Gunned down at the age of 24 in a case that remains unsolved after nearly two decades, Christopher Wallace, the influential rapper known alternately as The Notorious B.I.G. and Biggie Smalls, would have been 44 this coming May. To mark the occasion, Wallace’s former collaborator and friend, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, is assembling a once-in-a-lifetime tribute concert whose lineup consists of some of the top names in R&B and rap, including Mary J. Blige and Jay Z. Appropriately, the concert will also feature appearances of many prominent acts signed to Combs’ Bad Boy Records label, including Mase, Lil Kim, and Wallace’s widow, Faith Evans. In an official statement to the press, Combs declared: “This isn’t just another concert. This is hip-hop history.” The concert is being billed, in fact, as a Bad Boy reunion.
Tickets for the May 20 show at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center will go on sale April 2 at 11 AM local time through Live Nation. In addition to celebrating the life and music of The Notorious B.I.G., the concert will serve as a retrospective for the entire Bad Boy label, which had a seismic impact on pop culture in the ’90s. One of the most persistent rumors surrounding Biggie is that he will be resurrected in hologram form at some point, and while Evans has confirmed that she is “in development” with a hologram company, she could not say whether the expensive effect would be used during the May 20 concert.