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damn son ... nice breakdown [emoji]128077[/emoji]
Haitian Jack (Strange but possibly true tales in hip hop)
- Thread in 'General' Thread starter Started by bilboshmangins,
- Start date
damn son ... nice breakdown [emoji]128077[/emoji]
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Yea I remember also tony yayo slapped henchman's son a few yrs after, wait and see jimmy going to the media about things he knows once its All said and done
jchambers
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,
Last edited:
mikejeffjo
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What about Slim tho
He had to have ties those guys too
He had Hov,X,Ja,and 5th all on the same label
Blackhand
Although I didn't check this entire thread I'm sure he had something to do with them
He had to have ties those guys too
He had Hov,X,Ja,and 5th all on the same label
Blackhand
Although I didn't check this entire thread I'm sure he had something to do with them
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[h3]QUICK FACTS[/h3]
- NAME: Chaz Williams
- OCCUPATION: Thief
- ORIGINALLY: Charles Williams
- NICKNAME: Slim
[h3]BEST KNOWN FOR[/h3]
Chaz Williams robbed over 60 banks, aiming to get back at what he saw as a racist system. Upon being released, he founded Black Hand Entertainment. See Biography.com.
[h1]Chaz Williams biography[/h1][h3]SYNOPSIS[/h3]Chaz Williams is said to have robbed over 60 banks during the 1970’s before he was eventually caught and sentenced to a 95 year prison sentence. During his incarceration,he continued to conduct crimes through clever means. After appeals, his sentence was reduced to 15 years. Upon release, Williams founded Black Hand Entertainment, whose roster includes 50 cent, Foxy Brown and Prinz.
[h3]EARLY LIFE[/h3]
Bank robber. Born Charles Williams in Harlem, New York, the middle of three children. His father was a WWII veteran, and his mother stayed home to raise the family. When Williams was five years old, the family moved to Jamaica, Queens, where they lived hand-to-mouth in the notorious "40 Projects."
At an early age, Williams' visits to the South to visit extended family made a deep impression. His experiences with segregation, Williams later said, affected how he felt about law enforcement, society, and the government. The violence, fear and inequality facing African-American citizens struck Williams as unfair, and he became determined to do what he could to strike back at the people in power.
For Williams, going to school and following rules weren't producing the results he wanted to get ahead. So instead, he turned to robbery. Williams had his first encounter with the law at the age of 12, when he robbed a local drug store. He was immediately captured by law enforcement officials, and held in a Bronx youth facility.
The arrest had little affect on Williams, who continued to buck the system. He was kicked out of a string of schools during his youth, and his overwhelmed family eventually shipped him to Florida to live with relatives. The move didn't change Williams' behavior, either; he carried out a string of petty robberies in his new environment, and was finally sent back to New York by his frustrated grandmother.
[h3]LIFE OF CRIME[/h3]
As soon as he was back with his parents in Queens, Williams was caught yet again for breaking the law. This time, he was given an 18-month juvenile detention sentence. While in the detention center, Williams plotted a successful jailbreak that involved distracting security with an outburst. Upon his escape, he fled over the U.S. border to Canada, where he was almost immediately caught for another attempted robbery.
Williams was sent to Montreal's Prison de Bordeaux with a stiff sentence. After completing his time, the 17-year-old returned to New York with the intention of living the extravagant lifestyle he felt the country owed him. In order to pay for what he thought were the finer things in life—expensive cars, jewelry, and high-priced houses. He decided to rob federal banks, believing that he was somehow getting revenge on a federal government that he felt ignored the needs of African-Americans.
In 1971, Williams and his band of bank robbers were caught after one of the bandits was arrested on an unrelated charge. In an effort to plea bargain, the robber revealed the identities of Williams and his crew.
[h3] [/h3]
Williams was indicted and sent to a federal corrections institution in Milan, Michigan, were he was sentenced to a five-year term. Williams didn't take well to the imprisonment, and became notorious for his outbursts, which involved stabbing fellow inmates and assaulting correctional officers.
[h3]IMPRISONMENT[/h3]
In 1974, the Federal Bureau of Prisons created a program that would allow inmates to take classes at local universities. One of Williams' fellow inmates caught word of the new program, and illegally obtained documents outlining the requirements for the program. Williams, along with several other prisoners, began taking steps to become eligible for the program before it had even been officially announced. By the time the program was revealed, the entire group was enrolled.
