Biggie's Final Minutes
Pal recalls gunfire and desperate prayers
By ANITA M. SAMUELS
usic mogul Sean (Puffy) Combs has described for the first time the terrifying midnight shooting that killed his friend, rap superstar Biggie Smalls. Combs, at 25 one of the youngest and most successful producers in the industry, told the Daily News in an exclusive interview that he was in a car just feet from Biggie's after a Vibe magazine party in Los Angeles when he heard the crack of gunfire.
Combs said he was "scared, real scared" in the frantic moments after Biggie's body was brought to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He dropped to his knees in prayer, but his friend ó Christopher Wallace, also known as Smalls and the Notorious B.I.G. ó already was dead.
"I was just praying over him, praying to God to please pull him through."
He didn't see the killer but doesn't believe his friend's slaying was a result of what he called the nonexistent East Coast-West Coast feud between Biggie and Tupac Shakur, who was gunned down six months ago in a drive-by shooting.
It was one day after Biggie's funeral, and Combs sat in a posh suite at the Surrey Hotel on the upper East Side of Manhattan. He was hunched in the corner of a sofa Wednesday, still trying to make sense of the slaying.
Combs, now president of Bad Boy Entertainment, had used his knack for recognizing raw musical talent and his street savvy to introduce a new generation of music that includes such artists as Mary J. Blige and Jodeci. He combined rap and rhythm and blues to create a new genre.
The night Biggie died began with a party sponsored by Vibe in Los Angeles. It was Sunday, March 9.
Combs said he and Biggie had been told it would be a private party, but when they arrived at the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Blvd., that clearly wasn't the case.
Nearly 2,000 people were there, so many that the number exceeded the building's legal capacity. For the most part, Biggie sat in a corner, because a leg he had broken was still healing.
"It wasn't like he was flossin'," Combs said, using the current slang for showing off. "He was over in that corner talking to me about how glad he was that he finished recording and how he couldn't wait for his leg to get better. . . . People were going over to him, sitting on his lap, taking pictures, and he was signing autographs. He was very calm and laid back."
About midnight, the fire marshals came. The crowd was told to leave. Outside in the parking lot, Biggie was still upbeat, saying again how happy he was to have finished recording his second album, "Life After Death," which will be released Tuesday.
The two years he'd worked on it, Biggie told Combs, had been a strain on him. "But he said he was so happy to be getting some love from people at the party," said Combs.
Finally, the two got into their GMC Suburbans, but they hadn't decided whether they'd go to a recording studio or head home.
Combs' car was first in line. Biggie's car followed, with a friend behind the wheel and Biggie in the passenger seat. They had just turned right, out of the museum's parking lot, and were driving straight ahead when shots rang out.
"Everyone in my car ducked down; it was like a natural reaction," Combs recalled.
He thought someone was firing shots in the air, something he said happens at parties.
But then he heard people in the other cars begin yelling: "They hit up Biggie's car!"
"I jumped out of my car and ran over to his," said Combs. Biggie was slumped in his seat, as if he had tried to duck.
"I tried to pick him up, and some other people came over to the car and tried to pick him up and turn him over, but he was too heavy, so I pushed him to the side and closed the door."
Combs didn't see a gun, or a gunman, or a getway car. Other witnesses said Biggie was the victim of a drive-by assassin.
A security officer jumped into Biggie's car and drove him to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Combs followed, and as he helped put his friend's body on a stretcher, it hit him. Combs felt the intense chill of fear.
"I was scared, real scared. I was just praying, and for some reason I just dropped to my knees right there and I prayed that he was going to be all right, that he was going to make it. We really didn't see a lot of blood or anything, but he was not conscious," Combs said.
"I was saying The Lord's Prayer and Hail Marys. I was talking to God, asking Him to help him and be strong for him. I was begging God to help him out. I was touching him and talking to him in his ear."
Biggie never heard those prayers.
"They told me that he was already deceased, that he had died immediately," Combs said quietly.
"I really don't know who killed him," Combs said. "I would be just like the media if I speculated. The honest answer is that I have no idea, I can't go on rumors and speculation."
He said the fictionalized feud had been nothing more than an embarrassment to him and Biggie.
"Me and Biggie have been fighting to let people know from the very beginning that we were never with that whole East Coast-West Coast thing, we were not about that," Combs said.
Biggie's slaying, he said, could have been a random act.
"Although this was a violent incident, what needs to be noted is that people fear for their lives every day."
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