Hey I'm Brian Hyatt and this is Rolling Stone Music Now. Today we're going to be talking about a great new book. It was all a dream. Biggie in the world that made him.

It's due out on the 10th of May, you can pre-order it now.

It's by Justin Tinsley, a journalist I've been following for quite a while, and today we're

going to be talking with Justin about some of the reporting he did for his book, and he's going to take

us through the life story of the So Justin congratulations on the book. It was a labor of love for sure. It was a beautiful

process but it was taxing. I thought I knew everything about Biggie Small is going into this.

After the research and after the reporting and the interviews,

it's like, wow, man, like you think you know a person

until you really start to dig in on them

and find out about different parts of their life.

Biggie really started to come to life for me from the very beginning of the book.

I think you paint probably the most detailed portrait ever of its childhood and its upbringing.

What were some of the things you learned along the way about his early days? ever of its childhood and its upbringing.

What were some of the things you learned along the way

about this early days that were new to you?

It was just, you know, digging in deeper with those friendships.

One of the first interviews I did for the book was Hubert Sam, basically one of Biggie's longest friends.

What struck me the most about this was throughout our entire interview, he never called him Big or Biggie he always called him Chris I knew this was

going to be an emotional process in a lot of ways but you know as the world

lost an iconic rapper and iconic musician and like this guy who soundtracked our lives in so many ways.

But for people like Hubert Sam, that was his first friend. They met in kindergarten.

And so finding out these stories about young

...