Williams and a group of other inmates were given ultimate freedom during their time at the University of Michigan, where they were expected to study. But because the classes didn't monitor the prisoners' attendance, they would skip their daily schedule and instead enter the city, where they again began robbing banks. Using the money from their robberies, they applied for multiple apartments, luxury vehicles, and entertained romantic interests. William's Michigan crew robbed more than five banks during their time in the program but, because they were already incarcerated, everyone in the education program was immediately removed from the suspect list.
After six months, a prison bus driver grew wise to their suspicious behavior and reported them to the authorities. Williams and his gang were caught. Michigan's inmate release program was dismantled immediately afterward.
Shortly before Williams' trial, the prison bus driver who caught the group suddenly refused to give his testimony after claiming he and his family were threatened with violence. The trial was dropped, and Williams completed the rest of his sentence. Upon parole, he immediately returned to robbing federally insured banks.
[h3]HEISTS[/h3]
Williams, more determined than ever not to get caught by authorities, began training to become a better robber. He assembled several gangs, employing an estimated 20 people at any given time. The group studied police and FBI training tapes, read up on military strategy, regularly attended the firing range, and educated themselves on police weaponry and technology. They would also work out to stay in peak condition, and perform trial runs of the robberies in each other's apartments. Williams even had a timed exercise to see how quickly each robber could jump over a counter and pull cash out of a register drawer. His heists were typically completed in less than a minute, giving police little or no time to respond.
Most of their robberies went fairly smoothly, but no amount of careful planning could save Williams from his eventual arrest. In June of 1975, a security guard was wounded by a gunshot to the head during one of the crew's payroll robberies.
[h3] [/h3]
A car chase ensued, and authorities trapped Williams in a Queens neighborhood. After a volley of fire, Williams was arrested and charged with robbery, assault, and attempted murder.
[h3]ESCAPE FROM PRISON[/h3]
While in prison awaiting sentencing, the bus driver who had refused to testify in his original robbery trial decided to enter the witness protection program in order to testify against Williams. On December 22, 1975, Charles Williams was indicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Less than a month into his sentence, Williams escaped prison again. In a violent shootout, authorities again caught and imprisoned Williams. While incarcerated, Williams continued to conduct business as usual with his crew. From inside, he instructed his gang members on how to rob banks so that they could help him pay for his legal fees. In one particular robbery, however, a member of the group was apprehended. He revealed Williams' role in the series of robberies. Chaz received yet another prison sentence, adding a grand total of 95 years to his time in jail.
[h3]NEW DIRECTIONS[/h3]
While serving his sentence, Williams returned to formal education. He attained two bachelor's degrees, including one in business. He also began studying methods for taking on the legal system. After a series of successful appeals, Williams worked his sentence down to 15 years, with seven years of supervised parole.
Upon his release, Williams finally decided to leave his criminal lifestyle behind. He created his own business, Black Hand Entertainment, and created a musical roster that included successful rap and R&B musicians such as 50 cent, Foxy Brown, Grafh and Prinz. Williams currently lives in New York, where he oversees operations at Black Hand. He has also established a prison outreach program to share his story of redemption with prisoners.
mikejeffjo
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Yep that's that dude
I know his rep
I'm just wondering did you know if he had ties to Henchmen or Haitian
I know his rep
I'm just wondering did you know if he had ties to Henchmen or Haitian
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no idea?
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[table][tr][td]
There is a documentary on Chaz Williams called gangster chronicles where they hint around Chaz getting jewels back for a rapper after he was robbed. But the whole time they speaking on it they playing Pac's music in the background and then they go and show Chaz meeting with Pac's step dad in prison. So you know they talking about Pac but they just don't say it right out.
What I was saying is that if it's true which I believe it to be, then how could Issac and Henchman still have Pac's jewelry? That is a flaw in Issac's story right there.
50 used to be under Chaz. I think that Chaz was portrayed in before I self destruct as the Bill Duke character in a round about way. But I have never heard anyone else draw the comparison. From what they told me 50 was suppose to have a sit down with Chaz and some of the people who he mentioned in ghetto koren song but didn't show up so the hit was put out on him. It was suppose to happen because people felt like the song was a problem. I was told that 50 felt Chaz was in on it but from Chaz's standpoint it was out of his hands since 50 had violated by showing disrespect to him and the other gangsters involved by not showing up. From 50's standpoint he thought he would have been k#lled had he gone so he took his chances.
[/td][/tr][tr][/tr][/table]
There is a documentary on Chaz Williams called gangster chronicles where they hint around Chaz getting jewels back for a rapper after he was robbed. But the whole time they speaking on it they playing Pac's music in the background and then they go and show Chaz meeting with Pac's step dad in prison. So you know they talking about Pac but they just don't say it right out.
