Biggie and Tupac | 3. What's Beef?

Summary

Slow Burn: Biggie and Tupac | Episode 3 – "What's Beef?"

Original air date: November 13, 2019
Host: Joel Anderson

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Episode Overview

This episode of Slow Burn dives deeply into the escalation of the feud between Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. ("Biggie Smalls"). It traces how personal misunderstandings, a web of shifting loyalties, and media narratives transformed an ambiguous conflict into a full-blown East Coast versus West Coast rivalry that shaped—and ultimately haunted—90s hip-hop. Central to this episode is the role of ambiguity, with the release of Biggie's "Who Shot Ya?" and Tupac's shooting in 1994 fueling speculation, suspicion, and, eventually, bitter public beef.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Biggie’s Rising Stardom & Image Contradictions (01:19–04:57)

• Biggie’s hits like "Juicy" and "Big Poppa" made him a relatable yet unique figure in hip hop, despite his reluctance to embrace the “teddy bear” image they painted.
  • Notable Quote:
    “Big didn’t even like Big Papa or Juicy.” – Nasheem Myrick, Biggie’s producer [01:19]
• Biggie’s real street background is emphasized by Cheo Hodari Coker:
  • “He had true street cred, you know.” [02:29]
• Puff Daddy's (Puffy) early recognition of Biggie’s star potential, focus on image and fashion.
  • Notable & Lighthearted Quote:
    “Yeah, is he Fat Boys fat or Heavy D fat?” – Puffy, via Matty C [03:25]

2. "Who Shot Ya?" and the Power of Miscommunication (04:40–06:29)

• "Who Shot Ya?"—described as more raw and menacing than Biggie’s other commercial songs—was released soon after Tupac’s shooting, unintentionally fanning rumors that it referenced Tupac.
  • Notable Quote:
    “Myrick’s beat wasn’t lush and funky like Biggie’s hits. It was tense and sparse, like a film noir soundtrack.” – Joel Anderson [04:45]
• The song’s ambiguous lyrics and release timing led Tupac and others to suspect Biggie of either taunting him or even being involved in the shooting.

3. Tupac’s Suspicion, Isolation, and the Vibe Interview (08:03–14:57)

• While incarcerated at Rikers Island, Tupac read a critical Village Voice article calling him a performance artist more than a rapper. Feeling misunderstood, he reaches out to Vibe journalist Kevin Powell.
• Tupac, in a vulnerable state, shares his hurt, trauma from the shooting, and suspicion toward Biggie and Puffy (“I want people to have the real story…” – Tupac, via Kevin Powell [11:06]).
• The Vibe cover story sparks national debate, with Tupac publicly implicating Biggie and Puffy in his 1994 shooting.
  • Notable Reaction:
    “He was upset… he’s being accused of something he ain’t do... throwing it in his face.” – Chico Del Vec, Biggie’s friend [14:29]
• Biggie, feeling betrayed, vows to “just stay away from it” and focus on music, but the whispers continue.

4. The Personal Becomes Regional: East Coast vs. West Coast (14:57–17:40)

• What began as a personal beef morphs into an East Coast vs. West Coast narrative, partly fueled by hip-hop publications like The Source and Vibe.
  • Dan Charnas describes New York’s “condescension” toward other regions and the growing resentment.
• Suge Knight, Death Row’s imposing CEO, seizes the moment and recruits Tupac while he’s in prison, further solidifying the rivalry.

5. Suge Knight and the Rise of Death Row Records (17:40–20:59)

• Death Row’s ascent is described, from Dr. Dre leaving N.W.A. to huge successes with "The Chronic" and Snoop Dogg’s "Doggystyle".
• Suge Knight’s conversations with Tupac in prison persuade the embattled rapper to consider Death Row, promising unprecedented support.

