Latest / Stuff You Should Know / The Ballad of Biggie and Tupac

Transcript

The Ballad of Biggie and Tupac · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, We're going on tour. We're going to be
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: in Denver, Seattle, and San Francisco soon and tickets are
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: still available.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: That's right, in the next few days. Actually, we're gonna
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: be in Denver on Tuesday, the twenty seventh of January.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: We're gonna be in Seattle the next night, our dear
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: beloved Seattle, and.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Then finally winding it up on Thursday the twenty ninth.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And San Francisco is part of our sketch best appearance
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: And you can get all the ticket into our information
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: at stuff youshould know dot com.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Isn't that right?
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It is right, And we love you Denver, and we
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: love you San Francisco too.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: That's right. We love all you cities and we missed
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: you and we can't wait to be back.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Welcome to stuff you should know, our production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here too, so this is a good
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: old fashioned stuff you should know. One of our ongoing
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: hip hop editions. Yeah, I feel like a door anytime
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: I say hip hop, so I usually say rap. Yeah,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: but regardless, that's what we're talking.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: About Yeah, we're talking about Biggie and Tupac, and we
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: want to issue a.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Warning and a trigger warning.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: No pun intended there, but this one's obviously gonna because
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: we're talking about the lives of these two guys who
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: were in many ways real gangsters. A lot of stuff
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: went down, including sexual assault and gunplay and murder, and
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: it's you know, it's probably not appropriate for the younger listeners,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: and so you just wanted to get that out there. Hopefully,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: if you know anything about Biggie and Tupac, you know
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: that there's some more adult content coming your way.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Nice CoA man. Yeah, so, yeah, we are talking about
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Biggie and Tupac, and they are pretty well known. If
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: you listen to either one of them, or even kind
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of have a passing awareness of hip hop, especially in
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the nineties, you probably know that Biggie and Tupac had
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: probably the biggest rivalry in the hip hop world. It's
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: referred to as a beef between one another, so much
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: so that it actually triggered, or caused, at the very
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: least popularized the East Coast versus West Coast thing of
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: rap in the nineteen nineties. That was huge. It was
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the central focus of rap during basically that whole decade.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and sadly would leave both of them dead from violence.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: It was I hope that's not a spoiler for anyone,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: but yeah, at very young ages. It's super sad what
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: happened to those guys, and just super sad that that was,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: you know, brought about because of just sort of the
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: lifestyle that went along with their careers, you know.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And a lot of people make a case that
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: that lifestyle was essentially demanded by fans and the media
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and certainly fostered and nurtured by fans in the media.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: And so I think both Biggie and Tupac and all
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the people around them and other rappers basically felt like
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: they had to act like they the stuff that they
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: wrapped about, or else they would be fake baby gangsters
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: sometimes or studio gangsters even worse. Well yeah, yeah, and
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: then they were also surrounded by literal bloods and crips,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: so it essentially had it was inevitable that it would
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: end in death and violence.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think hip hop more than other types
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: of music too, there's an expectation to be.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: To be real again, got all these funs flying out of.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: My mouth, oh from Cypress Hill.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, of course.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: But to be real and like you said, not you know,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: if you were found out to be sort of rapping
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: about something and really kind of fake in real life
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: like that, that's no good for your career as a
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: hip hop artist. So it's sort of you know, they
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know, to me, they're sort of victims of
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: that whole thing in a lot of ways.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but at the same time, they definitely bought into it. Yeah,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, they essentially laid the groundwork for that. It's
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: just it's crazy because it's just such a ubiquitous, widespread
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: thing for so long. It's strange to think that you
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: can trace it back to one group, one duo essentially.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So we're going to tell you a little bit
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: about Tupac and his beginnings, a little bit about Biggie
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: and then once they met up kind of what happened
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: from there. But as far as Tupac goes, he was
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: born in nineteen seventy one, same year as me. He
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: was born in Harlem. His mother was a Finny Shakur
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and she was one of the Panther twenty one. I'm
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: pretty sure we talked about them in the Black Panther episode,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: but they were part of the Black Panther Party, the
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: ones who were accused of carrying out a bombing campaign.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: She did win an acquittal in court defending herself and
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: exposed a lot of stuff about undercover cops and the
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: tactics they used that were very untoward. But Tupac was
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: born about a month after that trial and born Lesaine Crooks.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: But it's not like he changed his name to be
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: a cool hip hop guy later. He was actually renamed
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: by his mom when he was about a year old,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: after indigenous South American revolutionary Tupac Amaru the second, So
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: he's essentially he was always Tupac.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was named after an eighteenth century Incon I believe,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: who led a rebellion against the Spanish. Little known fact.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that, did you. I did not, So
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I usually think I associate Tupac with New York because
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: pretty much all the movies he was ever in were
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: all set in New York. But he's from San Francisco.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was born in Harlem, but his family
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: moved to San Francisco, or actually Marin County, which is
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a suburb of San Francisco pretty early on in his life,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and at the time, his mom was struggling with a
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: crack addiction, So Tupac was essentially on his own from
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: a very young age, and as black kids at the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: time in the eighties in particular, did to make money
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: when you were in a situation like that, he sold
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: drugs and that's how he supported himself for a long
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: time while he was even going through school too.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was like, we'll see, Biggie was he
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: was a really good English student, and I bet a
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: lot of hip hop performers were good in English. You know,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: it just sort of makes sense. But he dropped out
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: of high school. He studied poetry. He continued to after
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: he dropped out, and actually his teacher, his English teacher,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: one of them, Leela Steinberg, was like, hey, I see
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: a lot of potential in you. You can crash on
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: my couch when you need to, And she ended up
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: becoming his first manager.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and she said, you always have to wear that
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: bandana around your head just so like you because I
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: love it.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: It looks super cool.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: I know we've also talked about this before, but he
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: was a member of Digital Underground with Humpty Hump of
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: the famous Humpty Dance. He's shown dancing in the Humpty
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Dance video in the background. He was a dancer for
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Digital Underground, but later I think wrapped on some of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: their albums. Yeah, but even from the outset, his whole
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: vibe was much much edgier than Humpty Humps was. Like
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Humpty Hump was rapping about how big his nose was
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and having sex and burger king bathrooms, right like Tupac
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: was rapping about what poverty and crime are like in
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the black community.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: You know, he didn't go by Humpty Hump.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: What was this? Why do You Go Buy?
