RHYME OR REASON?

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The Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. Christopher Wallace, was living large. Life was sweet, good, like something out of a song. Here he was, all 6 ft. 3 in. and 300-some pounds of him, grown up and successful. Back in the day, he had been just another fat kid, a no-account who couldn't get girls, couldn't finish high school, slinging crack for near nothing on a street corner in Brooklyn. Then he discovered gangsta rap. His first album, Ready to Die, sold more than a million copies, and his follow-up, Life After Death, scheduled to drop on March 25, was the talk of the rap world. Wallace had already landed the cover of the hip-hop magazine the Source, and he was set to have lunch with TIME's pop music critic in a week. Now here he was at a star-studded party in L.A. that Vibe magazine was hosting to celebrate the Soul Train Music Awards on March 9. Actor Wesley Snipes was there. Singer Seal was there. Wallace was floating on good vibes. It was like a song.

But it was a gangsta rap song. More than 1,700 people crowded into the Peterson Automotive Museum, where the party was being held, and the crush was too much. Around midnight the fire marshal ordered the festivities shut down. Wallace went to his truck. A friend took the wheel of the GMC Suburban, and the rapper got into the passenger seat (he didn't have a driver's license). Moments after they left the parking lot, according to witnesses, a lone gunman in a passing car fired several shots from a 9-mm handgun through the passenger side of the vehicle, hitting the 24-year-old rapper. He died on the way to the hospital.

Wait. Haven't we heard this story before? Is this the remix? It was just six months ago that Tupac Shakur, one of the West Coast's most charismatic and popular gangsta rappers, was slain in a similar drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. Now Wallace, one of the East Coast's biggest rap stars, is dead too. Like Shakur, Biggie had foretold his own demise. On the dirgelike song You're Nobody, from his forthcoming CD, he raps, "You're nobody/ Till somebody kills you."

Indeed, in the wake of Wallace's death, as with Shakur's, records bearing his name sold out in stores nationwide; the new CD is expected to be a hot seller. Americans have long been drawn to the symbiosis between criminal life and pop culture--from Frank Sinatra and his alleged mobster pals to the success of the Godfather saga, which is scheduled for an anniversary re-release this week, to the fact that John Gotti's daughter has a new novel out. In the case of gangsta rap, however, the music, though often purchased by suburban whites, is primarily identified with a segment of society, young black males, that is particularly ravaged by crime. Is gangsta mythologizing for people already living under the gun a form of release or cultural imprisonment?

Some rappers are calling for introspection. Says Warren G, whose record company, fearing for his safety, postponed the promotional tour for his new album Take a Look over Your Shoulder: "This has gone too far. It's making us look like animals." Says rapper Ahmir of the progressive Philadelphia hip-hop band the Roots: "I thought Tupac's death was a wake-up call. I guess we hit the snooze button." Adds Wyclef of the socially conscious hip-hop band the Fugees: "We all need to chill out for a second and step back. It's just entertainment, after all."