What I was saying is that if it's true which I believe it to be, then how could Issac and Henchman still have Pac's jewelry? That is a flaw in Issac's story right there.
50 used to be under Chaz. I think that Chaz was portrayed in before I self destruct as the Bill Duke character in a round about way. But I have never heard anyone else draw the comparison. From what they told me 50 was suppose to have a sit down with Chaz and some of the people who he mentioned in ghetto koren song but didn't show up so the hit was put out on him. It was suppose to happen because people felt like the song was a problem. I was told that 50 felt Chaz was in on it but from Chaz's standpoint it was out of his hands since 50 had violated by showing disrespect to him and the other gangsters involved by not showing up. From 50's standpoint he thought he would have been k#lled had he gone so he took his chances.
[/td][/tr][tr][/tr][/table]
@25mins
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How do you feel after everything you've been through these past few weeks?
Well, the first two days in prison, I had to go through what life is like when you've been smoking weed for as long as I have and then you stop. Emotionally, it was like I didn't know myself. I was sitting in a room, like there was two people in the room, evil and good. That was the hardest part. After that, the weed was out of me. Then every day I started doing, like, a thousand push-ups for myself. I was reading whole books in one day, and writing, and that was putting me in a peace of mind. Then I started seeing my situation and what got me here. Even though I'm innocent of the charge they gave me, I'm not innocent in terms of the way I was acting.
Could you tell me specifically what you mean?
I'm just as guilty for not doing nothing as I am for doing things. Not with this case, but just in my life. I had a job to do and I never showed up. I was so scared of this responsibility that I was running away from it. But I see now that whether I show up for work or not, the evil forces are going to be at me. They're going to come 100 percent, so if I don't be 100 percent pure-hearted, I'm going to lose. And that's why I'm losing.
When I got in here, all the prisoners was, like, "**** that gangsta rapper." I'm not a gangsta rapper. I rap about things that happen to me. I got shot five times, you know what I'm saying? People was trying to kill me. It was really real like that. I don't see myself being special; I just see myself having more responsibilities than the next man. People look to me to do things for them, to have answers. I wasn't having them because my brain was half dead from smoking so much weed. I'd be in my hotel room, smoking too much, drinking, going to clubs, just being numb. That was being in jail to me. I wasn't happy at all on the streets. Nobody could say they saw me happy.
When I spoke to you a year ago, you said that if you ended up in jail, your spirit would die. You sound like you're saying the opposite now.
That was the addict speaking. The addict knew if I went to jail, then it couldn't live. The addict in Tupac is dead. The excuse maker in Tupac is dead. The vengeful Tupac is dead. The Tupac that would stand by and let dishonorable things happen is dead. God let me live for me to do something extremely extraordinary, and that's what I have to do. Even if they give me the maximum sentence, that's still my job.
Can you take us back to that night at Quad Recording Studios in Times Square?
The night of the shooting? Sure. Ron G. is a DJ out here in New York. He's, like, "Pac, I want you to come to my house and lay this rap down for my tapes." I said, "All right, I'll come for free." So I went to his house-me, Stretch, and a couple other homeboys. After I laid the song, I got a page from this guy Booker, telling me he wanted me to rap on Little Shawn's record. Now, this guy I was going to charge, because I could see that they was just using me, so I said, "All right, you give me seven G's and I'll do the song." He said, "I've got the money. Come." I stopped off to get some weed, and he paged me again. "Where you at? Why you ain't coming?" I'm, like, "I'm coming, man, hold on."
Did you know this guy?
I met him through some rough characters I knew. He was trying to get legitimate and all that, so I thought I was doing him a favor. But when I called him back for directions, he was, like, "I don't have the money." I said, "If you don't have the money, I'm not coming." He hung up the phone, then called me back: "I'm going to call [Uptown Entertainment CEO] Andre Harrell and make sure you get the money, but I'm going to give you the money out of my pocket." So I said, "All right, I'm on my way." As we're walking up to the building, somebody screamed from up the top of the studio. It was Little Caesar, Biggie's [the Notorious B.I.G.] sideman. That's my homeboy. As soon as I saw him, all my concerns about the situation were relaxed.
So you're saying that going into it...
I felt nervous because this guy knew somebody I had major beef with. I didn't want to tell the police, but I can tell the world. Nigel had introduced me to Booker. Everybody knew I was short on money. All my shows were getting canceled. All my money from my records was going to lawyers; all the movie money was going to my family. So I was doing this type of stuff, rapping for guys and getting paid.