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: That was shock G.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I've heard him referred to on other songs as.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Well, all right, aka Humpty Hump. So yeah, you weren't
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: completely wrong.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: A little side. I would direct people to the mrs
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: song Risky Business that features Humpty or shock G. It's
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: a pretty pretty cute little song, all right. So Tupac
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: goes out on his own. He's got, like I said,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: a totally different vibe, and he released a solo album
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: called Tupac Ellipse. Now, there was no other title that
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: it could have possibly been than that, Yeah, for sure,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: But the problem was like there was. He was keeping
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: it real, so there was nothing in the studio that
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: he was producing that could be played on the radio. Yeah,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: so it was an underground sensation, but publicly, most people
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: had not heard of Tupac at that point.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Dan Quayle kind of gave him a little more press
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: when he blamed that record to Apocalypse Now on the
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: shooting of a Texas State trooper. So he was in
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: the news a little bit at least mm hm. And
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: he started acting kind of right afterward. In nineteen ninety
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: two and nineteen ninety three, he put out where he
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: was in the movies Juice and Poetic Justice, both really
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: great movies. Juice is awesome, actually, so is Poetic Justice.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: I love both of those movies.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: The one I've seen him and I don't think. I
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: think I saw Juice. I didn't see Poetic Justice. I
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: saw Above the Rim. He was really good, and Above
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: the Rim.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: I never saw that one.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Oh that's a good one. He should see it.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: Wet them together and have a Tupac watch party.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I guess, Okay, let's do that.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: But he started getting a little more famous, sort of slowly,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: and this is when kind of the early nineties, at
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: the very beginning of his career is when he first
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: started getting into trouble and getting like a real reputation
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: as sort of living that lifestyle.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like for real. He was involved in
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: a shootout at the Marin County Festival where he lived,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: where he had just performed, that killed a six year
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: old who was playing on a school ground nearby.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: He shot at off duty police in Atlanta in nineteen
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: ninety three when he tried to prevent them from beating
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: up a black motorist, and those charges were thrown out
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: because it turns out the cops were off duty, didn't
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: announce themselves as cops, and were super drunk. But you know,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: those kind of things, like his legend as like a
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: thug living the thug life, which I think he basically coined,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: that just formed, melded really quickly right out of the gate,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Like this guy was legit as far as his fans
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: were concerned.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. So that's Tupac's early days.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Biggie Smalls was born he's a little younger. He's born
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy two in Brooklyn. His name was Christopher Wallace.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: He was born to Jamaican immigrant parents, and his mom
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: was a preschool teacher. His dad was a politician in
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Jamaica but ended up, you know, leaving when he was
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: two years old and became a welder in the United States.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: But her, his mom, you know, Veletta, really thought a
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: lot about education, obviously as a teacher, so she took
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: on a second job just so she could send him
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: to a very well regarded high school and then later
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: went to George Westinghouse Career in Tech Education High School,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: which had quite an alumni base as far as hip
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: hop goes, because DMX, Buster Rhymes, Love Busta, and jay
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Z all went there.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm guessing I didn't. I wasn't able to find it,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: but I'm guessing they crossed paths. May have been there
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: at the same time.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Donald Glover would have gone to my
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: high school had they not sent him to the School
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: of the Arts. Oh yeah, And I saw him in
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: New York City a few feet from me when I
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: was there in December. And let me tell you, dude,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I've ever seen a more handsome
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: grown man in person.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: With my eyeballs.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Really, he's astoundingly good looking, and I wanted to go
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: over and say, like, hey man, we grew up in
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: the same neighborhood basically.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: And you're really good looking, You're really handsome.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: But he I'm such a big fan of his but
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: from his music to his acting. But he was with
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: his family and like it was just like, I'm just
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: not going to do that.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Instead, you got in your car and shouted Dan high
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: rules and like laid rubber peeling out of the parking lot.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah that's right. Sure, Danger Mouse went to my high
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: school too, though.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh I forgot about Danger Mouse. Danger Mouse
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: did that gray album with the Beatles, and.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Right, I don't know, we'll.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Find out the hard way. So, like you said, a
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: lot of hip hop artists are probably or probably were
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: our good English students, and Biggie Smalls was not an
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: exception to that. Like Tupac, he was. Actually he excelled
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: in English and high school. But also like Tupac, his
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: family was not exactly well to do. Remember, his mom
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: took a second job to put him just through high school.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: So he started selling drugs on the side, crack again