6. The 1995 Source Awards: When Tension Boiled Over (20:59–26:32)

• The Source Awards, intended to honor “real hip hop,” instead become a powder keg.
  • Suge Knight taunts Puffy onstage:
    “Any artists out there want to be an artist...and don’t want to have to worry about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos…come to Death Row.” – Suge Knight [24:48]
• Death Row’s performance features a cardboard cutout of Tupac (then still in prison), unnoticed by most.
• Snoop confronts the hostile New York crowd:
  • Iconic Quote:
    “The East Coast don’t love Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg?... Y’all don’t love us? Well, let it be known then—we don’t give a fuck.” – Snoop Dogg [25:54]

7. Real-World Violence Escalates (26:32–29:25)

• At a party in Atlanta, an altercation between Death Row and Bad Boy’s crews leads to the fatal shooting of Suge’s friend Big Jake. Suge accuses Puffy of involvement.
• The feud, now fueled by actual bloodshed, becomes inescapable for everyone involved.

8. Tupac’s Release and New Allegiances (29:25–31:40)

• Suge Knight posts $1.4 million bond to get Tupac out of prison, flying him to California.
• Danny Boy (Death Row artist) recounts Tupac’s first hours out—a mix of wild partying and immediate, obsessive work ethic.
  • Memorable Moment:
    “He get out of the car... face-first to the ground, passed out... Everybody snatch him up, pouring water on him and shit... But once Tupac entered the recording studio, his focus was sharp.” – Danny Boy [30:22–31:09]

9. A War Set in Motion (31:40–32:40)

• With Tupac free but deeply aggrieved, the stage is set for musical and literal confrontation:
  • “He had a career to rebuild, money to make, and scores to settle with Biggie and Puffy. He was ready to go to war.” – Joel Anderson [31:40]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We wasn’t even paying attention to that…no way in the world they would mistake that. We have no reason, no motive at all to have set Pac up.” – Nasheem Myrick on "Who Shot Ya?" [07:41]
• “Tupac said, if I get killed, I want people to have the real story.” – Kevin Powell [11:06]
• "Do I think it was right for him to implicate Diddy and Biggie? No, no, no." – Kevin Powell on Tupac’s accusations [12:18]
• "It became increasingly hard to focus on music, though. The whispers never went away." – Joel Anderson [14:57]
• “He was the only one of the homies that was really trying… he would be at the office at 9am, doing stuff...” – Reggie Wright, on Big Jake [27:53]
• “It wasn’t about record sales or regional respect…it was a blood dispute.” – Joel Anderson [29:25]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Biggie's reluctant rise: 01:19–03:38
• “Who Shot Ya?” and its aftermath: 04:40–07:41
• Tupac’s Vibe interview and accusations: 10:14–14:57
• East vs. West narrative crystallizes: 16:18–20:59
• Source Awards Show & "Death Row vs Bad Boy": 20:59–26:32
• Atlanta shooting, Big Jake’s death: 27:53–29:25
• Tupac’s release and recording spree: 30:22–31:40
• Closing reflections—beef becomes war: 31:40–32:40

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Summary

This episode compellingly illustrates how misunderstandings, pride, and media stoking spun the Biggie-Tupac situation out of control, with “Who Shot Ya?” and the infamous Source Awards marking points of no return. What could have remained a personal dispute becomes an industry-wide, coast-to-coast conflict—irreversibly weaving together art, violence, and legacy. The episode sets the stage for Tupac’s explosive comeback, a harbinger of even deadlier conflicts to come.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Big didn't even like Big Papa or.

[A]

Juicy or here's producer Nasheem Myrick.

[B]

You know how long it took him to do Big Poppa? That was the last joint I think he did for that album.

[A]

Juicy and Big Papa were the first singles off of Biggie's first album, Ready to Die. These were the songs that got the heavyset 22 year old Christopher Wallace on MTV. While Juicy was a hit, it was Big Papa that reached number one on the rap charts. The infectious hooks brought listeners in. What won them over was the warmth in Biggie's voice, a sound that made him both relatable and totally unique.

[B]

To all the ladies in the place. With style and grace Allow me to lace these Liverpool dishes in your bushes who rock grooves and make moves with all the mommies.

[A]

But the teddy bear image that came through in those songs wasn't the whole story. Biggie had started dealing drugs as a 13 year old, dropped out of school at 16, and spent a few years hustling in his hometown of Brooklyn and in Raleigh, N.C. when he rapped about that life, he was speaking from experience. Here's Cheo Hodari Koker, who wrote the Biggie biography. Unbelievable. He had a certain charisma in the streets.

