The Notorious B.I.G. 'King of New York' Crown

The King of New York on his throne

In early 1997, Rap Pages magazine hired photographer Barron Claiborne to shoot Christopher Wallace, the Notorious B.I.G., for its cover. Claiborne's concept was simple and audacious: Biggie as the King of New York, seated on a throne, wearing a crown.

Claiborne brought two crowns of different sizes. One was far too small. The other also needed work, and to get it onto Biggie's head the interior foam cushioning had to come out. The session took place on March 6, 1997, in Claiborne's New York studio.

Sean Combs, who ran Biggie's label and came along to the shoot, reportedly disliked the idea, worried it made his star look like 'the Burger King.' Biggie went along with it anyway. The portrait of him with the crown tilted on his head became one of the most recognizable images in hip-hop.

The rapper and the photographer

Christopher George Latore Wallace was born in Brooklyn on May 21, 1972. In 1993 he became the first artist signed to Combs's Bad Boy Records, and his debut album, Ready to Die, came out on September 13, 1994, selling 57,000 copies its first week on its way to four-times platinum with 'Juicy,' 'Big Poppa' and 'One More Chance.'

Claiborne was a self-taught photographer and cinematographer from Boston who got his first camera at 9 from his mother. He moved to New York in 1989 and assisted photographers including Richard Avedon and Irving Penn before building a career in commercial, documentary and fashion work. His photographs are held by the Brooklyn Museum and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, among others.

Three days

Early on March 9, 1997, three days after the shoot, Wallace left a Soul Train Music Awards after-party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. At about 12:35 a.m. a gunman in a black Chevrolet Impala fired four shots into his vehicle. He was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at 1:15 a.m. He was 24.

The crown portrait became, in the words of the sale catalog, the last portrait taken of him. His second album, Life After Death, was released March 25, 1997, debuted at No. 1 and produced two No. 1 singles, 'Hypnotize' and 'Mo Money Mo Problems.'

From a novelty shop to a record

Claiborne kept the crown, which Biggie had signed. Claiborne added his own inscription: 'Crown from Biggie KONY Shot. 3-6-97.' In 2019 and 2020 it appeared in Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop, an exhibition shown at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles and the International Center of Photography in New York.

Claiborne consigned it, with three one-of-one large-format prints, to the first auction dedicated to hip-hop held by a major international auction house, in New York in September 2020. Five bidders traded offers for seven minutes. It sold for $594,750, about double the high estimate; the whole sale brought in $2 million. Reports differ on the date by a day: one contemporary account and the auctioneer's own social media post place the sale on the evening of September 15, while a record-keeping body gives September 16.

'This crown is a novelty item; I bought it at a place on Broadway called Gordon's,' Claiborne told the New York Post. 'Without Biggie, the crown would not be worth six figures. I only paid six bucks for it.'

Identifying the crown

The crown is molded plastic set with multicolored plastic gems. Its condition is part of its fingerprint: remnants of the foam lining that was pulled out to make it fit, one point broken off, and general light wear and abrasions. Biggie's signature and Claiborne's dated inscription are on the crown itself.

It sold as a group with three 36 x 40 inch chromogenic prints, each numbered one of one and signed on the back by Claiborne: the King of New York portrait, the contact sheet from the session, and a 10th-anniversary print.

All hail

Wallace was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020, the same year the crown sold. The sale was recorded as the most expensive fancy-dress or costume crown ever sold at auction.

The image outlived the magazine cover it was made for. A six-dollar prop became the shorthand for Biggie's claim to the throne of New York rap.

The numbers

Photo session

March 6, 1997, New York, for Rap Pages

Subject's age

24; killed three days later, March 9, 1997

Ready to Die

September 13, 1994; 57,000 first week; 4x platinum

Life After Death

March 25, 1997; debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200

Auction

Five bidders, seven minutes; whole sale about $2 million

Timeline

1. May 21, 1972

   Christopher Wallace is born in Brooklyn.

2. 1993

   Wallace becomes the first artist signed to Bad Boy Records.

3. Sep 13, 1994

   Ready to Die is released.

4. Mar 6, 1997

   Barron Claiborne photographs Wallace wearing this crown for the 'King of New York' Rap Pages cover.

5. Mar 9, 1997

   Wallace is shot and killed in Los Angeles after a Soul Train Music Awards after-party.

6. Mar 25, 1997

   Life After Death is released and debuts at No. 1.

7. Apr 2019

   The crown appears in Contact High at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, through August.

8. Jan 2020

   Contact High opens at the International Center of Photography in New York, through May.

9. 2020

   Wallace is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

10. Sep 15, 2020

    The crown sells for $594,750 at the first dedicated hip-hop auction at a major house, in New York.

11. Oct 15, 2020

    The sale is recognized as a record for a costume crown at auction.

The world in 1997

• Jan 20, 1997

  Bill Clinton begins his second term.

• Feb 5, 1997

  O.J. Simpson is found liable in his civil trial.

• Mar 13, 1997

  The Phoenix Lights are seen over Arizona.

• Mar 26, 1997

  The Heaven's Gate mass suicide is discovered in the San Diego area.

• Apr 15, 1997

  Jackie Robinson's No. 42 is retired across Major League Baseball.

• Jun 2, 1997

  Timothy McVeigh is convicted for the Oklahoma City bombing.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, The Notorious B.I.G. 'King of New York' Crown is number 85 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (84 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The crown cost $6 at a novelty shop on Broadway.
• Claiborne brought two crowns; one was far too small, and the other only fit after the foam lining came out.
• Sean Combs worried the crown made Biggie look like 'the Burger King.'
• The shoot took place three days before Biggie was killed, making it the last portrait session of his life, per the sale catalog.
• It sold for nearly 100,000 times what Claiborne paid for it.
• Five bidders fought over it for seven minutes.