Who's this guy Nigel?
I was kicking it with him the whole time I was in New York doing Above the Rim. He came to me. He said, "I'm going to look after you. You don't need to get in no more trouble."
Doesn't Nigel also go by the name of Trevor?
Right. There's a real Trevor, but Nigel took on both aliases, you understand? So that's who I was kicking with-I got close to them. I used to dress in baggies and sneakers. They took me shopping; that's when I bought my Rolex and all my jewels. They made me mature. They introduced me to all these gangsters in Brooklyn. I met Nigel's family, went to his kid's birthday party-I trusted him, you know what I'm saying? I even tried to get Nigel in the movie, but he didn't want to be on film. That bothered me. I don't know any ***** that didn't want to be in the movies.
Can we come back to the shooting? Who was with you that night?
I was with my homeboy Stretch, his man Fred, and my sister's boyfriend, Zayd. Not my bodyguard; I don't have a bodyguard. We get to the studio, and there's a dude outside in army fatigues with his hat low on his face. When we walked to the door, he didn't look up. I've never seen a black man not acknowledge me one way or the other, either with jealousy or respect. But this guy just looked to see who I was and turned his face down. It didn't click because I had just finished smoking chronic. I'm not thinking something will happen to me in the lobby. While we're waiting to get buzzed in, I saw a dude sitting at a table reading a newspaper. He didn't look up either.
These are both black men?
Black men in their thirties. So first I'm, like, These dudes must be security for Biggie, because I could tell they were from Brooklyn from their army fatigues. But then I said, Wait a minute. Even Biggie's homeboys love me, why don't they look up? I pressed the elevator button, turned around, and that's when the dudes came out with the guns-two identical 9 mms. "Don't nobody move. Everybody on the floor. You know what time it is. Run your ****." I was, like, What should I do? I'm thinking Stretch is going to fight; he was towering over those ******. From what I know about the criminal element, if ****** come to rob you, they always hit the big ***** first. But they didn't touch Stretch; they came straight to me. Everybody dropped to the floor like potatoes, but I just froze up. It wasn't like I was being brave or nothing; I just could not get on the floor. They started grabbing at me to see if I was strapped. They said, "Take off your jewels," and I wouldn't take them off. The light-skinned dude, the one that was standing outside, was on me. Stretch was on the floor, and the dude with the newspaper was holding the gun on him. He was telling the light-skin dude, "Shoot that ************! **** it!" Then I got scared, because the dude had the gun to my stomach. All I could think about was piss bags and **** bags. I drew my arm around him to move the gun to my side. He shot and the gun twisted and that's when I got hit the first time. I felt it in my leg; I didn't know I got shot in my balls. I dropped to the floor. Everything in my mind said, Pac, pretend you're dead. It didn't matter. They started kicking me, hitting me. I never said, "Don't shoot!" I was quiet as hell. They were snatching my **** off me while I was laying on the floor. I had my eyes closed, but I was shaking, because the situation had me shaking. And then I felt something on the back of my head, something real strong. I thought they stomped me or pistol-whipped me and they were stomping my head against the concrete. I saw white, just white. I didn't hear nothing, I didn't feel nothing, and I said, I'm unconscious. But I was conscious. And then I felt it again, and I could hear things now and I could see things and they were bringing me back to consciousness. Then they did it again, and I couldn't hear nothing. And I couldn't see nothing; it was just all white. And then they hit me again, and I could hear things and I could see things and I knew I was conscious again.
Did you ever hear them say their names?
No. No. But they knew me, or else they would never check for my gun. It was like they were mad at me. I felt them kicking me and stomping me; they didn't hit nobody else. It was, like, "Ooh, ************, ooh, aah"-they were kicking hard. So I'm going unconscious, and I'm not feeling no blood on my head or nothing. The only thing I felt was my stomach hurting real bad. My sister's boyfriend turned me over and said, "Yo, are you all right?" I was, like, "Yes, I'm hit, I'm hit." And Fred is saying he's hit, but that was the bullet that went through my leg. So I stood up and I went to the door and-the **** that ****** me up-as soon as I got to the door, I saw a police car sitting there. I was, like, "Uh-oh, the police are coming, and I didn't even go upstairs yet." So we jumped in the elevator and went upstairs. I'm limping and everything, but I don't feel nothing. It's numb. When we got upstairs, I looked around, and it scared the **** out of me.
Why?
