was an American rapper who is now recognized as one of the best MCs who walked this Earth. He also sold nearly 20 million albums worldwide. Before he became a rap star, he was a New York drug dealer and his lyrics mainly were telling the listener about life in the streets. He was killed in a drive-by shooting, exactly the same way as his rival, Tupac Shakur on March 9 1997 in Los Angeles. 

The birth of the stars:

Notorious B.I.G.


Christopher Wallace was surrounded by Hip-Hop music since his teenage years. When he started rapping in his mid teenage years, he used to go out to the streets and freestyle to people. Here is a very old video of one of young Christopher Wallace's street freestyles in Brooklyn at the age of 17:  

After Wallace's nine months prison term, he decided to record a demo tape under the name 'Biggie Smalls', which was his nick name that came from his size and heavy weight. Some of the songs were written during his prison term (some of the lyrics were featured on his 1994 debut album, 'Ready to die'!). The most common songs from the demo tape are 'Microphone murderer', 'Guaranteed raw' or 'Love no h*e'  (all included on the soundtrack for the 2009 biographical film 'Notorious'!)

Even if the demo tape had no serious promotion, it still went to the right hands of a New York DJ 'Mister Cee' who had some contacts with 'The Source'. 

In March 1992, the young Christopher Wallace featured in "The Source's'" Unsigned Hype column, dedicated to underground rappers. Biggie has received an invitation to produce a recording with other unsigned artists. This brought new opportunities for Wallace and soon, he got a contract offer with Uptown Records and producer, Sean 'P Diddy' Combs.In the middle of 1992, Combs and Wallace have left Uptown Records, to start their own recording label, Bad-Boy Records!  

As business went on well, on the 13th of September, Christopher Wallace, now known as the Notorious B.I.G. released his debut album titled 'Ready to die'! The album has sold 3,300000 copies in the united States and 4 million worldwide assuring Wallace with a platinum! This way the Notorious B.I.G. has been promoted to the Hip-Hop top league!

2Pac:

Tupac Shakur was interested in arts since his childhood. He enjoyed acting, writing poems, beat-boxing, dancing and rapping. Even during his school days, he was recognised as the best rapper at school! His love for art kept growing with every year and finally in 1989 Tupac joined a young rap group called Digital underground as a dancer! As a rapper, Tupac debuted on the first Digital Underground release titled 'This is an EP Release' that was a follow up to Digital Underground's first album, "Sex Packets". Tupac decided to feature on the second album of the band, 'Sons of the P.' and finally in 1991, Shakur released his first solo album titled "2Pacalypse Now"   

Unfortunately the album did not do very well in the charts and received low ratings from music critics for political and police brutality lyrics and rough, underground sound but luckily the album found people who appreciated it and sold over 100,000 copies in the US to give it a gold status. 
Anyway, Shakur's second album titled "Strictly 4 my N****s" which was released on February 16th 1993 has done a lot better, as over 1 million copies were sold that brought Tupac a platinum status CD! 
This is how the legend of Tupac Shakur was born!