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: because it's the eighties, and eventually he dropped out of
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: high school, and I think any kind of straight and
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: narrow he might have been on from high school was
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: just kind of removed and he started to get in
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: like actual trouble with the cops.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he ended up in jail, actually spent nine months
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: in jail at one point because it couldn't make bail.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: And once he got out, he made a demo tape
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: under the name Biggie Smalls. His nickname as a kid
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: was big, but I think that came from a gangster
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: in a movie from nineteen seventy five called Let's Do
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: It Again. Biggie Smalls did, and he said that he
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: wasn't trying to get into a career, he just sort
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: of did it for fun, and that got him on
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Source magazine's list in nineteen ninety two of Unsigned in
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: their Unsigned hype Columneah, which eventually put him on a
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: compilation with other Unsigned rappers, which eventually landed him on
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: the ears of a twenty.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Three year old named named Sean Combs.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, Shawn Combs, puff Daddy did he People have
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: probably heard of him by now for all sorts of reasons.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: His career as a twenty three year old was as
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: vice president of Uptown Records, and being an entrepreneur and
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: all sorts of other things, he decided to found his
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: own record company, bad Boy Worldwide Music Group usually known
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: as bad Boy Records, and one of the first things
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: he did was sign Biggie Small's and they became paired
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: up in the media. They hung out there, friends, They
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: were fairly close, but like those two were inseparable as
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: far as like the public was concerned whether that was
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: fully true or not.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah and his when he put out his first single,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: it was under the name Notorious Big because of legal issues.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: I guess with the movie Yeah Biggie Smalls was that
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: my take you? Okay? So he was Notorious Big Ig
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: officially everyone called him Biggie. Of course.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: He had as a kid in ninety three with his
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: high school girlfriend jan Jackson, not Jana Jackson, and he
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: hadn't really broken through at this point, even though he
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: was with Shawn Combs at the time. But he you know,
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: so he continued to kind of deal drugs, apparently colms.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: It was like, he can't do that kind of stuff
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: if you want to get anywhere.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: But he broke up with his.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: High school sweetheart who he had his first kid with
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: and a few months after that ended up with Faith Evans.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Who was also on the Bad Boy label.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And that is is Biggie and his start, So good
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: time for a break.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're at nineteen ninety three, Tupac's already a star
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and Biggie's starting to come up.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: All right, We'll be right back.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: As why why Why s K as big.
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: Tough. He should know, definitely should know, Charles s K. So.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: One of the things you may or may not know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: if you're just kind of passing passingly familiar with the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: beef between Biggie and Tupac, is that they started out
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: as friends. They were actually pretty good friends for a while. Tupac,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: like I said, before he broke, was already a star.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: His star was established and still growing. Biggie was just
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: starting to come up. He was pretty pretty well known
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: around New York, and Tupac kind of became a mentor
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: to him. They met in nineteen ninety three, and they
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: hung out with a bunch of other people, played around
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: with a bunch of guns at Tupac's house, and they
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: became close enough that whenever Biggie went out to la
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: he stayed on Tupac's couch.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Uh, he was, like I said, he was a He
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: kind of considered Biggie like one of his lieutenants at
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: the time and definitely was a mentor. Biggie's debut came out,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: it was called Ready to Die in nineteen ninety four,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: and before that, Biggie was like, you know what, I
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: think you should just be my manager and take over
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: from takeover for Shawn Combs, and Tupac was like, no, man,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: you need to stick with that guy. Apparently Tupac wasn't
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: a big fan of Combs. Yeah, but you know he
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: said that I had a feeling he just didn't want
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: to get into managing him.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Well, he said, he'll make you a star, and I
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: think he did know that. Like, you know, Tupac wasn't
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: a manager or a label owner. Like he was a
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: performer and Sean Combs liked the thing think of himself
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: as a performer, but really he was an executive. So
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: it probably was the smarter move to stay with him,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: at least at first, right. Yeah, the problem was is
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Seawn Combs again remember inextricably linked BFF with Biggie as
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: far as the public's concerned, was actually jealous of Biggie
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: and Tupac's friendship. He wanted to be friends with Tupac.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: He was jealous that Bickie got to be friends with Tupac.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: The reason Tupac didn't care about being friends with Sean
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Combs is that he thought Shawn Combs was basically a poser.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: He was a record executive, playing like he was a
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: hardcore rapper, and he didn't have much respect for him.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: And I think that really kind of came through to
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Shawn Combs after a little while, and he didn't he
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: started not liking Tupac.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: So the beef is sort of the beef seed is
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: planted as they are, you know that old saying.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Where's the beef seed?
