Rap Star’s Final Ride Into ‘Hood Thousands Line Brooklyn Streets After Notorious B.I.G.’S Funeral

Laid out in a double-breasted white suit and matching hat, The Notorious B.I.G. made his last trip Tuesday through the grimy Brooklyn streets where he went from crack dealer to gangsta rap star.

The rapper’s massive body was driven from a service on Manhattan’s well-to-do Upper East Side to his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, where thousands lined the streets to watch the procession of black limousines and salute the man born Christopher Wallace.

Wallace, 24, was killed March 9 in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles as he left a party celebrating the Soul Train Music Awards.

Wallace, whose 230-pound, 6-foot frame also earned him the nickname Biggie Smalls, had told of selling crack on the streets before releasing his debut album, “Ready to Die.”

The crowd cheered wildly as the funeral cortege passed. It was led by a hearse bearing the rapper - a father of two - and two black Cadillacs filled with flowers. “To Daddy,” read the yellow ribbon around one arrangement.

Riders following in more than a dozen stretch limousines held pictures of Wallace out the windows.

Once the motorcade passed, there were several skirmishes between police and the crowd, and pepper spray was used to disperse the group. Nine people were arrested on disorderly conduct charges, and a half-dozen officers suffered minor injuries.

One of those arrested is a stringer for The New York Times, Julia Campbell. Police wouldn’t give details, but Campbell, who was released with a ticket, said she was handcuffed after she asked a policeman why he used pepper spray on her.

Some of rap’s best-known names attended Wallace’s funeral, including Dr. Dre, Flavor Flav of Public Enemy, Treach of Naughty by Nature, Spinderella and Pepa of Salt-N-Pepa, Queen Latifah and R&B diva Mary J. Blige, who left the service weeping and supported by other mourners.

No one has been charged in the slayings. Some reports have suggested it was part of an East Coast-West Coast rapper rivalry, while the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that a gang member in a financial dispute with Wallace had emerged as the prime suspect.

The Times also reported there was no connection found to the slaying of rival rapper Tupac Shakur, who was gunned down in a drive-by shooting Sept. 7 in Las Vegas. No one has been arrested in that killing, either.