Biggie Smalls T-Shirt Guide: The Crown, the Baby, the Hearse and How to Buy Right

Walk any block in Brooklyn long enough and you’ll see him. Crown tilted, eyes heavy, chin up. The Biggie Smalls t-shirt is one of the most worn pieces of rap iconography on the planet, and most people wearing one couldn’t tell you where the picture came from. That crown cost six dollars. That baby on the Ready to Die cover isn’t Christopher Wallace. That hearse was booked weeks before anyone knew how heavy the album title would get. This guide goes image by image through the photos that ended up on cotton, who shot them, what they cost and what they sold for later. It finishes with a straight buyer’s guide to licensed drops, real 90s vintage and tribute tees.

If you want the music first, our complete Ready to Die guide breaks down every track and producer, and our Notorious B.I.G. songs ranking runs through all four album cycles. This one is about the shirt.

Why the Biggie Smalls T-Shirt Became Brooklyn’s Uniform

Most rap legends get remembered through a catalog. Biggie gets remembered through a face. Part of that is simple arithmetic: he released one studio album in his lifetime. Ready to Die landed on September 13, 1994, on Bad Boy through Arista, and Life After Death came out sixteen days after he was killed in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997. A short catalog and a huge presence leave the image doing the heavy lifting. Every tee is a way of saying the run should have been longer.

The Name on the Shirt

The name printed on half the shirts out there wasn’t even the one he kept. “Biggie Smalls” came from Calvin Lockhart’s character in the 1975 film Let’s Do It Again. The name was already claimed by someone else, so Christopher Wallace became The Notorious B.I.G. Fans never stopped calling him Biggie, and the merch never stopped printing it. Today, “Biggie Smalls” is itself a trademark. Old Navy’s licensed tee carries the legal line “Biggie Smalls is a trademark of NOTORIOUS, LLC” right on the product page. Biggie spent his career as both names at once, and the shirts do the same.

One Album, Six Platinum Plaques

The numbers explain why the debut still dominates the merch rack. Ready to Die went gold on November 15, 1994, two months after release. It hit double platinum in October 1995, triple in August 1998, quadruple in October 1999, and the RIAA certified it six-times platinum in 2018. That’s a record that kept selling for a quarter century without a single new verse from the man who made it. A shirt from that album isn’t nostalgia merch. It represents a catalog that never stopped moving.

Brooklyn Claimed Him Back

Christopher Wallace grew up on St. James Place in Clinton Hill, right on the Bed-Stuy border. Both neighborhoods claim him, and both are right. On June 10, 2019, the stretch of St. James Place between Fulton Street and Gates Avenue was co-named Christopher Wallace Way. In 2020 he went into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Brooklyn treats him like a civic monument, and a Biggie tee is the portable version. It’s the reason the line from “Juicy” — spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way — shows up on so many back prints.

The Crown: The Story Behind the Most Printed Biggie Photo

If you own one Biggie shirt, odds are it’s the crown. That portrait is the single most reproduced image of him, on tees, murals, canvases and phone cases. It’s also the one most people get wrong. It’s often called the “King of Brooklyn” shot. The crown itself says otherwise.

March 6, 1997: The KONY Shoot

Photographer Barron Claiborne shot the portrait on March 6, 1997, for the cover of Rap Pages. Three days later, Biggie was dead. It was his last studio portrait session. The crown is engraved “Crown from Biggie KONY Shot NYC 3-6-97,” and KONY stands for King of New York. Not Brooklyn. The portrait reads like old-master royalty: a heavy man, a heavy gaze, a crown sitting slightly off-axis like it was earned rather than given.

A $6 Crown From Broadway

Here’s the jewel. The crown is plastic. Claiborne bought it for six dollars at Gordon’s on Broadway. Puffy reportedly didn’t love the idea and worried it would make Big look like the Burger King mascot. Claiborne pushed through, and the result became the definitive image of the man. A costume-shop crown on a Brooklyn rapper, shot like a Renaissance portrait. That gap between the cheap prop and the gravity of the image is a big reason the photo hits so hard.

