Judge Halts Notorious B.I.G.'s Album Sales

Copies of Notorious B.I.G.'s album, Ready to Die, have been pulled from the shelves and halted on the internet following a ruling from a US jury, that found the title track of album to have illegally used part of an Ohio Players song. The 1994 album was Christopher Wallace's (Notorious B.I.G.) debut album.

The ban has been imposed by US District Judge Todd Campbell after a jury ruled that Notorious BIG had indeed sampled portions of the Ohio Players track, "Singing in the Morning". The 1992 funk hit was from the CD, Pain!. The defendants in the case were Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy LLC, Justin Combs Publishing, Universal Records, and the massively popular fellow rapper/best friend of B.I.G.'s, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. Combs was named as he is the executive producer and boss of Bad Boy Entertainment. Notorious B.I.G's estate was originally named in the lawsuit, but they were dropped from the case. These defendants have been ordered to pay the plaintiffs, Bridgeport Music and Westbound Records, $4.2 million in direct and punitive damages. Bridgeport and Westbound are the two companies that own the rights to the Ohio Players tunes.

Reaction to the ruling was fast and direct. MTV reports that Armen Boladian, owner of both Bridgeport and Westbound, said "We've just been battling this for such a long time." Speaking about the fact that the company has launched more than 400 cases about illegal sampling of their music, Armen Boladian said, "So many have been settled because companies didn't want anything to do with it, and we knew we were right." Other cases that Bridgeport and Westbound have sued over include other Ohio Players tracks, George Clinton's music, and Funkadelic.

The reaction from Sean Combs was just as punctuated. An appeal has already been planned. The BBC published a statement from Combs' lawyer, Jay Bowen, stating "We think (the verdict) is without merit."

Notorious B.I.G.'s album Ready to Die features many samples on the CD. "Supafly" by Curtis Mayfield was sampled for Dr. Dre's intro on the track "Things Done Changed", and Mtume's song "Juicy Fruit" was sampled in Notorious B.I.G.'s track, "Juicy". Both Mtume and Curtis Mayfield were thanked in the liner notes for the album, but the Ohio Players received no mention.

Notorious B.I.G. was born Christopher Wallace, and also went by the name Biggie Smalls. Notorious B.I.G. collaborated with Puff Daddy (also known as P. Diddy, or Sean Combs) and the Method Man for Ready to Die, which is widely considered one of the best albums of its genre for the 90s. Posthumously, Biggie Smalls released Life After Death, which included artists such as Bone Thugz-n-Harmony, the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, DMC, Mase and Jay-Z. Together, the two albums have sold nearly 8 million copies.

Christopher Wallace's murder in 1997 sent shockwaves throughout the hip-hop community. The 24-year old Wallace was gunned down on the streets of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Police Department has reopened the murder case, after recent developments. The LAPD will use a new team of detectives to investigate the unsolved murder of Christopher Wallace after a federal judge ordered the City of Los Angeles to pay Notorious B.I.G.'s estate nearly $1.1 million dollars in legal fees, attorney costs and security following the mistrial of a wrongful death suit against the City of Los Angeles. The case was declared a mistrial when the judge determined the LAPD was withholding evidence that linked LAPD officer David Mack and Death Row Records exec Marion "Suge" Knight together. It was alleged that these two conspired to commit the murder of Christopher Wallace.

[Additional Sources: BBC, MTV]