Because Andre Harrell was there, Puffy [Bad Boy Entertainment CEO Sean "Puffy" Combs] was there, Biggie... there was about 40 ****** there. All of them had jewels on. More jewels than me. I saw Booker, and he had this look on his face like he was surprised to see me. Why? I had just beeped the buzzer and said I was coming upstairs. Little Shawn bust out crying. I went, Why is Little Shawn crying, and I got shot? He was crying uncontrollably, like, "Oh my God, Pac, you've got to sit down!" I was feeling weird, like, Why do they want to make me sit down?
Because five bullets had passed through your body.
I didn't know I was shot in the head yet. I didn't feel nothing. I opened my pants, and I could see the gunpowder and the hole in my Karl Kani drawers. I didn't want to pull them down to see if my **** was still there. I just saw a hole and went, "Oh ****. Roll me some weed." I called my girlfriend and I was, like, "Yo, I just got shot. Call my mother and tell her." Nobody approached me. I noticed that nobody would look at me. Andre Harrell wouldn't look at me. I had been going to dinner with him the last few days. He had invited me to the set of New York Undercover, telling me he was going to get me a job. Puffy was standing back too. I knew Puffy. He knew how much stuff I had done for Biggie before he came out.
People did see blood on you?
They started telling me, "Your head! Your head is bleeding." But I thought it was just a pistol-whip. Then the ambulance came, and the police. First cop I looked up to see was the cop that took the stand against me in the rape charge. He had a half smile on his face, and he could see them looking at my balls. He said, "What's up, Tupac? How's it hanging?"
When I got to Bellevue Hospital, the doctor was going, "Oh my God!" I was, like, "What? What?" And I was hearing him tell other doctors, "Look at this. This is gunpowder right here." He was talking about my head: "This is the entry wound. This is the exit wound." And when he did that, I could actually feel the holes. I said, "Oh my God. I could feel that." It was the spots that I was blacking out on. And that's when I said, "Oh ****. They shot me in my head." They said, "You don't know how lucky you are. You got shot five times." It was, like, weird. I did not want to believe it. I could only remember that first shot, then everything went blank.
At any point did you think you were going to die?
No. I swear to God. Not to sound creepy or nothing-I felt God cared for me from the first time the ****** pulled the gun out. The only thing that hurt me was that Stretch and them all fell to the floor. The bullets didn't hurt. Nothing hurt until I was recovering. I couldn't walk, I couldn't get up, and my hand was ****** up. I was looking on the news and it was lying about me.
Tell me about some of the coverage that bothered you.
The No. 1 thing that bothered me was that dude that wrote that **** that said I pretended to do it. That I had set it up, it was an act. When I read that, I just started crying like a baby, like a *****. I could not believe it. It just tore me apart. And then the news was trying to say I had a gun and I had weed on me. Instead of saying I was a victim, they were making it like I did it.
What about all the jokes saying you had lost one of your testicles?
That didn't really bother me, because I was, like, ****, I'm going to get the last laugh. Because I've got bigger nuts than all these ******. My doctors are, like, "You can have babies." They told me that the first night, after I got exploratory surgery: "Nothing's wrong. It went through the skin and out the skin." Same thing with my head. Through my skin and out the skin.
Have you had a lot of pain since then?
Yes, I have headaches. I wake up screaming. I've been having nightmares, thinking they're still shooting me. All I see is ****** pulling guns, and I hear the dude saying, "Shoot that ************!" Then I'll wake up sweaty as hell and I'll be, like, Damn, I have a headache. The psychiatrist at Bellevue said that's post-traumatic stress.
Why did you leave Bellevue Hospital?
I left Bellevue the next night. They were helping me, but I felt like a science project. They kept coming in, looking at my **** and ****, and this was not a cool position to be in. I knew my life was in danger. The Fruit of Islam was there, but they didn't have guns. I knew what type of ****** I was dealing with.
So I left Bellevue and went to Metropolitan. They gave me a phone and said, "You're safe here. Nobody knows you're here." But the phone would ring and someone would say, "You ain't dead yet?" I was, like, Damn! Those ************* don't have no mercy. So I checked myself out, and my family took me to a safe spot, somebody who really cared about me in New York City.
Why did you go to court the morning after you were shot?
They came to the bed and said, "Pac, you don't need to go to court." I was, like, no. I felt like if the jury didn't see me, they would think I'm doing a show or some ****. Because they were sequestered and didn't know I got shot. So I knew I had to show up no matter what. I swear to God, the farthest thing from my mind was sympathy. All I could think of was, Stand up and fight for your life like you fight for your life in this hospital.
