Rap Artist Shot To Death ‘Gangsta Rap’ Star Notorious B.I.G. Apparent Victim Of Drive-By After Party In L.A.

Rap music star Notorious B.I.G. was shot to death in Los Angeles early Sunday as he left a music industry party, a brazen attack that was the second murder of a “gangsta rap” celebrity on a public street in the last six months.

B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, was leaving the party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in the mid-Wilshire district around 12:30 a.m. when police believe someone pulled up alongside the passenger side of the GMC Suburban in which he was riding and fired several shots inside.

The 24-year-old rapper, who had earned rave reviews and big sales in giving voice to the violent edge of the streets, was declared dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at 1:15 a.m. His body was identified early Sunday afternoon at the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office by his wife, singer Faith Evans, and his mother, who flew in from New York, officials said.

Although more than 1,000 people were said to be at the party, police said they had few eyewitnesses Sunday and even fewer solid leads to the shooting.

At the time of the shooting, hundreds of industry executives and musicians were pouring out of the Petersen museum after organizers decided to shut the party down, apparently because of the overflow crowd, according to police. Many of the guests fled in panic as the shots rang out.

Some detectives were already worried about a repeat of the stalled investigation into the murder of Tupac Shakur.

That rap star - a rival to Wallace - was fatally shot on the busy Las Vegas Strip last September, but police there have complained that witnesses refused to cooperate. The Shakur case is still unsolved.

Detectives said they are investigating whether Wallace’s death is linked to bicoastal tensions within the rap world, but had nothing solid to go on.

LAPD Detective Raymond Futami said he suspects that witnesses in the Wallace case are afraid to talk.

“It’s frustrating,” said Futami. “I think there’s a lot of people who are not coming forward.”

Wallace, a burly 6-foot-3-inch man who weighed 380 pounds and also went by the name Biggie Smalls, lived in New Jersey and was in Los Angeles to record some music and to attend Friday night’s Soul Train Music Awards and related festivities. His next album was scheduled to come out in just two weeks. Its title now seems grimly ironic: “Life After Death … ‘Til Death Do Us Part.”

An ex-crack dealer from Brooklyn who had several brushes with the law, Wallace often found himself at the center of speculation about a cross-continent feud between himself and West Coast rap players such as Shakur and industry mogul Marion “Suge” Knight. Last year outside the awards show, Wallace’s bodyguard brandished a weapon and got into a scuffle with an armed member of Shakur’s entourage.

Capping off the week’s activities was Saturday night’s party at the Petersen for artists and music executives, including many from the rap and R&B set who had attended the awards show. The party was thrown by Vibe Magazine and Qwest Records - both founded and operated by famed musician Quincy Jones - and by Tanqueray Gin, police said.

Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, editor-in-chief of The Source Magazine, the rap industry’s leading rap publication, talked with Wallace for a few minutes at the party. “We just did a cover article on him and he wasn’t crazy about the cover,” he said.

Hinds said he and others from his magazine left the party and were just outside the museum at a red light at the intersection where police said the shooting took place, when he heard a series of shots.

“It sounded like it was at least 10. When we heard the shots, we looked up and saw what looked like a big black jeep. The doors started popping open on the jeep and it became bedlam, a frantic circle of activity. I saw a guy holding his hands to his face.”

Not knowing if the shots would continue, Hinds said he sped off, thinking nothing of the incident until hours later. Early Sunday morning, his pager began going off and he learned of the shooting. “I was stunned and shocked,” he said.

Police pursued initial reports the gunman was riding in a black utility vehicle and, about two hours after the shooting, actually stopped a man in the area whose vehicle fit that description, said Futami. The man had a gun, and police booked him on suspicion of firing it into the air shortly after the slaying -but they do not consider him a suspect in the killing, Futami said. Based on other witness accounts, police now believe the assailant’s vehicle was a dark full-sized car, not a truck or sport-utility vehicle, he said.

“We can safely say it was a male black who did the shooting,” Futami said. He declined to say whether the gunman was alone in the vehicle or to release other details.