$594,750 at Sotheby’s

On September 15, 2020, that six-dollar crown sold at Sotheby’s first-ever hip-hop auction for $594,750, against an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. It’s the only Biggie artifact with a clean, documented sale price. Keep that in mind when anyone quotes you a number for a “1997 original” tee with no paper trail. The crown has receipts. Most shirts don’t.

From Magazine Cover to a 38-Foot Wall

In September 2015, artists Naoufal “Rocko” Alaoui and Scott “Zimer” Zimmerman painted a 38-foot mural of Biggie at Bedford Avenue and Quincy Street with Spread Art NYC. It shows the crown and the words “King of NY.” In 2017 it faced removal, and the neighborhood pushed back. It’s still there. If you want to understand why the crown tee sells, go stand under that wall. The image works the same at 38 feet as it does across a chest. For more on how rap images move from walls to wardrobes, read our visual history of hip-hop artwork.

The Baby: Ready to Die’s Cover on a Tee

The second-most printed Biggie image isn’t Biggie at all. It’s a baby with an Afro on a blank white background, the cover of Ready to Die. The concept is the album’s whole arc in a single frame: the record opens with a birth and closes with “Suicidal Thoughts.” Putting an infant on the cover of an album called Ready to Die was a dark joke and a statement of purpose at the same time.

Who Shot It, and Who the Baby Is

The liner notes credit the cover photography to Butch Belair. The baby was later identified as Keithroy Yearwood, from the Bronx. In 2011 the New York Daily News reported that his mother had sent his baby photos to a modeling agency and he was paid $150 for the shoot. Bad Boy never officially confirmed the identification, so the honest phrasing is “identified as”. Either way, the answer to the most common question about the cover is no: it isn’t baby Christopher Wallace, and it isn’t his son.

Why It Works on Cotton

Design-wise, the baby cover is almost unfairly good for apparel. It has a single centered subject, a huge field of negative space and no busy typography competing for attention. On a black or navy tee, the white field turns into a box, and the cover reads as a framed photo from across the room. On a chocolate tee, the warmth of the print comes forward. It’s the rare album cover that needs no redesign to work as a graphic, which is exactly why it’s been on shirts since the 90s.

The 30th Anniversary Refresh

For the 30th anniversary on September 13, 2024, Rhino and Atlantic reissued Ready to Die as a 2xLP with new cover art, alongside a color-vinyl exclusive. Earlier that year, Ready to Die: The Instrumentals came out as a Record Store Day release. If you want the cover on a shelf and on your back, that’s the pairing. The anniversary also brought a Timberland “Christopher Wallace Collection” boot through Foot Locker on September 27, 2024 — more on that below.

The Hearse: Life After Death and the Shirts Brooklyn Wore After March 1997

The third great Biggie image is the one nobody can look at the same way anymore. On January 24, 1997, photographer Michael Lavine shot the Life After Death cover at Cypress Hills Cemetery. Big leans on a hearse with a “B.I.G.” plate. Lavine has said the brief he got was basically three words: get a hearse. Six weeks later Biggie was gone. The album came out March 25, 1997, sixteen days after his death.

The Cover That Turned Into a Eulogy

Nobody planned the hearse as a memorial. It was a continuation of the Ready to Die concept: if the first album was the birth, the second was the funeral. Then real life caught up with the art, and the image changed meaning overnight. Life After Death was certified Diamond in 2000 (as a double album, each disc counts toward the total), and the cover became the visual shorthand for loss in hip-hop. That’s why the Life After Death tee hits differently from the crown. The crown is a celebration; the hearse is a wake.

March 18, 1997: Bed-Stuy Says Goodbye

On March 18, 1997, his funeral procession rolled through Bed-Stuy. That’s where the tribute culture that still drives Biggie merch really starts: the murals, the street co-naming, and the habit of wearing his face as a way of keeping him in the neighborhood. Kith even timed its 2020 capsule to drop on March 9, the anniversary of his death. For the deeper history of how fans made rap shirts their own, from Run-DMC’s Adidas moment to the bootleg grail hunt, read our full history of rap tees.

