The late, notorious Christopher Wallace died of gunshot wounds nearly two decades ago. Soon, however, we will witness his resurrection as an exclusively licensed hologram.
According to Billboard, ARHT (Augmented Reality Holographic Technology) Media “has landed the digital rights to Notorious B.I.G.’s hologram.” They will partner with ByStorm entertainment, the company “[handling] the late rapper’s estate alongside singer Faith Evans and Biggie’s mother Voletta Wallace, [to] helm the technology for the so-called ‘Humagram’ of Christopher Wallace to perform in various capacities including on-stage delivery and music videos.”
Apparently, Biggie’s next of kin were impressed by ARHT Media’s technique. From Billboard:
“What sold Biggie’s family and estate was ARHT Media’s...innovative patented technology that begins with ‘the creation of a digital human, be it living, deceased in this case, or even fictional,’ says CEO Paul Duffy. ‘We have a very sophisticated transmission technology for beaming these digital humans through the public Internet to literally any point on the planet. These digital humans can scale to any size of venue so it can be in a display window, your living room, or it could be in a 50,000-seat arena for a real-time delivery and display of this human hologram, that we call ‘Humagrams.’”
For his debut appearance, the A.V. Club reports, Digital B.I.G. will join Faith Evans—widow of Human B.I.G.—in a music video for a track off her latest album, The King & I. He will also join her on tour. And on May 20, Biggie’s birthday, Puff Daddy and the rest of the Bad Boy crew will perform at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center. It now seems plausible that they’ll be joined by a holographic likeness of their lost leader. (The show is already sold out).
I’m sure it’ll be just like this.
Image via Getty. Video via YouTube.