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: It's been exactly red to die. Like I mentioned, was
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Biggie's debut in ninety four. It was a big hit
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: that went double platinum about a year later, which means
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: a lot of records were sold. And this was when
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: the West Coast was sort of like all the big
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: hip hop stars were mainly out of the West Coast,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: so he was kind of the biggest thing coming out
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: of New York right off the bat. And it's a
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: great record, he was you know, he rapped a lot
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: about you know, sort of like the lifestyle and the
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: gangs of stuff that he was doing. But also there
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: was a lot of vulnerability on that first record too.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he and Tupac wasn't shy about rapping about
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: mental health and stuff like that. And up to this point,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: like you did not talk about that kind of stuff.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: It was all about partying and having sex and like
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: doing drugs and all that stuff. You didn't talk about
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: being paranoid or like super worried about being killed or
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: anything like that. And I just to kind of set
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the scene, can we talk a little bit about the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: brief history of hip hop up to that point and
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: how big of a deal it was when Ready to
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Die came out, Sure, because you said that the West
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Coast had kind of taken over from the East Coast,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: like from Slick Rick and ll cool J and all
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: them the ones who were coming up in the eighties.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: At the time that Biggie Small's record came out, everyone
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: was all about Doctor dre Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, all
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: these guys, like that's where rap was. It was on
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the West Coast. So for somebody to come along and
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: basically snatch that away and bring it back to New York.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: It was just a really big deal. And it took
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: a rapper of the caliber of Biggie Smalls to do
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: something like that, because there are tons of other albums
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: that had come out, like Tribe Called Quest had three
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: albums by this time, and yet the Biggie Small's record
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: coming out just completely undid essentially caused an earthquake in
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the rap world and tilted everything back to New York.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: So as this is happening and Biggie's blowing up like
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: in a big way, Tupac is in New York filming
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: a movie in nineteen ninety three and we get a
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: new guy on the scene, or he was actually on
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: the scene, but a new guy as far as his
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: podcast goes named Haitian Jack, and he starts hanging out
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: with Tupac.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Tupac likes this guy. They start partying together.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Biggie knows about Haitian Jack because he was pretty familiar
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: with the street gangs of New York, and he warns
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: his friend Tupac and he's like, man, this guy is
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: real trouble. So like you got to watch out. You
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: should probably stay away from this guy because like he's
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: a super violent dude. Like, I know, we're all real,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: but this guy is. He will land you in jail
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: probably at some point, So stay away or get you killed.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so things are going along. Biggie and Tupac are friends.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: One's in New York, one's on the West Coast. It
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: turned out Biggie was pretty right in warning Tupac against
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Haitian Jack, because shortly after that, Tupac met a girl
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: named Ayana Jack. She was nineteen at the time, while
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: he was in New York filming hanging out with Haitian Jack,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and she alleged that Tupac Haitian Jack, the road manager
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: for Tupac, Charles man Man Fuller, and another man I
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: couldn't find who he was, gang raped her and she
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: called the police. Afterward, the police showed up, they found
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: guns in the room, and now Tupac is in big,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: big trouble again. Right, So two threads begin here. One
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: is Tupac is now charged with sexual abus, sodomy and
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: possession of guns illegal guns. Yeah, that starts. That thread starts,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: so we'll pick up again later. But another thread starts,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: which is a dispute a beef now with Haitian Jack
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: because he thought that Haitian Jack had dropped the dime
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: on Tupac to get out of the trouble for this
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: gang rape charge.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so Haitian Jack had his case separated from man
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Man Fuller and Tupac. He pleaded down to a lesser charge.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: He pleaded guilty to misdemeanors and avoided jail time. Tupac
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: always said he was innocent and that he was set
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: up and sold out by Haitian Jack. But that, you know,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: we need to point out that completely contradicts the story
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: of the victim from Ayana Jackson. So but you know,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: the whole point of this is there's, like you said,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: there's now this official beef that kind of again planted
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: the seed of what would happen to he and eventually
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Biggie moving forward.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thing that really kind of blew this
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: this whole thing up is Tupac said as much. He said,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Haitian Jack cooperated with the police, This major actual gangster
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: in New York cooperated with the police. In an interview
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: with the New York Daily News, So the New York
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Daily News prints Tupac saying that, and that did not
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: make Haitian Jack very happy. Those two separated immediately. They
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: didn't talk anymore. They weren't friends anymore, they didn't hang out,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and no, Tupac had essentially an enemy in Haitian Jack,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: which is from what I can tell, not what you
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: want it.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: No, not at all. So the case is moving forward.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: At this point, Tupac is financially strapped because while he
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: is making money, he's spending it faster than he's making it.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: He's also helping out friends and family with their finances.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So there was an invitation from a guy named Jimmy
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Henchman Roseman. He knew Shawn Combs, he knew Haitian Jack,
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: and he said, Hey, Tupac, why don't you do a
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: guest spot for this rapper, Little Sean. He's in Biggie Circle.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: He's a guy with Shawn Combs as well. We'll pay
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: seven grand. He needed the money, so he did it.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: He shows up at Times Square at Quad Recording Studios
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: on November thirtieth along with three of his guys, and
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: before getting on the elevator to go up and record,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: they were met by these other three guys who draw
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: guns tell him to get down on the ground. Tupac
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: draws his gun and he ends up being shot, ends
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: up being robbed, He ends up being beaten pretty badly.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: And Combs and Biggie and Henchman Jimmy Henchman Roseman were
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: up in the studio at the time. They were there,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: So all of a sudden, Tupac is getting wheeled out
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: on a gurney sees those guys and he flips a
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: bird at Biggie and his crew because he thought they
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: were in on this attack. And that's when the beef
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: like really started between these two.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Biggie was like, I have no idea what
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: he's talking about. And Tupac just decided that if Biggie
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Smalls hadn't set him up, he had at least turned
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: his head and let all of this happen, like he
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: knew that it was going to happen. He didn't warn him.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: There's no evidence whatsoever either one of those things happened. Yeah,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: And Biggie Small's always is like, no, I like this
