Over 28 years ago, The Notorious B.I.G. released his classic debut album, Ready to Die, on Bad Boy Entertainment. Not only was the music impactful but the picture of a chubby baby on the front cover would become one of the most recognizable images in hip-hop history.
So who is the diaper-donning baby with the puffy afro gracing the album artwork? While many people believed it to be a child photo of Biggie himself, like has become custom for many album covers since then, that is not the case. In 2011, the New York Daily News found the child who, at that time, was 18 years old. His name is Keithroy Yearwood and his mother, Delcenia Burns, used several stacks of baby pictures to confirm to the newspaper that it was indeed her child on the cover of Biggie’s classic Bad Boy debut.
Apparently, young Keithroy was hired to shoot for the cover through a modeling agency with the permission of his mother. "I just want people to know that's me," Yearwood said at the time of the interview. "The truth is finally coming out."
While Yearwood didn't make a fortune off the shoot—he was paid $150 for two hours of work—the cover will stay with him for a lifetime and be remembered in hip-hop forever.
“It's an honor to be on this album,” Yearwood told NYDN.