I sat there in a wheelchair, and the judge was not looking me in my eyes. He never looked me in my eyes the whole trial. So the jury came in, and the way everybody was acting, it was like a regular everyday thing. And I was feeling so miracle-ish that I'm living. And then I start feeling they're going to do what they're going to do. Then I felt numb; I said, I've got to get out of here.
When I left, the cameras were all rushing me and bumping into my leg and ****. I was, like, "You ************* are like vultures." That made me see just the nastiest in the hearts of men. That's why I was looking like that in the chair when they were wheeling me away. I was trying to promise myself to keep my head up for all my people there. But when I saw all that, it made me put my head down; it just took my spirit.
Can we talk about the rape case at all?
Okay. Nigel and Trevor took me to Nell's. When we got there, I was immediately impressed, because it was different than any club I'd been in. It wasn't crowded, there was lots of space, there were beautiful women there. I was meeting Ronnie Lott from the New York Jets and Derrick Coleman from the Nets. They were coming up to me, like, "Pac, we're proud of you." I felt so tall that night, because they were people's heroes and they saying I was their hero. I felt above and beyond, like I was glowing.
Somebody introduced me to this girl. And the only thing I noticed about her: She had a big chest. But she was not attractive; she looked dumpy, like. Money came to me and said, "This girl wants to do more than meet you." I already knew what that meant: She wanted to ****. I just left them and went to the dance floor by myself. They were playing some Jamaican music, and I'm just grooving.
Then this girl came out and started dancing-and the **** that was weird, she didn't even come to me face-first, she came ***-first. So I'm dancing to this reggae music; you know how sensuous that is. She's touching my ****, she's touching my balls, she opened my zipper, she put her hands on me. There's a little dark part in Nell's, and I see people over there making out already, so she starts pushing me this way. I know what time it is.
We go over in the corner. She's touching me. I lift up my shirt while I'm dancing, showing off my tattoos and everything. She starts kissing my stomach, kissing my chest, licking me and ****. She's going down, and I'm, like, Oh ****. She pulled my **** out; she started sucking my **** on the dance floor. That **** turned me on. I wasn't thinking, like, This is going to be a rape case. I'm thinking, like, This is going to be a good night. You know what I'm saying?
Soon as she finished that-just enough to get me solid, rock-hard-we got off the dance floor. I told Nigel, "I've got to get out of here. I'm about to take her to the hotel. I'll see you all later." Nigel was, like, "No, no, no. I'm going to take you back." We drive to the hotel. We go upstairs and have sex, real quick. As soon as I came, that was it. I was tired, I was drunk, I knew I had to get up early in the morning, so I was, like, "What are you going to do? You can spend the night or you can leave." She left me her number, and everything was cool. Nigel was spending the night in my room all these nights. When he found out she sucked my **** on the floor and we had sex, he and Trevor were livid! Trevor is a big freak; he was going crazy. All he kept asking me was, "D-d-did you **** in the ***?" He was listening to every single detail. I thought, This is just some guy ****, it's all good.
Well, the first two days in prison, I had to go through what life is like when you've been smoking weed for as long as I have and then you stop. Emotionally, it was like I didn't know myself. I was sitting in a room, like there was two people in the room, evil and good. That was the hardest part. After that, the weed was out of me. Then every day I started doing, like, a thousand push-ups for myself. I was reading whole books in one day, and writing, and that was putting me in a peace of mind. Then I started seeing my situation and what got me here. Even though I'm innocent of the charge they gave me, I'm not innocent in terms of the way I was acting.
Could you tell me specifically what you mean?
I'm just as guilty for not doing nothing as I am for doing things. Not with this case, but just in my life. I had a job to do and I never showed up. I was so scared of this responsibility that I was running away from it. But I see now that whether I show up for work or not, the evil forces are going to be at me. They're going to come 100 percent, so if I don't be 100 percent pure-hearted, I'm going to lose. And that's why I'm losing.
When I got in here, all the prisoners was, like, "**** that gangsta rapper." I'm not a gangsta rapper. I rap about things that happen to me. I got shot five times, you know what I'm saying? People was trying to kill me. It was really real like that. I don't see myself being special; I just see myself having more responsibilities than the next man. People look to me to do things for them, to have answers. I wasn't having them because my brain was half dead from smoking so much weed. I'd be in my hotel room, smoking too much, drinking, going to clubs, just being numb. That was being in jail to me. I wasn't happy at all on the streets. Nobody could say they saw me happy.