[B]

I mean, he had a look about himself and he had a way about himself that he had true street cred, you know.

[A]

That's why Biggie Talks about the struggle.

[B]

Because it's like you make just enough money to do some basically silly shit.

[A]

But then you're still out there getting robbed.

[B]

You're still out there with your life on the line.

[A]

In 1992, Biggie got written up in the unsigned hype column of the Source, one of the early influential hip hop magazines that brought Biggie's demo tape to the attention of Sean Puffy Combs. When Matano Capalongo played the tape for Puffy, he remembers, the hip hop mogul had one question. My recollection immediately after playing it is him asking me about how he looks. Capalongo is better known as Matty C. He wrote the unsigned hype column. It's a good sign, you know what I mean? He was excited.

[B]

Like everybody knew he was the fashion guy. That's what Puff did. He took an artist and he put.

[A]

The right outfit on him and, you know, that style. So he wanted to know what he was working with.

[B]

Now he just, he's gotta know how he looks. He keeps pressing me, I'm like, yeah, is he fat? Yeah, he's fat, he's fat. He's like, is he fat Boy's fat or Heavy D? Fat, like something in between maybe.

[A]

Puffy saw Biggie as an updated version of Heavy D, a lovable plus sized womanizer.

[B]

Why blow up my spot? Cause we both got hot now Check it, I got more Mac than Craig and in the bed Believe me, sweetie I got enough to feed the needy no need to be greedy.

[A]

Puffy was every bit the star that his artists were. He'd appeared in music videos and in an ad campaign for fashion designer Carl Konai. Hip hop writer Scott Paulson Bryant wrote that Puffy was his own best logo. Puffy signed Biggie twice. First to Uptown Records and then later to his own label, Bad Boy, which put out Biggie's biggest hits. Juicy was a rags to riches story. Big Papa was mostly about the riches. Biggie liked that those songs and their videos got him noticed. But he wasn't totally sold on the image they created for him. He wanted to make a different kind of music. Music that sounded like what Nasheem Myrick was cooking up. Myrick was a community college dropout from Queens. He was working as an engineer in Puff Studio when he made his first beat.

[B]

And then once BIG heard it, he was like, oh my God, no brainer.

[A]

Myrick's beat wasn't lush and funky like Biggie's hits. It was tense and sparse, like a film noir soundtrack.

[B]

Now turn the mics Up Turn that mic up yeah, the beat is knocking Leave that mic up.

[A]

Biggie still thought of himself as a street hustler, and he wrote verses for Myrick's track that reflected where he'd come from and what he'd been through. BIG and Myrick's collaboration was called who Shot Ya. It was released late February 1995 as a B side to Big Papa.

[B]

Who shot ya? Separate the weak from the opposite Leap hard to creep them Brooklyn streets It's on, nigga. Fuck all that bickering beat.

[A]

The story Biggie tells in who Shot Ya is simple and brutal. Someone's out to get him, but Biggie gets to drop on his foe. The song ends with a violent skit.

[B]

Who shot you?

[A]

Who Shot you? Was an instant classic. And it showed the rap world that Biggie wasn't just a good natured player.

[B]

He had a lot of commercial stuff out. I mean, to the public, if you didn't get the album, you knew Big for the radio joints. You didn't really know him for what he's meant to do, like what he loved to do, what he does. Then Huchacha comes out as a single. Reddio picks up on that and it's hard as hell. It's the hardest joint on radio.

[A]

It also thrust Biggie and his crew into the middle of a conflict they wanted no part of. Who Shot yout came out a few months after Tupac was shot by unknown assailants in the lobby of Quad Studios. Tupac was incarcerated, hurt and suspicious. He already wondered if Biggie and Puffy knew who'd attacked him or if they might have been involved. Now Biggie was putting out a song called who Shot Ya? In which he cast himself as a gunman. How did Biggie and Tupac communicate and miscommunicate after the Quad shooting? How did the hip hop world organize itself around a cross country turf war? And when Tupac got out of prison, was it too late to turn things around? This is Slow Burn. I'm your host, Joel Anderson, and this is episode three, what's Beef? So was who Shot you really directed at Tupac? Nasheem Myrick, who worked on it with Biggie, says no.