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it. After Tupac died, he
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: was obviously heartbroken and spoke in public about how sad
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: he was that Tupac was dead. It seems like it was.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: He's a one sided beef, but the beef on Tupac's
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: side was so energetic that you couldn't just ignore it.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: There was just a divide, and the divide was so
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: great that Blood's hung out with one side, I think
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Tupac side, and Crips hung out with Biggie's side. Yeah,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and you have that kind of thing, like there's very
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: little chance of like reconciling or accidentally hanging out because
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: you ran into each other on the street and you
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: kind of crush things up. That is not going to
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: happen with you now hanging around with the Crips and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the Bloods.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and no one ever really got to the bottom
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: of who was behind that shooting. There's a lot of
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: disagreement and people pointing fingers and claiming.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: This and that.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I guess we don't need to totally get into that.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: But after he was beaten and shot and robbed, he's
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: bandaged up, he's in a wheelchair. He's still got this
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: court case going on, and he has found guilty of
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: sexual assault, he's acquitted on the other charges, and he
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: sent its to eighteen months in prison and where his
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: third album came out, Me Against the World, came out
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: while he was in prison serving that sentence.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Dude, if you want cred, release your rap album while
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: you're in prison.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, called Me against the World.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: So, while Tupac was in jail, I don't remember how
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: long he was in for it, eighteen eighteen months, Okay.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: While he was in jail, Biggie releases a track called
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: who Shatcha, and Tupac interprets that as it was completely
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: directed to him. It was essentially Biggie Small's gloating about
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: having set up Tupac, and now Tupac was in jail
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and he'd been shot, and that seems to not be
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the case at all. Biggie Smalls apparently wrote that song
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: before the Quad City shooting. And again, just from all evidence,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: it seems like Biggie had no problem with Tupac. This
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: is all in Tupac's head. Like this whole East Coast
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: West West Coast beef seems to have come from Tupac
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: being paranoid, essentially, And I looked up why he might
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: have been paranoid, and apparently there's pretty widespread acknowledgment or
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: belief that he was suffering from substantial mental health issues
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: while he was alive, and that that had a huge
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: impact on the way that he interacted with people, the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: level of trust he would afford, even the closest people,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Like I think it was very easy to fall out
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: of his favor because you might do or say something
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: that he suddenly found suspicious and now all of a sudden,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: like you were his enemy, like you would do something
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: like set him up or rob him or pay for
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: him to be killed or something.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wondered about that. I'm glad you looked into that.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you, I am too.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: You're welcome. Maybe we should take another break.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, we'll take another break and we'll we'll
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: get back to it right after this.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: As why why.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: SK as good.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Tough?
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: He should know?
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Definitely large house of h.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: Y s K.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: All right, So, uh, I don't need to go over
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: what we've been talking about because everyone's listening. So at
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: this point, the record labels that were handling this kind
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: of music, it wasn't like the major label stuff at
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: this time, like that would happen in the future, but
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: It was basically hip hop labels.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: You had bad Boy with Shawn Comb's death Row Records
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: on the other side, that company was founded about the
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: same time in nineteen ninety two by Doctor Dre and
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: a few other guys, and one of those guys was
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: his former bodyguard, Marion sug Knight.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Spelled s u g e h.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: He was the CEO of death Row Records and he
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: was a blood like he was you know, he was
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: just a straight up blood for from South central Los Angeles.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's now the CEO of death Row Records, right,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: so that automatically makes death Row Records like another It's
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: a legit music label as far as like the stuff
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: that the artists on the label are rapping about. The
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: CEO of the record label is a blood, not a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: form of blood, a blood.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: So we talked about how the Quad Studio shooting like
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: really kind of started the beef. The thing that made
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: that beef really genuinely public came at the award show
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: for Source Magazine their annual awards this time this one
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: was in nineteen ninety five, where sug Knight, who'd been
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: visiting Tupac and Jail and apparently had bought into Tupac's
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: theory that Seawn Combs and Biggie Smalls had set him
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: up to be shot and robbed. Suge Knight was accepting
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: an award and during his speech he invited any rapper
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: who didn't want to worry about the executive producer trying
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: to be in all the videos, which was a direct
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: shot at Shawn Comb's. He said, come on over to
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: death Row Records. And I mean, if you go back
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: and look at like Biggie Small's videos and like basically
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: any rapper on this label at the time, oh yeah,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Shawn Combs is probably going to pop up making a cameo,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: if not dance on it, usually with his shirt wide open.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: He really was not. He was not what they, like
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: death Row Records was doing. And so, like Suge Knight
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: made it a pretty good point, like if you were
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: really actually looking for legit stuff, come over here. But
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: saying it publicly and doing it by taking a shot
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: at Sewan Comb's at the Source Awards while you're accepting
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: an award. It was a big deal. That really kind
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of made that beef public and it turned into East
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Coast versus West Coast essentially immediately.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I remember at the time thinking because
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: I remember just and it wasn't just rappers like they
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: had like some R and B acts And I feel like,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: I feel like Combs was always in those videos just
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: like like you said, either dancing or just like yeah
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: yeah in the background.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: And I remember thinking about the time at the time,
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: and this wasn't like my hip hop was all like
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: earlier stuff and tribe call quests and that kind of thing,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: and you know, Doctor Dray and Snoop. I was into
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: that at first, but this generally wasn't my thing. But
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: I remember thinking, like, this guy's like he sucks, like
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: he's not he's not a talented artist, no, because he wasn't.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: I guess you know.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: He was a like you said, an executive and a producer,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: and I was I remember thinking, they're like, why is
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: he always throwing himself in there in front of the camera,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: like he sucks?