When I spoke to you a year ago, you said that if you ended up in jail, your spirit would die. You sound like you're saying the opposite now.
That was the addict speaking. The addict knew if I went to jail, then it couldn't live. The addict in Tupac is dead. The excuse maker in Tupac is dead. The vengeful Tupac is dead. The Tupac that would stand by and let dishonorable things happen is dead. God let me live for me to do something extremely extraordinary, and that's what I have to do. Even if they give me the maximum sentence, that's still my job.
Can you take us back to that night at Quad Recording Studios in Times Square?
The night of the shooting? Sure. Ron G. is a DJ out here in New York. He's, like, "Pac, I want you to come to my house and lay this rap down for my tapes." I said, "All right, I'll come for free." So I went to his house-me, Stretch, and a couple other homeboys. After I laid the song, I got a page from this guy Booker, telling me he wanted me to rap on Little Shawn's record. Now, this guy I was going to charge, because I could see that they was just using me, so I said, "All right, you give me seven G's and I'll do the song." He said, "I've got the money. Come." I stopped off to get some weed, and he paged me again. "Where you at? Why you ain't coming?" I'm, like, "I'm coming, man, hold on."
Did you know this guy?
I met him through some rough characters I knew. He was trying to get legitimate and all that, so I thought I was doing him a favor. But when I called him back for directions, he was, like, "I don't have the money." I said, "If you don't have the money, I'm not coming." He hung up the phone, then called me back: "I'm going to call [Uptown Entertainment CEO] Andre Harrell and make sure you get the money, but I'm going to give you the money out of my pocket." So I said, "All right, I'm on my way." As we're walking up to the building, somebody screamed from up the top of the studio. It was Little Caesar, Biggie's [the Notorious B.I.G.] sideman. That's my homeboy. As soon as I saw him, all my concerns about the situation were relaxed.
So you're saying that going into it...
I felt nervous because this guy knew somebody I had major beef with. I didn't want to tell the police, but I can tell the world. Nigel had introduced me to Booker. Everybody knew I was short on money. All my shows were getting canceled. All my money from my records was going to lawyers; all the movie money was going to my family. So I was doing this type of stuff, rapping for guys and getting paid.
Who's this guy Nigel?
I was kicking it with him the whole time I was in New York doing Above the Rim. He came to me. He said, "I'm going to look after you. You don't need to get in no more trouble."
Doesn't Nigel also go by the name of Trevor?
Right. There's a real Trevor, but Nigel took on both aliases, you understand? So that's who I was kicking with-I got close to them. I used to dress in baggies and sneakers. They took me shopping; that's when I bought my Rolex and all my jewels. They made me mature. They introduced me to all these gangsters in Brooklyn. I met Nigel's family, went to his kid's birthday party-I trusted him, you know what I'm saying? I even tried to get Nigel in the movie, but he didn't want to be on film. That bothered me. I don't know any ***** that didn't want to be in the movies.
Can we come back to the shooting? Who was with you that night?
I was with my homeboy Stretch, his man Fred, and my sister's boyfriend, Zayd. Not my bodyguard; I don't have a bodyguard. We get to the studio, and there's a dude outside in army fatigues with his hat low on his face. When we walked to the door, he didn't look up. I've never seen a black man not acknowledge me one way or the other, either with jealousy or respect. But this guy just looked to see who I was and turned his face down. It didn't click because I had just finished smoking chronic. I'm not thinking something will happen to me in the lobby. While we're waiting to get buzzed in, I saw a dude sitting at a table reading a newspaper. He didn't look up either.
These are both black men?
