Inside The Notorious B.I.G.’s Famous Crown Photoshoot Days Before His Death
In the years since his death, one image of The Notorious B.I.G. in particular has become synonymous with the award-winning rapper: a simple photo of Biggie wearing a gold crown and chain against a red background. The photo shoot for the now-iconic image happened just three days before his death in March 1997.
The Notorious B.I.G. likened himself to the ‘King of New York’
The Notorious B.I.G. would sometimes refer to himself as Frank White, Christopher Walken‘s titular character in the 1990 film King of New York. By March 1997, Biggie was regarded by many to be the real-life King of New York, having successfully fought the rise of West Coast rap in the mid-1990s with his debut album Ready to Die.
His status as a king is what inspired photographer Barron Claiborne for a shoot he had scheduled with the “Juicy” rapper. Biggie met up with Claiborne for the Rap Pages cover story shoot on March 6, 1997. Claiborne had previously photographed Biggie before wearing a suit and standing in space with a cane.
The Notorious B.I.G. did the crown photo shoot days before his death
For this photo shoot, Claiborne had another idea: to style Biggie like the king he was. At the time, Claiborne often photographed people portrayed as saints and kings because his grandfather lamented that Black people never see themselves as such revered figures. It ended up being the motivation behind Biggie’s now-iconic crown.
“I always thought that Biggie looked like a big, Black king,” Claiborne said, according to Justin Tinsley’s 2022 book It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him. “So I was like, ‘I should make him a king.’ And I knew they were gonna think it was stupid. I knew that.”
One person who wasn’t excited about the concept was Biggie’s friend and record executive Sean “Diddy” Combs. To him (known as Puffy at the time), the crown made Biggie look like the Burger King mascot.
“Now Puffy’s screaming in the background, ‘Don’t do that s***, n****! You’re gonna look like Burger King!” Claiborne recalled, laughing. “This motherf***er.”
After the photo shoot was over, Biggie boarded a flight to Los Angeles to attend the 1997 Soul Train Music Awards.
The crown sold in 2020 for a pretty penny
The night after the Soul Train Music Awards, Biggie attended an after-party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. The fire department shut down the party shortly after midnight, and Biggie was gunned down outside the venue in the early morning hours of March 9, 1997.
Biggie’s death shocked the music world, especially since Los Angeles’ own legend Tupac Shakur had been killed just six months before. His highly-anticipated second album Life After Death was released just two weeks later; the album’s singles “Hypnotize” and “Mo Money Mo Problems” both reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Claiborne’s crown photo shoot quickly became a part of Biggie’s legacy, both due to shoot taking place just days before his death and the fact that the photos immortalized him as the king that he was. The legacy continues to live on today: in 2020, the cheap plastic crown that Claiborne bought at a novelty store sold at auction for $595,000.
