Biggie Smalls Fansite

It just doesn’t pay to name your pet after a rapper.

Such is the case of Cornwall’s Biggie Smalls, a cat who was recently used as target practice for a gang of thugs toting air guns. Biggie, who is only two years old, was hit in the eye and blinded.

Nor is he alone. Police suspect that this same gang is responsible for shooting at least five other cats in Cornwall in the last month. Unlike Biggie, however, these cats have all died - so Biggie can count himself lucky in this case.

Still. That’s pretty sick. Isn’t losing one Biggie Smalls to gunfire enough for this world?

Christopher George Latore Wallace. A big name for a big man. How many people actually knew of Biggie Smalls by this name, though? And for that matter, how did he move away from Christopher Wallace into Biggie Smalls, and eventually, The Notorious B.I.G.?

Biggie Smalls was actually his name as of his demo tape. It was a reference to both his physical stature (he weighed over 300 pounds and stood over six feet tall) and to a childhood nickname he’d been given. The tape wasn’t made seriously but it nevertheless won Biggie Smalls attention. But Biggie learned that somebody else was already using that same name, so he decided on something new.

That new name was, of course, The Notorious B.I.G. And it’s that moniker that’s stuck with him most, both before and after his death. The majority of his albums were released under this name, and when he’s referred to it’s usually as B.I.G., not Biggie Smalls.