[B]

It's like, why didn't we see that? We wasn't even paying attention to that. It's like no way in the world they would mistake that. You know, we have no reason, no motive at all to have set Pac up. Where's the motive? What's the issue?

[A]

But Tupac couldn't be sure. That's how Beefs tend to escalate with a series of ambiguous provocations. When Tupac was being carried out of Quad Studios on a stretcher, he'd stuck up his middle finger. Biggie's childhood friend Chico del Vec was there that night. He says Biggie thought the gesture was directed at him.

[B]

Tupac gets off the elevator on the hospital bed, and he whittling them out, and he looking at us with his middle finger up like, fuck you, niggas.

[A]

To y', all right? Tupac thought maybe who Shot ya? Was Biggie's response. Not long before he heard who Shot Ya, Tupac was angry about something else, A newspaper article that ran in New York's Village Voice. That article was by the journalist Ture. Ture argued that Tupac was a mediocre rapper but a master performance artist. He'd watched Tupac in court, and he'd seen Tupac make his dramatic speech outside the courthouse, the one where he called Diana Jackson a woman scorned. He described Tupac's entire public life and Persona, the multiple arrests, the violent assault at Quad Studios, the courtroom appearance in a wheelchair, as dangerously compelling and ecstatically brilliant. That ongoing performance, Toure wrote, has kept his lackluster professional work culturally relevant and commercially viable. Tupac read all of this while he was locked up in Rikers island, and he felt profoundly hurt. Ture was calling him fake and suggesting that his wild ups and downs were nothing but a front. So Tupac called another writer, one he thought would be more sympathetic to his point of view. I got the call that I was the only journalist that Tupac wanted to talk to, to tell the story because he trusted me. That's Kevin Powell. Powell was familiar with the idea of life as performance art. In 1992, he'd been a cast member on the first season of MTV's the Real World. On the show, Powell got slotted into the role of angry young black man. The following year, he met Tupac at a music conference. Pac looked over at me and he smiled that smile, that big toothy grin he always had.

[B]

And he.

[A]

Somehow we merged, and it was almost like there was no one else there. You know what I'm saying? And he said, man, I watched you on MTV's the Real World that first season. I had your back on that show. I had your back on that show. Powell was working as a staff writer for Vibe, an ambitious magazine founded by Quincy Jones and bankrolled by Tom Warner. At a time when most media outlets didn't take hip hop seriously. Vibe in the Source, allowed Rappers to promote their work, establish their Personas, and talk to their fans. Powell had written a Vibe cover story about Tupac in 1994. The headline was, is Tupac Crazy? Are Just Misunderstood? That was still a live question a year later when Powell went to visit Tupac and Rikers. The moment that Tupac started talking because he just started spitting stuff out. What I remember is that we had edited out the piece, but Tupac kept.

[B]

Ending every sentence with wooty woo, wooty woo, because he was nervous.

[A]

And I remember him smoking cigarettes. I feel like he had to smoke cigarettes just to get through it because he knew he was downloading something very heavy. Tupac told Powell that this was his last interview. He said, if I get killed, I want people to have the real story. Tupac said that he was still in pain from the injuries he'd suffered in the Quad shooting and that he was having nightmares. The message was clear. What he'd been through wasn't a performance. It was real. But people who read Kevin Powell's story didn't focus on Tupac's personal torment. Instead, they seized on something else. Tupac said something about the ambush at Quad Studios. Tupac told Powell that Biggie and Puffy might have had something to do with it. Tupac described the night in vivid detail. The army fatigues his assailants wore, which made him think they were Biggie's security guys. The way they kicked and stomped on him as though they were mad at him, how Puffy wouldn't come near him afterward. The story Tupac told was incendiary. I think it was cathartic for him just to say these things. Do I think it was right for.

[B]

Him to implicate Diddy and Biggie? No, no, no.

[A]

And keep in mind, Biggie and Tupac were very.

[B]

Were friends. They were friends.