Wear the Debut

If you’d rather rep where the story started than where it ended, we made a Notorious B.I.G. Ready to Die T-Shirt for the heads who still pick the debut over the double album. It’s printed on a Bella Canvas 3001 in black, navy or chocolate, sizes XS to 3XL.

Notorious on Screen

The biopic Notorious opened January 16, 2009, directed by George Tillman Jr., with Jamal Woolard as Biggie. It introduced him to an audience too young to have seen him live, and that’s a big part of why his face still sells to people born after 1997.

Coogi, Versace Shades and the Style Biggie Actually Wore

A Biggie tee is one way to rep him. Dressing like him is another, and that’s where the folklore gets thick. Plenty of “Biggie style” guides list every 90s staple under the sun. Here’s what’s actually documented.

The Coogi Sweater

Coogi is the real one. The loud Australian knit shows up in his own lyrics on “One More Chance,” “Big Poppa” and “Hypnotize.” He didn’t find it in a magazine either. He picked it up from a Mount Vernon man known as Walt G, whom he met at a club. A heavyweight in a multicolor sweater became a whole look. To be clear, though, there was never an official Coogi x Biggie apparel collab. Coogi actually sued the Brooklyn Nets, Nike and the NBA over a Coogi-style Biggie jersey. The link is lyrical, not contractual.

The Versace Shades

The other documented signature is Versace sunglasses. Photographer Dana Lixenberg’s 1996 portrait for Vibe shows Biggie in Coogi and Versace shades, counting cash. If you want a single photo that sums up the Life After Death-era wardrobe, that’s it.

What Isn’t Documented

Kangols, Karl Kani and Timbs get attached to Biggie in a lot of listicles. They were all over 90s New York, but we couldn’t find dated photos or interviews that make any of them a Biggie signature the way Coogi is. Timberland did release an official “Christopher Wallace Collection” six-inch boot in 2024 for the 30th anniversary of Ready to Die, at $210 through Foot Locker. That’s an estate collab, not proof he wore them every day. If you want the bigger picture of where these pieces came from, our era-by-era guide to 90s hip-hop fashion lays out the whole wardrobe.

Biggie Smalls T-Shirt Buyer’s Guide: Licensed Drops, Vintage and Tribute Tees

There are four kinds of Biggie Smalls t-shirt on the market: designer collabs, mass-market licensed tees, genuine 90s vintage, and tribute/fan designs. Each one has a different price, a different story and a different set of traps.

The Collab Timeline

The hype-tier drops are all documented, which makes them easy to verify on resale:

• Supreme x Bad Boy (Fall/Winter 2011): a Biggie tee as part of Supreme’s Bad Boy collection.
• Kith (March 9, 2020): a capsule released on the anniversary of his death. A second Kith capsule in March 2021 included a “Last Day” tee at $75, with proceeds going to Brooklyn schools.
• FILA (May 19, 2020): a Ready to Die-themed capsule.
• Timberland (September 27, 2024): the “Christopher Wallace Collection” boot for the 30th anniversary.

On the mass-market side, licensed Biggie tees are sold through Old Navy, Target, Walmart, Rockabilia, Okayplayer’s shop and Culture Kings. Even the Smithsonian Store sells a crown tee. When a museum gift shop stocks your face, you’re a monument.

Who Controls the Image Now

This one changed recently. Biggie’s mother, Voletta Wallace, served as executor of his estate for decades and was the keeper of his legacy. She died on February 21, 2025, at 78. In March 2025, Primary Wave announced it had acquired a 50% stake in his catalog, including name, image and likeness. Today the rights are co-held by Primary Wave and Notorious B.I.G. LLC, and control of the estate is still being fought in court. For a buyer, the practical point is simple: licensed tees carry an estate copyright line. Old Navy’s, for example, reads “Notorious B.I.G., LLC.”

