NEW YORK — Voletta Wallace, the dedicated mother of the late great rapper The Notorious B.I.G. and protector of his legacy, died Friday morning. She was 78.

Monroe County Coroner Thomas Yanac confirmed her death Friday to The Associated Press, saying she died at her home in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, after a stint on hospice care. She died of natural causes.

A representative for the estate of The Notorious B.I.G. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Notorious B.I.G., one of the rap’s greatest performers, was shot to death at age 24 in Los Angeles in 1997. The case remains unsolved. He was survived by his wife, the musician and actress Faith Evans, and his two children, Christopher Jordan Wallace and T’yanna Dream Wallace.

Wallace was a dedicated keeper of the legacy of her son, born Christopher Wallace. When he first emerged on the scene as one of rap’s most distinctive talents with songs that expertly detailed street life in Brooklyn, she labeled his music “noise.”

Since his death, his gift took on a new meaning for her. She told AP in 2017, 20 years after his death, “I remembered my son said, ‘Don’t listen to my music.’ And I never listened to his music. I heard it on the radio and it sounded good, because it was clean. But I said, ‘You know what, I have to. I have to listen to that music.’ And that’s what I did.”

“I cried so much that day just listening to the music. I remember I sat, I stood. I rested my head on the stereo and I just cried like a baby. And that was therapy for me. And I said, ‘Oh my God — that was a talented young man to put those words together.’ He had a beautiful voice. I love his voice,” she continued.

Wallace launched the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation following her son’s death, an organization that provides educational resources for children. In 2003, she honored mothers of other musicians who died untimely deaths — Aaliyah, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, Tupac Shakur, Jam Master Jay, Big Pun, Big L and Freaky Tah — at “B.I.G. Night Out,” a benefit for the foundation.