[A]

Why, in Tupac's mind would Biggie and Puffy have had it in for him? What was their motive? Maybe he thought Biggie was feeling competitive and saw Tupac as an obstacle to success. Or maybe Tupac's suspicion was born of jealousy. Biggie was on the rise, and Tupac felt he'd never gotten enough credit for mentoring him. Or maybe Tupac never really thought they were involved and he just wanted to start some highly visible trouble. That's what Nasheem Myrick thinks. According to Myrick, Puffy visited Tupac and Rikers before the Vibe interview came out, specifically to tell Tupac that he and Biggie had nothing to do with the Quad shooting.

[B]

They told me they went to the island, told Pac Big had nothing to do with it. You know what I'm saying? And Pac had already did the Vibe joint. They said, though, he already did it. He was like, damn. Pac was like, damn. I just did that Vibe interview, though. But Pac knew that Big had nothing to do with it. But, you know, you want to make moves, not everything gotta be real. PA is a smart too, right? Use that to his advantage.

[A]

You think it was all hype.

[B]

Well, was it true?

[A]

Tupac's interview with Kevin Powell appeared on the COVID of the April 1995 issue of Vibe. It came out around the same time that Tupac's third album, Me against the World, debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. By that time, Tupac had been moved to Clinton Correctional Facility, a cold and isolated maximum security prison in far upstate New York. He was one of the biggest stars in the world, and he was broke, incarcerated, and publicly accusing his former friends of setting him up. Vibe reached out to Puffy and Biggie for comment, but they declined to respond. Chico Del Vec remembers Biggie's reaction.

[B]

He was upset because he like, yo, he get being accused of something he ain't do, and it was just throwing in his face. He knew he had nothing to do with it, so he was just pissed off about this whole situation. Biggie was like, you know what? This dude is not coming clean with us about anything. So what I'm going to do is just stay away from it. And Puff is like, yo, you know what? Let's just do this music, man, and just, you know, stay focused.

[A]

It became increasingly hard to focus on music, though. The whispers about Biggie and Puffy's involvement in Tupac's shooting never went away. And who shot ya? Clouded the picture. Biggie and Puffy decided they needed to defend themselves. In the August 1995 issue of Vibe, Biggie said he wasn't involved in the Quad shooting and that who shot you wasn't about Tupac. He also told Vibe that the next time he saw Tupac, he wanted an apology. Puffy said that Tupac got a lot of people in a lot of bullshit with that interview. This back and forth wasn't just about Biggie, Puffy and Tupac. A personal beef was quickly turning into a regional one. Lil Sean, the rapper that Tupac was supposed to record with that night at the Quad, had come up in Brooklyn, he told Vibe. Niggas on the west coast are saying, yo, tell that n Lil Sean to be careful. Cause niggas on the west coast are calling his name. Hip hop had been born in New York, and rappers there had always looked down on rap scenes in other parts of the country. Here's Dan Charnas, who wrote for the Source and later worked for Rick Rubin's American Recordings label. It wasn't beef. It was essentially condescension from New York to the rest of the country, except maybe Philly, and resentment from everywhere else in the country towards New York. And in the offices of the Source, and in the letters that came in.

[B]

To the editor, you could see a.

[A]

Lot of the resentment of the condescension. So people on the west coast were sick of New York acting like it owned hip hop. One of those people was marrying Suge Knight, and he had decided to do something about it. Knight was 6 foot 4 and more than 300 pounds. He'd been nicknamed Suge as a kid because of his sweet disposition. But he'd changed as he'd grown up. Suge got work as a bodyguard for popular musicians, which gave him a sense of all the money to be made in the music industry. He moved into management and publishing, using his connections and his intimidating presence to build a roster of artists. His big move came in 1991, when he found out that the rapper and producer Dr. Dre was ready to quit N.W.A you. Using his talent for persuasion, Suge helped Dre get out of his recording contract, and together they founded Death Row Records. The music Death Row put out was something new in rap. More violent, more graphic, more derivative of funk music, and ultimately more popular.

[B]

Snaps word to the mother.

[A]

The label's first two releases were Dre's the Chronic and Doggy Style, by Dre's protege, Snoop Doggy Dogg. They were both huge hits.

[B]

Snoop Doggy Dog. His album Doggy Style was the hottest selling album in the country this week, beating out everyone from Pearl Jam to Sinatra.