How to Spot Real 90s Vintage

Genuine pre-2000 Biggie tees are the grail, and they’re heavily faked. Here’s the checklist collectors use:

• The tag: look for period tag brands like Giant, Brockum or Winterland. Collectors flag a shiny satin “Giant” tag as a sign of a modern bootleg.
• The copyright line: real licensed prints carry a copyright notice and year in small type on the graphic. No line doesn’t automatically mean fake (plenty of 90s bootlegs are collectible in their own right), but it does mean “unlicensed.”
• Single-stitch hems: a single row of stitching on the sleeves and hem is a sign of age, but it’s not proof on its own. Reproduction blanks copy it. Check it together with the tag font, the care label and the blank brand.
• The print: decades of washing crack and fade a print in a way that follows the fabric’s wear. Factory distressing often looks too regular.

If you want the reference book, Rap Tees: A Collection of Hip-Hop T-Shirts 1980–1999 by DJ Ross One (powerHouse Books, 2015) is a go-to collector’s reference for the era. On price, be skeptical. We couldn’t find a single documented sale price for a 1997-era Biggie tee. A dealer quoting “auction records” without a link is selling a story.

Tribute Tees and Fit

Then there are tribute designs like ours: album-art and era-inspired tees made by people who love the records. Judge those on the blank and the print. A Bella Canvas 3001 has a lighter, retail fit (size up if you want the 90s oversized drape). A heavyweight Gildan blank sits boxier. To keep any graphic tee alive, wash it inside out in cold water and hang dry. The dryer is what kills prints.

Biggie Smalls T-Shirt FAQ

What is the most iconic Biggie Smalls t-shirt image?

The crown portrait. Barron Claiborne shot it on March 6, 1997, for Rap Pages, three days before Biggie’s death. It’s on more shirts, murals and posters than any other photo of him.

Was Biggie’s crown real?

No. It was a plastic crown Claiborne bought for $6 at Gordon’s on Broadway. It sold at Sotheby’s in September 2020 for $594,750.

Who is the baby on the Ready to Die cover?

The baby was identified in 2011 as Keithroy Yearwood from the Bronx, who was paid $150 through a modeling agency. Bad Boy never officially confirmed it. It’s not Biggie and not his son. Butch Belair is credited with the photography.

Why did Biggie Smalls change his name?

“Biggie Smalls” came from Calvin Lockhart’s character in Let’s Do It Again (1975). The name was already claimed by someone else, so he recorded as The Notorious B.I.G. Fans kept both names, and so does the merch.

Where is the Biggie mural in Brooklyn?

The best-known mural is at Bedford Avenue and Quincy Street in Bed-Stuy, painted in 2015 by Rocko and Zimer with Spread Art NYC. Christopher Wallace Way, the co-named stretch of St. James Place between Fulton Street and Gates Avenue, is a short walk away.

Did Biggie have an official Coogi collab?

No. Coogi was part of his style and his lyrics, but there was never an official Coogi x Biggie clothing line. The licensed collabs on record include Supreme x Bad Boy (2011), Kith (2020 and 2021), FILA (2020) and Timberland (2024).

How much is a vintage Biggie t-shirt worth?

There’s no reliable public price data for 90s Biggie tees, so treat any quoted value with caution. Authenticate first: the tag, the copyright line, the stitching and the print wear. Then compare live sold listings, not asking prices.

Final Thoughts: Wearing the Biggie Smalls T-Shirt Right

Every Biggie image tells a different story. The crown is the coronation, shot three days before the end with a six-dollar prop. The baby is the beginning, a stranger’s child standing in for a kid from St. James Place. The hearse is the ending nobody wanted, booked as a concept and turned into a eulogy. When you pull on a Biggie Smalls t-shirt, you’re wearing one of those chapters, so pick the one that means something to you.

Know the photographers: Claiborne, Belair, Lavine, Lixenberg. Know that the crown says King of New York. Buy vintage with your eyes open and the hype collabs with your receipts in order. And if a stranger stops you on the street to talk about “Juicy,” you’re wearing it right. For more New York label history from the same decades, read our story of Def Jam Records.

Stay creative — The Custom Creative Team