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And he was dorky even compared to who were
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: essentially mainstream rap artists like Tupac and Biggie Smalls. Oh yeah, no,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: shade on them, but there were way more underground rappers
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: at the time putting out really good stuff. Tribe called
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Quest is a really good example of that that when
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: you compared them to them, he became even more cringey.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, for sure he was.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: It was and he definitely like kind of brought down
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: the credibility of the label and all the artists on
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: it for sure. Like Biggie Smalls was exponentially too good
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: for Sean Combs. Seawan Combs just kind of had him
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: under his thumb.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, which is sad.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Because I mean, Biggie Smalls is. Biggie Smalls and Tupac
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: usually kind of battle for first or second place on
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: most lists of the greatest rapper of all time. My
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: money's on Biggie Smalls.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: What about you as the greatest rapper of all time?
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Well, it's between Tupac and Biggie how about that?
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Oh okay?
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Because Chuck d like dead in the bullseye for me,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, I was always a public enemy
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: guy like that started in high school.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: I like them too, but I don't know, I think
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: I don't like the I don't like the instrumental track
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: to a lot of their stuff. It's too hard edgy
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: for me.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I liked it, I mean, trust me, I was
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: way more into like, uh, the tribe called Quest and
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Far Side and Jungle Brothers and like that kind of style.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Uh so public Enemy me being into Public Enemy in
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: high school is definitely kind of a weird thing.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, But as I was listening to the Smiths and
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: The Cure, It's.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Right, no, I'm with you. I was listening to Smith's
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: and The Cure, but also like boot Camp Click, like
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Smith and Wesson, Nah's Wu Tang Gangs.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I see. I never I like Gangstar, but I
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: never got into Wu Tang.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: They were pretty good. They were they were better solo.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: I think most of like method Man and Rizza were
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: better solo than Wu Tang together.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: But whatever, and this is two middle aged white guys
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: that's their hip hop pass.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: I do have to say that Doctor Dre's The Chronic
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: was literally life changing, oh for sure. And it's not
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: just me that that happened to. I think that changed
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of people's trajection.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: I was one of them.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Man, that thing by heart and inside and out. It's
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: a fun listen when I put it on a lot
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: of nostalgia, Let's back it is.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I thought the same thing would be for Doggie Style
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Snoop's debut solo album, It's not It does not hold up.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: I mean it's not like it wasn't as good as
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: the Chronic, not a mile.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: But I liked it as much as the Chronic at
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: the time, and I don't anymore.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm with you.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: And part of that may have to do with the
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: fact that Snoop Dogg has I don't know, become the
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Snoop Dogg of today.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Man, he's amazing. He's now the owner of the Thrower Records.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: No, he's awesome, but I just feel like he's he's
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: a bit over exposed for my taste.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see, he's like the the Peyton Manning of
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the hip hop world. He's the Pedro Pascal of rap.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: Okay, even better said, but he's.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: An American treasure though. I mean like he's an Olympic
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: mascot along with Flavor Flav.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Now I'm picturing Snoop Dogg, Pedro Pascal, and Peyton Manning
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: and just sitting at lunch just saying, like, guys, this
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: is great.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I could see that talking about mutual funds.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we should do something together because we're done out there.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Enough, right, it'll blow everyone's mind.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: So we are in September nineteen ninety five, At this point,
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: sug Knight has dropped the dropped the bomb at the
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Source Awards, which I'm sure did not sit well with
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Shawn Combs. And Tupac is in prison at this point,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: and Knight and Comb's go to the same party here
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: in Atlanta at what was called the Platinum House. It's
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: a strip bar over on Piedmont Road near the Colonnade.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Which you love.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a fight breaks out and a guy named Jake
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Roebles it was a death Row employee and he was
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: a blood and a close friend of sug Knight. He
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: was shot and killed and witnesses were like, Seawan Combs's
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: bodyguard is the one who did.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: It, right, So this is not good. This has not
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: helped this rivalry at all. And eventually, I guess over
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the same time, Tupac is still in prison, but sug
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Knight is still visiting Tupac there, and like they're becoming
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: closer and closer because not only is Suge Night going
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: out of his way to go visit Tupac in prison,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: he's also helping him financially, helped him post bail to
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: get out on an appeal. And when Tupac gets out
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: of prison, again. He's now deeply indebted to sug Knight,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: but apparently they have become real friends. He releases his
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: fourth album, All Eyes on Me. I think it was
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: in February of nineteen ninety six, like immediately when double Platinum.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: I think it went to number one on the charts.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: So at this time, Death Row is at CANAM Studios
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: outside La That's what they're working out of, and people,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: you know at the time were like, you know, the
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: real stuff is going down. There's a big gangster culture
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: in and around that studio. Sug Knight is a real heavy.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: He's threatening people right and left if they don't, you know,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: aren't on his good side. And people are hanging out
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: there with gang members who are their security. So there's
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: you know, there might be bloods there one day, there
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: might be crips there one day. There might be a
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: huge singer there one day recording. But all of this
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: is sort of happening around can M Studios.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Right. So twopuckets out of prison, and remember like this
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: guy's like essentially a heat seeking missile focused on Biggie Smalls.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Like I get the impression that he just sat in
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: prison like ruminating about Biggie Smalls and getting back at him.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: So one of the first things he does was hire
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Biggie Small's wife, Faith Evans, who was herself a pretty
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: popular recording artist at the time. He offered her twenty
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: five thousand dollars to be on one of his records,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: a track for his album All Eyes on Me, and
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: she did. She's like, sure, twenty five grand I'll do it.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: And I guess after she performed or laid down the track,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: I guess what it's called. He was like, I got
