For the last four years, a documentary that looks back at the life of legendary rapper Notorious B.I.G. has been in the works. Entitled Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell, the upcoming Netflix film is led by director Emmett Malloy and produced by Diddy, the late rapper’s mother Voletta Wallace, and more. With exactly two weeks left until it premieres on the streaming platform, the first trailer for the film has arrived to build up anticipation for its release.
A majority of the early video footage that appears in Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell was uprooted from the archives of and interviews with Biggie’s childhood friend Damian “D Roc” Bulter. “Big was always a visionary. There will never be such a crazy time in Brooklyn as the 80’s and 90’s, out of great struggle, comes great art and music,” he said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “The Brooklyn kid rapping today won’t have the same stories we have to tell.”
The release of the film’s first trailer also comes a year after the rapper was inducted to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, something Netflix mentions in its description of the film. “In the wake of the Notorious B.I.G.’s landmark induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and ahead of what would have been his 50th birthday, Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell offers a fresh look at one of the greatest, most influential rappers of all time by those who knew him best,” the platform said. “Made in collaboration with Biggie’s estate, I Got A Story To Tell is an intimate rendering of a man whose rapid ascent and tragic end has been at the center of rap lore for more than twenty years.”
Director Emmett Malloy also spoke about the long process the documentary endured before its release. “The running joke about documentary films is often how long they take to make. This film lived up to all those stereotypes, taking us four years to develop and make it,” he said. “Through those years we were immersed in Brooklyn in the 70s through the 90s. It is easy to see how much Brooklyn has changed since Christopher Wallace was a kid, but it’s also clear that many things about being a young black man in this country have not changed.”
You can watch the first trailer for Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell above.
Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell premieres on 3/1 via Netflix.