The Notorious B.I.G. is “releasing” a new album through his wife Faith Evans

The Notorious B.I.G. is, sadly, no stranger to post-humous releases. Though Christopher Wallace did get to enjoy some of the fruit of fame, his albums Life After Death, Born Again, and Duets all came out after his passing in 1997.

Now Biggie is the subject of another post-humous release: The King & I, a series of duets orchestrated by his widow Faith Evans.

The first song from the project, “NYC,” also features a verse from Jadakiss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn7Jfao_jHU

As Complex points out, the Notorious B.I.G. verse on “NYC” is from an unreleased, but still widely bootlegged, track given the name “Mumbling and Whispering”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMLkHnU6toI?feature=oembed

But Evans has placed it within the context of a new song, a recurring format on the album. She’d originally spoken about the project coming out last fall, but as parts are only now dropping, perhaps the plan is for this fall instead?

Along with The King & I‘s album release, Evans is also planning a Notorious B.I.G. hologram with whom to tour. Look, there are still definitely some weird cultural hang-ups when it comes to using hologram tech in concerts, but if Evans can pull this off, I fully expect the same model to be used for other deceased artists and their living family members. In any case, we’re still well off from having holograms take over pop culture.