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: my check at the hotel room. You got to come
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: over to my hotel room to get it.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: The red flag.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so she went. Both of them say that he
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: propositioned her. He says that they had sex. She has
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: repeatedly denied and emphatically denied that they did. But just
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: the fact that they were in a hotel room together
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: gave tupac even if it wasn't true that they had sex,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: gave him plenty of grounds to tell everybody that they
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: did have sex to at least gnaw at Biggie Small's
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: with questions, you know in this yeah.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is his wife, so like it's on
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: for real. At this point, There's no coming back. At
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: the Sole Train Award show, this in March of ninety six,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Tupac and Biggie both won award, so they were there.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: That was the first time they had been together since
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: that Quad Studio shooting, which is where it all started.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: And they both had their guys with them. They both
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: had their entourages.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Tupac had the Bloods, Biggie had the South Side Crips
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: on his side, and there was a guy named Keith
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: d and he was a crip, so he is with Biggie.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: And outside of this, at the Soul Train Award show,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: they got into a fight.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Basically.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Witnesses said that Tupac is shouting, shouting down biggiees groups,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: sort of inciting them. They all brandish guns, but nothing
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: happens at this point, just a lot of sort of
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: back and forth and like, you know, I've got my gun,
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: so shut up.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's astounding Crips and Bloods with their guns drawn
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: in the same spot and no one shot anybody. That's crazy.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: So Tupac released Hit Him Up, which is considered one
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: of the best diss tracks of all time. He actually
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: specifically names Biggie Bye Well by name He also talks
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: about how he slept with Biggie's wife, Faith Evans. Yeah,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: and while this is also going on, there's like a
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: lot of money to that people have figured out we
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: can make from this, right, like this beef and like say,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: you know, some street skirmishes or whatever. This stuff makes news, right, Like,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: people know about this and this is before I think
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: cell phones were still kind of bricky at the time,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: long before the Internet, like, and people still knew about
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: this stuff. It was just a big deal. And that
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: helps sell records like crazy. It also helps sell magazines.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: There's a Vibe magazine from September nineteen ninety five, and
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: on the covers Biggie Smalls and Sean Combs and it
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: talks about East versus West. Some people put their finger
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: on that Vibe issue and point to it as like
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: fanning the flames of this beef and essentially making these
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: these two groups like have to hate each other even
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: more or else they're going to seem weak or like,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: you know, fake whatever.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, And while the this is all going on,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: Tupac is becoming a little more paranoid about death Row
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: records and sug Knight and basically like suge Knight's kind
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: of controlling the money, saying that you know you're gonna
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: blow all your money unless I'm in control. He didn't
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: think he was getting the proper royalties. He thought, you're
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: holding me back in Hollywood, and I'm trying to get
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: my movie career going. So like trouble is sort of
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: brewing on the inside there, which finally would culminate. On
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: September seventh, nineteen ninety six, a lot of people connected
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: with death Row records, Tupac, you know as one of them,
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: went to the Mike Tyson fight against Bruce Selden in
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Las Vegas, and after the fight, one of the Death
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Row group members, he was a blood named Trevon Lane,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: saw a guy who said, hey, he stole a death
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Row necklace from me a few months ago. That guy's
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: name was Orlando Anderson. He was a crip and a
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: nephew of Keith d and Tupac. Sug Knight and other
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: people jump Anderson rough him up pretty good and a
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: few hours later, Suge Knight and Tupac are at a
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: STOPLIGHTE Cadillac pulls up next to them and the car
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: is shot up in Tupac.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Is dead six days later at the age of twenty five.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently he was like making jokes and everything as
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: he was being put onto the gurney after the shooting.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: But he just went downhill really quick from there.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: So a lot of people are like, this is Biggie,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: this is Sean Combs. They had they said they had
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with it, but this, this, this did
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: kind of give Biggie Smalls like a wide opening to
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: be like, this stuff has to stop. These this East
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: coast West coast thing has gotten out of hand. And
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: it seemed pretty cut and dry that really it was
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: them beating up Orlando Anderson and him and other crips
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: being in town who targeted and carried out this drive by.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: You know, that seems like almost certainly the explanation for
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: the whole thing.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's who the cops thought from the
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: very beginning. It was the guy that was jumped and
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: beat up. They didn't arrest him. He died a couple
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: of years later in a shooting in Compton. Fast forward
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: all the way to twenty nineteen. In a memoir where
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Keith d admitted that he was in that Cadillac. He said,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: I gave the gun to Anderson. He was in the
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: back seat. There were two other guys in the car.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Some people say it was a guy named DeAndre Smith
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: who was the actual trigger man. But basically everyone in
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: that car ended up being killed except for Keith D.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: And in September twenty twenty three, he was arrested and
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: charged with Tupac's murder. And that trial is going to
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: happen all these years later, coming up this summer in
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: August of twenty twenty six.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Keith D and later on a Bad Boy
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: co founder named Kirk Burrows and others. After all these
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: allegations in revelations about what Sean Combs has been up
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: to came out, They've come forward him and like we
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: think he actually did have something to do with this.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: Seems like a pretty quick turnaround to me. I think
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: it was just crips retaliating for a beatdown. So Tupac
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: is gone now, like you said, age twenty five, and
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: if you want, you can go. You know where Clarkston is, Chuck?
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: Uh? Sure? That was a rival high school of Ridan.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: There is a Tupac statue in memorial in Clarkston.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: Did you know that I did? I've never seen it though.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: We went there, You mean, I went there, and it's
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: pretty it's pretty amazing, and it's just in the middle
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: of this little RinkyDink suburb of Atlanta. Strange, but yeah cool.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: That was kind of my stomping grounds. Was that area
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: of Memorial Drive where Clarkston was z owned?
