If I could go back in time and have a few words with Christopher ‘Notorious B.I.G.’ Wallace, or Biggie Smalls to his friends, I would have told him that like him, I too love it when they call me Big Poppa. I would have also told him to wear some sort of bullet-proof vest on March 9, 1997. Something that, as history shows us, would have saved his life. Sadly, that did not happen — and now Fox Searchlight is bringing Biggie back with the upcoming biopic Notorious. Check out the first trailer for the film in question below.

As a pasty white kid from the suburbs, I don’t claim to know a lot about the world of hip hop, but I do know that this man was important to a lot of people, therefore this movie has the potential to be important to a lot of people. And based on the limited footage in this first teaser trailer, director George Tillman Jr. (Men of Honor) and company seem to be headed in the right direction.

Notorious, which hits theaters January 16, 2009, stars Jamal Woolard, Derek Luke, Anthony Mackie and Angela Bassett.