[A]

In October, flush with success, Suge shopped around for more talent. He put together a group called the Dog Pound. And he signed a former gospel singer who'd appeared on Snoop's earliest demo tapes, Nate Dogg. Suge even tried to poach the Wu Tang Clan from their label. But the rapper Suge wanted most of all was Tupac. In 1993, he'd given Tupac $200,000 to contribute a song to a movie soundtrack. Even so, Tupac continued putting out his albums on Interscope, a label that was partly owned by Tom Warner and that had a deal to distribute Death row's releases. By 1995, things looked different. Tupac was still a huge star, but he was stuck in prison in Dannemore. New York, a place so remote that the quickest way to see him was to fly into Canada and drive an hour and a half south.

[B]

I used to go up to visit him in prison up at Clinton Correctional Facility.

[A]

That's Stuart Levy, one of Tupac's entertainment attorneys.

[B]

Dannemora. That's where it is. Yeah. It looks like a castle. And it's just. You walk in and I'd been to prisons before, but I'd been to white collar cases when I was in law school. You'd handle cases for, like, securities fraud or something like that. This is like, you know, heavy duty stuff where the guards are carrying submachine guns and everything else. It's a little disconcerting.

[A]

It was a hard place for a famous rapper. For one thing, plenty of guys from the street wanted to make a name for themselves by challenging a celebrity. For another, as we covered in our last episode, most law enforcement officers weren't big rap fans, and the guards had ways of making Tupac's life difficult.

[B]

The guard comes by and ceremoniously puts his glove on his hand and says, well, Paki, it's time for a rectal exam. And I said, what are you talking about, a rectal exam? I've been sitting here for six hours with him fully clothed, with your prison guard on the catwalk above me. I didn't slip anything into his anus, you know. Well, we have to check, and they just do it to humiliate you.

[A]

So Tupac, still traumatized by the Quad Studios assault and recovering from multiple bullet wounds, was being abused by guards and threatened by fellow inmates. He was placed on lockdown for smoking weed. And although he had the number one album in the country, he was still broken. He'd spent a lot of money recording the album and more on lawyers. Suge Knight made several trips to Dannemore. On those visits, Suge told Tupac that Death Row would be better for him than Interscope. Suge said Death Row could make him a bigger star, and he promised to support Tupac no matter what. He also said he'd help Tupac get bailed out of prison. Before the Quad shooting, Tupac hadn't been seen as either an east coast or a West coast rapper. He'd spent part of his childhood in Baltimore, and when he'd started rapping, he'd called himself MC New York. He'd come of age as a performer in California, but as an adult, he'd spend a lot of time in Atlanta. But now everyone was choosing sides, and the hip hop press was making east versus West, Rap's biggest and most combustible storyline.

[B]

I was quite disturbed by different magazines such as the Source and Vibe magazine and what they were doing to the music by putting east coast versus West Coast. And I said, stop that. That's. You're setting up a storm.

[A]

That's Andre Brown. He goes by Dr. Dre, but he's not that Dr. Dre. This Dr. Dre was a weekday co host on Yo. MTV Raps, which made him one of the most recognizable faces in hip hop. When the Source decided to launch an awards show for rap music, MTV's Dr. Dre and his co host Ed Lover were obvious choices to emcee. But Dre and Ed were worried. They thought bringing together Puffy's Bad Boy crew and Suge's Death Row stable might lead to trouble.

[B]

The one thing that Ed and I made very clear is like, don't put us in the middle of some war of words. That's not gonna be good.

[A]

The Source Awards took place on August 3, 1995 at the Paramount Theater in New York's Madison Square Garden. The idea was to give real hip hop some love. The Grammys had mostly given awards to poppin novelty rappers like MC Hammer, Sir Mix A Lot and the Fresh Prince. The Source Awards were going to celebrate the music that hip hop fans respected. And they'd do it in front of a national audience. It was a disaster.

[B]

It was a heavy New York east coast crowd. It really was people from all different walks, but it was majority people from the east coast and they took offense to certain groups.

[A]

If people from the east coast were taking offense to the rappers from out west, that was fine with Suge Knight. He hadn't come to make nice.

[B]

We had niggas on the roof. Like we had a team out there. Like I remember them coming in the hallway and them having this big ass bag full of guns and shit.

