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Today the late Bad Boy superstar, The Notorious B.I.G., would have been 42-years-old. FADER celebrated the life of a MC many consider the G.O.A.T. by unveiling some never before seen photos from his Ready to Die press run.

The Kodaks come courtesy of magazine co-founder Rob Stone, who was the VP of promotion for Clive Davis at Arista Records while Biggie was promoting his debut album. The Brooklyn native can be seen alongside fellow Bad Boy artist Craig Mack in many of the images. Along with Stone himself, the pics also show a few cultural icons in Sway and Funkmaster Flex at earlier points in their careers.

FADER‘s Ford included an anecdote about Notorious B.I.G. that we’ve included below. Peep the photo gallery on the following pages.

Heading to a visit at LA’s Power 106, Big comes down from his room wearing a black T-shirt with a Ku Klux Klan member holding a KKK baby, and in bold type it says, “Future Police Officer.” Here’s where the pressure to deliver for Clive and Puff kicked in, and I start thinking the worst. What if this shirt pisses off some of the execs at radio? What if Big is asked to pose for trade photos and the entire network of white-owned hip-hop stations see the shirt and refuse to play his record? So I asked Big to walk with me away from everyone and said, “Big, you know we’re heading to radio stations to get your record played.” He shook his head in agreement. “Well, these are white-owned radio stations. The shirt might offend them and get in the way of us getting your record played.” He looked down at his shirt to see what I was talking about. He paused, then chuckled and said, “We’re good Rob Stone, we’re good.” Well, he didn’t change his shirt and needless to say, the record got played.

Photo: Rob Stone/FADER

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