![]() ![]() Each man had an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. For evidence of their differing approaches, take Tupac's Hold Ya Head ("My aim is to spread more smiles than tears/Utilise lessons learned from my childhood years") or Biggie's earlier hit Juicy ("Damn right I like the life I live/'Cause I went from negative to positive"). Taken together, the two records are complex, compendious celebrations of the kind of superstar lifestyle that had fallen from favour in rock music, with a keen sense of the low expectations and narrow opportunities that their creators had escaped. (Even the title of the latter's 1994 debut, Ready to Die, was Puffy's idea Biggie preferred the Gotti-inspired The Teflon Don.) Tupac's 1996 album All Eyez on Me and Biggie's Life After Death were both brash, triumphalist, vibrant records. And the MCs' grim premonitions stemmed more from bravado than a genuine death wish. Despite numerous competing theories, nobody has ever been prosecuted for either murder, and there's no evidence that the feud directly led to the killings. "Fear got stronger than love, and niggas did things they weren't supposed to do," Tupac ominously told Vibe magazine.īut this is where the myth risks overtaking reality. Old-fashioned territorial rivalry, a familiar and largely harmless theme in hip-hop, blossomed into a more dangerous vendetta between the east and west coast factions, stoked by lyrical provocations from Biggie (Who Shot Ya?) and Tupac (Hit 'Em Up). After serving almost a year in jail for sexual abuse, he signed with Death Row, whose shady kingpin Suge Knight had his own grudge against Combs. He suspected Biggie and his mentor, Sean "Puffy" Combs, of arranging the shooting. They were on good terms until Tupac was shot five times in a Manhattan recording studio on 30 November 1994. They both thought big: hip-hop heroes for the mainstream rather than the cognoscenti. Biggie had the gangster credentials (he used to deal crack in Brooklyn), everyman appeal and effortless, weighty-but-nimble flow - to him, rapping itself was sheer poetry. Tupac had the good looks, revolutionary heritage (his mother was former Black Panther Afeni Shakur) and poetic aspirations, but only middling skills. Tupac worked on the west coast, Biggie on the east. They were born less than a year apart: Tupac in 1971, Biggie (aka Christopher Wallace) in 1972. The two murders, both still unsolved, comprise the defining drama in the history of hip-hop.įrom the start, the two men's vexed relationship had an enthralling yin-yang quality. Just months earlier, his bitter rival Tupac Shakur had also been shot dead, and his own posthumously released final album, The Don Killuminati: the 7 Day Theory, was rife with paranoia and fodder for conspiracy theories. When Notorious BIG closed his second album, 1997's Life After Death, with the track You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You), and was promptly murdered just weeks before its release, hip-hop's characteristic blurring of life and art reached its grisly apotheosis. He was released from prison in 2010 and denies involvement in the death of Wallace.T he only thing more powerful than a premature death is a death foretold. Mack was a corrupt police officer that was convicted of a bank robbery five months after the Biggie Smalls murder. Muhammad is reportedly a real-estate broker in Georgia under his given name, Harry Billups. Knight is currently serving 28 years in prison due to a voluntary manslaughter charge from 2015 after a hit-and-run on the set of Straight Outta Compton. Suge had an accountant that was part of Death Row Records who helped do the financial side of things to pay for the murders," Carson told the outlet. "Suge was ticked off that his cash cow Tupac was murdered. Diddy, was the original target in the hit allegedly financed by Knight. The ex agent says Sean Combs, better known as Puff Daddy or P. #NotoriousBIG #ReadyToDie #LifeAfterDeath /N4j3AR0Uq8Ĭarson helped write that report during his time with the FBI and actually claims that Biggie was not the initial target of the hit. Biggie smalls is the best to ever touch the Mic.
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