[A]

That's Danny Stewart, an R and B singer known as Danny boy. He was 16 years old in 1995 and he was being groomed as Death Row's next star. Suge had become his legal guardian.

[B]

They got this big ass duffel bag full of guns and shit and everybody reaching for a gun. So I go to reach for one too. Suge like, what the fuck is you doing? Suge say, hey man, what you doing? We good, man. They got us. We kind of knew, you know what I mean? Because threats were had been given and you know, you could feel the tension.

[A]

Danny Boy and Suge sat near the front. The ceremony opened with a 10 minute medley of death Row's hits. The stage was set to look like a prison cell block. One after another, the label's artists emerged. Dr. Dre, the dog Pound, Nate Dogg, Snoop. It was a serious flex of Death Row's star power.

[B]

Come on, New York. Gia. As I look up at the sky.

[A]

My mind starts tripping A tear drops my eye, my body temperature falls. But there was more. Tupac had finally agreed to sign with Death Row, but he couldn't join Suge on stage. He was 320 miles north of Madison Square Garden in a prison cell. Instead of the real Tupac, Death Row had a cardboard cutout made. And they put that on stage with Dre and Snoop. No one noticed. Here's Reggie Wright, Death Row's head of security.

[B]

I was hoping most people caught him in the cage. Cause I knew I was a part of putting that there, you know, helping getting that there.

[A]

So I thought that was the big announcement.

[B]

I don't think anybody in there motherfucking recognized it or noticed it. To this day, nobody has ever talked.

[A]

About it but me and Snoop. So that big reveal fell flat. When Suge Knight got up on stage, he sent a much clearer message. I'd like to tell Tupac to keep his guards up. We're riding with him. But it was something else Suge said that really got the audience's attention. A shot he took at Puffy and Bad Boy Records.

[B]

Any artists out there want to be an artist and want to stay a star and don't want to have to worry about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos, all on the record, dancing, come to Death Row.

[A]

Suge was taking on Tupac's feud as his own in the most public way imaginable. The New York audience responded to Suge's provocation by booing loudly and relentlessly. It was just what Andre Brown and Ed Lover had been afraid of.

[B]

Right after Suge Knight made that comment, first thing I said is, get the car ready. Ed said the same thing. Ed was looking, oh, well, you know, we were playing tough. We ain't scared. We ain't scared of nothing. It's the car in the back. Is the car running? The driver's ready. Right, okay. Because I want to read about the incident. I don't want to be a part of the incident.

[A]

When Death Row's Dr. Dre came on stage to accept the award for Producer of the Year, the crowd booed again. Snoop snatched the mic away from Dre to confront the audience.

[B]

What? Wait, wait, wait. The east coast don't love Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. The east coast ain't got no love.

[A]

For Dr. Dre and Snoop Snoop Dogg.

[B]

And Death Row Y' all don't love us. Y' all don't love us. Well, let it be known then we.

[A]

Don'T give a fuck. We know y' all East coast we know where the pope we at. Puffy tried to cool things down. Before presenting Snoop with the award for Solo artist of the Year, he implored the two coasts to come together as one.

[B]

So give it up for everybody from the east and the west that won the night. One love.

[A]

The audience clapped politely when Snoop came on stage to accept his award. Puffy made a point of giving him a hug. But Puffy also seemed to be everything. Suge accused him of being an insatiable narcissist and a producer who wanted to be the star. To kick off a medley of Bad Boy performances, he stood on a podium at the center of the stage, head bowed as if in prayer. At the close of his monologue, Puffy fanned the flames of the Bad Boy Death Row conflict. He said, I live in the east and I'm going to die in the East. Despite everyone's fears, there was no violence at the Source Awards or at any of the after parties that came the next month on neutral territory, Suge and Puffy's entourages crossed paths at a club in Atlanta at a birthday party for the rapper and producer Jermaine Dupri. Suge's crew included Jai Hassan Jamal Robles, a 240 pound former gang member known to his friends as Big Jake. Suge liked to roll with bloods from his old neighborhood in Compton, and he often tried to help them out with jobs. Big Jake was a tough guy. He wouldn't have been around otherwise. But Reggie Wright said he was also committed to building a real career in the music industry.

