Yesterday you might have spent some time thinking about the passing of Biggie Smalls, seeing as how it was the 18th year since his death, meaning that unsolved murder is now old enough to go war but not old enough to buy cigarettes in New York. There’s no reason to dwell completely in the past though, baby baby, not when there’s cool efforts to celebrate Biggie’s life and work. We’re talking things like the struggle for a Christopher Wallace Way and now, a Biggie mural going up outside the Key Food on Fulton Avenue where he used to work, courtesy of Danielle Mastrion, the artist who put up a Beastie Boys mural on the Lower East Side last year.
The mural effort is being spearheaded by Christopher Wallace Way mastermind LeRoy McCarthy, and since we can’t have the street named for Biggie just yet, we may as well get another cool mural. The exact date of the mural painting, which you’re free to come on down to 991 Fulton Street to watch happen, hasn’t been set yet, with McCarthy telling us over email that it will happen this spring when the weather warms up. Which will be soon, look at all the snow melting and dying around you!
Obviously this won’t be the very first Biggie mural to grace a Brooklyn wall. After all, this is Brooklyn New York City where they paint murals of Biggie, as Kweli once told us:
Still, who are we to pass one up from the talented Mastrion, who was able to snag a piece of the Lower East Side for the Beastie Boys after the local community board decided they didn’t want a Beastie Boys Square. Mastrion told us that her idea for the mural focuses less on Biggie the man and more about his lyrics about Bed-Stuy and living there, so that the image ultimately reflects more on the neighborhood than a larger-than-life rapper who’s already gracing plenty of walls in Brooklyn. We’ll keep you updated on the exact day the painting is going down, but again, considering the rapidly improving weather situation, it could be real soon.