Beloved Biggie Smalls Mural Restored Following Backlash In Brooklyn

BROOKLYN, NY — It was there, it was gone, and now it is back. A cherished painting of the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. has been restored, just days after it was painted over.

Emerald, a brand-new cannabis shop, became embroiled in a heated controversy last week when visitors saw the shop owners had painted over a portrait of Biggie Smalls on their wall.

The mural, painted by a local artist named Huetek, had been on the exterior of 85 Suydam St. for nearly three years before the dispensary took over the space, officials said.

The owners of the dispensary previously said that they were forced to cover up the mural—a portrait of a young Biggie Smalls, whose real name was Christopher Wallace—because the New York Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) said it violated advertising restrictions.

Dispensary co-founder Christina De Giovanni said that a combination of exposure and public outcry pushed OCM to allow the rapper and Brooklyn native's mural to be restored.

"From news crews buzzing about the Biggie Smalls Mural to regulatory clarity from the OCM, it's been a rollercoaster ride," the owners said on social media.

The dispensary officially restored the painting in a “blast-off” event this past Saturday.

“We are truly grateful that we were able to bring this back because it’s so very Bushwick,” DeGiovanni told the New York Post. “I understand the connection the community has with street art, and I'm very glad we were able to bring it back.”

Smalls grew up in a home on St. James Place near the Bed-Stuy border. On March 9, 1997, he was shot and killed in Los Angeles as he sat in his car on the way home from a party.

The street where he grew up on is now called Christopher Wallace Way.

The rap legend also has basketball courts named after him in the borough at the Crispus Attucks Playground, which was named in 2017.

Other odes to Biggie can be spotted all around Brooklyn.