[B]

He was the only one of the homies that was really trying or at least working hand in hand with me to learn the business and the beat. He would be the one that at the office, at 9am at the office, doing stuff and then hanging out with us, you know, when we all decided to come to work at five or six.

[A]

At that party in Atlanta, the Death Row and Bad Boy entourages were feuding all night. Eventually, the dispute spilled outside of the club. As Big Jake Robles was getting into a limo. Someone ran up and shot him with a semiautomatic. He was hit multiple times in his abdomen. Standing over his wounded friend, Suge told Puffy I think you had something to do with this. Robles died from his injuries two weeks later. No one was ever charged. Here's Danny Boy again.

[B]

That was really big. I wasn't there, but I think that was a big hurt for Death Row. That was like one of the first people from Death Row that we lost to. Like that. And you could see Suge even dealing with the stress of it, you know, having his homie out on the road with him, knowing that he have to return to LA with Jake in a box.

[A]

Now. It was no longer about record sales or regional respect. It wasn't about who shot Tupac at Quad Studios. This was a blood dispute between Suge and Puffy. Soon after Big Jake died, Suge wired a $1.4 million bond to the New York Court of Appeals. Some of the money came from Interscope and Time Warner. Then he chartered a private jet to upstate New York. When he landed, he got in a rented white limousine and headed to the prison gates. A short while later, Tupac was free, pending an appeal of his conviction for sexual abuse. There's a photo of Tupac that might have been taken on that day, standing with his friend, Big Psych. Tupac is wearing a white sweater and baggy gray jeans with a white cap perched backward on his head. He's smiling wide and pointing at the limo. You can tell he was so happy to be out of Dannemore. Danny Boy was part of the group that went to get Tupac and bring him to California.

[B]

Then we went back to LA on. On his way from the airport. He's drinking and smoking and having a ball. And we get to the back of the studio they call packets at the back door of the studio. He get out of the car and he walked about five feet away from the door, face first to the ground, passed out. Everybody snatch him up, pouring water on him and shit. He'd look up and see, look around. I think he had, you know, drunk too much or smoked too much.

[A]

But once Tupac entered the recording studio, his focus was sharp. Danny Boy says Tupac rarely left over the next few weeks to see that.

[B]

Light turn on of his working. To see him, like, immediately after that, it was like, you seen Pac come in that back door, and I can count the times that I've seen him, like, leave out. And when he left out, he came right back.

[A]

Tupac had gone to prison a year earlier. Now he had a career to rebuild, money to make and scores to settle with Biggie and Puffy. He was ready to go to war. Next week on Slow Burn, Tupac's other nemesis, a 66 year old civil rights activist. Slow Burn is a production of Slate plus, Slate's membership program. You can sign up for Slate plus to hear a bonus episode of the show this week and every week this season. In this week's bonus episode, you'll hear more about the rise of Biggie in an extended interview with Mattie C. The writer of the unsigned Hype column in the Source. He tells some really good stories about working with Biggie and Puffy, and he talks about what it was like to be at the Quad Studios the night Tupac got shot. To hear it, Sign up for Slate [e-mail] Slowburn Slowburn is produced by me and Christopher Johnson, with editorial direction by Josh Levine and Gabriel Roth. Sophie Summergrad is our researcher. Our mix engineers are Jared Paul and Paul Mounsey. Don Will composed our theme song. The artwork for Slow Burn is by Lisa Larson Walker. Special thanks to Slate's Child 2 Derek Johnson, Katie Rayford, Lo and Liu, Allison Benedict and Jared Holt. And by the way, we created a playlist on Spotify to go with this season. We'll be updating it each week with new episodes and songs by Tupac, Biggie and their collaborators. Check it out every week at the link in the show notes. Thanks for listening. Peace.

[B]

Picture this Me Reese Witherspoon in London ordering fish and chips so often they.

[A]

Might start wrapping me in paper. I'm traveling with my Wells Fargo Autograph Journey card, so I earn rewards wherever I book Travel five times points with.

[B]

Hotels, four times with airlines, three times.

[A]

On restaurants and other travel and one point on other purchases. Imagine getting rewarded for eating a toad in the hole.

[B]

Wait, what is a toad in the hole? Visit Wells Fargo.com autographjourney Terms apply.