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Well we'll have to go to the
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Tupac statue together.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: I'll go check it out.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: So I think what Chuck like, less than six months no,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: right at about six months after Tupac was killed, Biggie
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Small's was murdered.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this was March nineteen ninety seven. He was in
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: a car, riding in a car leaving a party a
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: Vibe magazine in La pronounced dead at the hospital. He
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: was but twenty four years old. And immediately everyone was like,
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: this is Shuge Knight, who by the way, people blamed
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: Tupac shooting initially on Shuge Knight. Yeah, but he was
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: shot as well. He was just grazed, but that seems
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: obviously to have not been the case. But everyone immediately
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: was like, no, Suge Knight. It definitely was in on
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Biggie's murder.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: In retaliation for Tupac shooting, right. Yeah, It's also entirely
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: possible that Shawn Combs did this too, but it certainly
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: seems to have been a contract hit. Like the people
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: who killed Biggie Small's shot and shot into his car.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: They were lying in wait. They were essentially parked at
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: this intersection, waiting for them to stop. They stopped. Shawn
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Comb's car ran a red light and Biggie's car stopped
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: at it. So Shawn Combs wasn't near the shooting when
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: it happened. There was an FBI agent who came forward
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: or actually I guess created a whole report on this,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: who was like this. It was essentially the LAPD hiring
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: a hit man at the behest of either Suge Knight
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: or Sean Combs. And if so, it was not Tupac's
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: probably was not a conspiracy. Biggie Small's murder was almost
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: certainly a conspiracy.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know Suge Knight would have done all
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: this from jail. He was in jail at the time.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: He is in jail. He's in prison now. Again, this
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: is from This is a twenty eight year sentence, so
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: this is a big one. And this is for the
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: death of a Compton businessman from twenty fifteen. He was
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: never charged in Biggie's killing. But Biggie's last record or
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: last you know, sort of official release. I know they
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: both put out a lot of stuff posthumously. But his
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: next like real drop was Life After Death. Was called
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: that before he was murdered. But that sold more than
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: ten million copies and certified diamond.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess not as Tupac released nine posthumous albums,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: seven of them went platinum. Yeah. Did you know sug
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Knight has a podcast from jail called collect Call uh Hit.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: That's a pretty good name. It's a great podcast from prison.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Agreed. Yeah, you want to know what ended the East
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Coast West Coast beef?
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: Oh was that still not happening?
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: No? No, it ended fairly soon after this rat became
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: more decentralized in groups like Outcast came out. Yeah, and
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the whether you were from the East Coast or the
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: West Coast was watered down. It didn't matter nearly as much.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: So you can thank Outcasts for ending the East Coast
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: West Coast rivalry.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because people are like, no one's got a beef
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: with Big Boy and Andre.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: No, everybody loves them for sure, Like I know we've
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: some maybe facetious. We are not being.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: Facetious right now. No, hell abotcast.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: One last thing. Apparently Michael Jackson assaulted Tupac once in
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: a studio when Tupac insulted Quincy Jones's daughter.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: Oh h, Rashida or another one.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Another one, not Rashida. I don't think it was Rashida.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: I went. I wonder how. I wonder how that fight went.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: It's a widespread rumor. And apparently also, you know, Biggie
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: was on one of Michael Jackson's songs like doing his thing,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: like legit doing his thing. It wasn't watered down for
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: the radio or anything like that. And apparently Michael Jackson
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: threw his lot in with Biggie and was not a
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: big fan of Tupac and snubbed him once. Oh wow,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: and apparently in addition to beating him up.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: And everyone said, no one cares put side here on
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: Michael Jackson. You don't have that kind of cred.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: No, but it is a like Biggie does a pretty
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: good job on that song.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: I'll have to check it out.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think that's it, Chuck man.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: We did it.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: We did it. We made it through. Hopefully we didn't
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: sound too ridiculous and dorky at any point, but we'll
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: find out. Yeah, Chuck said, yeah, it means it's time
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: for listener now.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is just kind of a nice email with
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: some good suggestions. Hey guys, my name is Josiah Brown.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: I live in Tennessee.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: I've been a devoted fan since I was about ten
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: years old and I'm twenty now. My mom put me
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: on you guys, and I basically never stopped.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: So thanks Mom.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks Mom.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: I've been binge listening recently. I do that every so often.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: I've just been reminded of how wonderful the show is,
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: and I just want to reach out and say thanks
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: for providing some wonderful content and bringing the same big
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: old smile to my face all these years.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: Keep up the good workfellas, and that is Josiah Bee.
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: And Josiah had a lot.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Of good ideas, including Ann Frank, Oscar Schindler. Motown Okay,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: I want to do Motown for sure, mister Rogers, I
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: can't believe we haven't done that one yet.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: We were going to, and then that Tom Hanks movie
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: came out and kind of ruined it for a little while.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I finally saw that on a plane recently.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Would you think did you see it?
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: Uh? It was? Okay yep.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: And the Hindenburg, and that the Hindenburg is going to
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: be coming at some point in the not too distant
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: future because we commissioned that article and it's it's in
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: the folder on the computer, so I definitely know we're
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: going to get to that one.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, boo, Yeah, who is that again, Josiah, Josiah, thanks
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: a lot, Josiah. That was a very nice email, and
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: thanks for all the great ideas. If we do any
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: of them, hopefully will remember to credit you with them, right.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: That's right, except for the Hindenburg. Yeah, it's already in
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: the bad Okay.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: If you want to be like Josiah and email in,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you. You can send
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: it off to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.