The Mystery Baby on Biggie’s Iconic Album Cover: The Untold Story Behind a $150 Payday
Ever wonder if that baby on a famous album cover grew up knowing they were peering at millions from every record store shelf—or were they blissfully unaware, just drooling on themselves during the shoot? I think about that sort of bizarre legacy more than I’d like to admit, especially with those iconic images we all carry around in the collective cultural memory . Take Notorious B.I.G.’s groundbreaking 1994 album, Ready to Die. I’ll confess—I was one of those people who assumed the cherubic kid on the cover was Biggie himself in diapers, plotting out rhymes between naps . Turns out, not even close! The real baby—Keithroy Yearwood—grew up, hit the big 1-8, and only then did the world learn the truth (with a little help from his mom’s paperwork detective work) . I find it deeply weird—and oddly touching—that you could go your whole childhood not knowing your face helped define East Coast hip-hop. Now, the full tale behind that unforgettable baby photo—and the fallout from other legendary baby album covers (I’m looking at you, Nevermind)—is way more twisted, hilarious, and occasionally poignant than you might expect . If you’ve ever wanted to peek behind the velvet rope of pop culture’s offbeat mysteries, you’re in exactly the right place . LEARN MORE
The 1994 Notorious B.I.G. album Ready to Die featured the image of a baby on the cover, which many wrongly assumed was the rapper himself when he was much younger.
Whether you call him Biggie Smalls, Notorious B.I.G. or Christopher George Latore Wallace, he is the guy who made Ready to Die but he’s not the guy on the cover.
That particular honour went to one Keithroy Yearwood, who revealed his identity back in 2011 as the guy who when he was much younger was photographed for the album.
18 at the time he made the revelation, he told the Daily News: “I just want people to know that’s me. The truth is finally coming out.”
According to Yearwood he was hired through a child modelling agency which later went bust, but his mum found some paperwork to prove to him that he was on the cover.
Keithroy Yearwood said he was proud to be the baby on the album cover (Notorious B.I.G.)
He made $150 for having his photo used on the Biggie Smalls album, but he didn’t really know much about it until he was eight, a decade later he said it was ‘a big deal to me’ and he considered it an honour to be on the cover.
Ready to Die was Notorious B.I.G.’s first studio album, which he followed three years later with Life After Death.
Shortly after he’d completed work on the album and just a couple of weeks before it was set to release he was murdered in a shooting where a car pulled up alongside his vehicle and he was shot four times.
He was rushed to hospital but later pronounced dead, though work he has featured in continued to be released posthumously.
Yearwood’s inclusion on Ready to Die went down a lot better than another example from the 90s of using a baby on an album cover.
That wasn’t him on the album cover (Larry Busacca/WireImage)
While Yearwood said it had been an honour the 1991 Nirvana album Nevermind which showed a naked baby swimming after a dollar bill led to them being sued by Spencer Elden, the child in question.
Obviously he was quite a bit older by this point, but his parents were paid around $200 for the shoot and once Elden had grown up he accused Nirvana and the photographer of showing ‘child pornography’ with the cover.
The lawsuit ended up being dismissed in 2022 and when he was able to refile it a judge ruled against him.
Dave Grohl also argued that Elden had used the image himself before, saying: “Listen, he’s got a Nevermind tattoo. I don’t.”
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