According to the Monroe County Coroner’s Office, 78-year-old Voletta Wallace was pronounced dead on Friday, Feb. 21. Wallace’s son, Christopher George Latore Wallace, was a famous rapper in the 1990s who was better known as the Notorious B.I.G.

The Notorious B.I.G., one of rap's greatest performers, was shot to death at age 24 in Los Angeles in 1997. The case remains unsolved. He was survived by his wife, the musician and actress Faith Evans, and his two children, Christopher Jordan Wallace and T'yanna Dream Wallace.

Voletta Wallace, the mother of late rapper Biggie Smalls, is dead at 78. Wallace, who raised her son Christopher Wallace in Brooklyn, died of natural causes Friday in Stroudsburg, Penn., according to the Monroe County Coroner Thomas A. Yanac. She was in hospice care.