The Notorious B.I.G.'s digital ghost is here to sell you NFTs
The Brook will let you live your dream of hanging out with a version of Biggie Smalls who looks like he'd fit in in Grand Theft Auto V
The estate of The Notorious B.I.G. is gearing up to deal in the infamous NFTs, as reported by THR, OMG. But rest assured, reader, that “The Brook,” the new activation that will allow fans of Biggie Smalls’ music to “own” their own non-existent piece of memoribilia related to him, is not just your average NFT drop that’s going forward for some reason even though we’re pretty sure crypto done crashed: It’s also a weird game thing where you can hang out with a bizarre digital copy of Christopher George Latore Wallace himself.
This is, again, per THR, which notes that The Brook is being produced with the endorsement of Wallace’s mother, Voletta, who gave her blessing to the project by saying, “Technology continues to create opportunities that are beyond one’s imagination and I’m excited that we are stepping into the future with a beautiful rendition of a hyperrealistic avatar of my son Christopher.” Which, far be it from us to question either digital verisimilitude or a mother’s love, but the version of B.I.G. we see counting his money and walking around digital Brooklyn in the trailer for The Brook is less “hyperrealistic avatar” and more “Oh, hey, someone modded Biggie Smalls into Grand Theft Auto V.”
And, honestly: It really is kind of bizarre to see so many tech-grift buzzwords combined into a tribute to a guy who died in 1997. The Brook will not only serve as a place to pick up B.I.G. NFTs (implied to be cassette tapes) but also a browser-enabled Metaverse thing where you’ll apparently be able to walk around fake computer Brooklyn and watch all the hottest concerts that couldn’t get booked in Fortnite or Second Life.
As to who’s creating this madness, Burst Live Inc. will be responsible for producing content that will appear on The Brook, while Surreal Events will do all the technical stuff. THR notes that this isn’t even the first NFT-metaverse project centered on a dead famous person to be announced in recent months; we don’t know how the fuck we managed to miss “A Long Walk to Meta: Mandelaverse,” your one-stop shop for Nelson Mandela NFTs, but that’s apparently just the glorious digital future we find ourselves living in.