Black men in their thirties. So first I'm, like, These dudes must be security for Biggie, because I could tell they were from Brooklyn from their army fatigues. But then I said, Wait a minute. Even Biggie's homeboys love me, why don't they look up? I pressed the elevator button, turned around, and that's when the dudes came out with the guns-two identical 9 mms. "Don't nobody move. Everybody on the floor. You know what time it is. Run your ****." I was, like, What should I do? I'm thinking Stretch is going to fight; he was towering over those ******. From what I know about the criminal element, if ****** come to rob you, they always hit the big ***** first. But they didn't touch Stretch; they came straight to me. Everybody dropped to the floor like potatoes, but I just froze up. It wasn't like I was being brave or nothing; I just could not get on the floor. They started grabbing at me to see if I was strapped. They said, "Take off your jewels," and I wouldn't take them off. The light-skinned dude, the one that was standing outside, was on me. Stretch was on the floor, and the dude with the newspaper was holding the gun on him. He was telling the light-skin dude, "Shoot that ************! **** it!" Then I got scared, because the dude had the gun to my stomach. All I could think about was piss bags and **** bags. I drew my arm around him to move the gun to my side. He shot and the gun twisted and that's when I got hit the first time. I felt it in my leg; I didn't know I got shot in my balls. I dropped to the floor. Everything in my mind said, Pac, pretend you're dead. It didn't matter. They started kicking me, hitting me. I never said, "Don't shoot!" I was quiet as hell. They were snatching my **** off me while I was laying on the floor. I had my eyes closed, but I was shaking, because the situation had me shaking. And then I felt something on the back of my head, something real strong. I thought they stomped me or pistol-whipped me and they were stomping my head against the concrete. I saw white, just white. I didn't hear nothing, I didn't feel nothing, and I said, I'm unconscious. But I was conscious. And then I felt it again, and I could hear things now and I could see things and they were bringing me back to consciousness. Then they did it again, and I couldn't hear nothing. And I couldn't see nothing; it was just all white. And then they hit me again, and I could hear things and I could see things and I knew I was conscious again.
Did you ever hear them say their names?
No. No. But they knew me, or else they would never check for my gun. It was like they were mad at me. I felt them kicking me and stomping me; they didn't hit nobody else. It was, like, "Ooh, ************, ooh, aah"-they were kicking hard. So I'm going unconscious, and I'm not feeling no blood on my head or nothing. The only thing I felt was my stomach hurting real bad. My sister's boyfriend turned me over and said, "Yo, are you all right?" I was, like, "Yes, I'm hit, I'm hit." And Fred is saying he's hit, but that was the bullet that went through my leg. So I stood up and I went to the door and-the **** that ****** me up-as soon as I got to the door, I saw a police car sitting there. I was, like, "Uh-oh, the police are coming, and I didn't even go upstairs yet." So we jumped in the elevator and went upstairs. I'm limping and everything, but I don't feel nothing. It's numb. When we got upstairs, I looked around, and it scared the **** out of me.
Why?
Because Andre Harrell was there, Puffy [Bad Boy Entertainment CEO Sean "Puffy" Combs] was there, Biggie... there was about 40 ****** there. All of them had jewels on. More jewels than me. I saw Booker, and he had this look on his face like he was surprised to see me. Why? I had just beeped the buzzer and said I was coming upstairs. Little Shawn bust out crying. I went, Why is Little Shawn crying, and I got shot? He was crying uncontrollably, like, "Oh my God, Pac, you've got to sit down!" I was feeling weird, like, Why do they want to make me sit down?
Because five bullets had passed through your body.
I didn't know I was shot in the head yet. I didn't feel nothing. I opened my pants, and I could see the gunpowder and the hole in my Karl Kani drawers. I didn't want to pull them down to see if my **** was still there. I just saw a hole and went, "Oh ****. Roll me some weed." I called my girlfriend and I was, like, "Yo, I just got shot. Call my mother and tell her." Nobody approached me. I noticed that nobody would look at me. Andre Harrell wouldn't look at me. I had been going to dinner with him the last few days. He had invited me to the set of New York Undercover, telling me he was going to get me a job. Puffy was standing back too. I knew Puffy. He knew how much stuff I had done for Biggie before he came out.
People did see blood on you?
They started telling me, "Your head! Your head is bleeding." But I thought it was just a pistol-whip. Then the ambulance came, and the police. First cop I looked up to see was the cop that took the stand against me in the rape charge. He had a half smile on his face, and he could see them looking at my balls. He said, "What's up, Tupac? How's it hanging?"
When I got to Bellevue Hospital, the doctor was going, "Oh my God!" I was, like, "What? What?" And I was hearing him tell other doctors, "Look at this. This is gunpowder right here." He was talking about my head: "This is the entry wound. This is the exit wound." And when he did that, I could actually feel the holes. I said, "Oh my God. I could feel that." It was the spots that I was blacking out on. And that's when I said, "Oh ****. They shot me in my head." They said, "You don't know how lucky you are. You got shot five times." It was, like, weird. I did not want to believe it. I could only remember that first shot, then everything went blank.
At any point did you think you were going to die?
No. I swear to God. Not to sound creepy or nothing-I felt God cared for me from the first time the ****** pulled the gun out. The only thing that hurt me was that Stretch and them all fell to the floor. The bullets didn't hurt. Nothing hurt until I was recovering. I couldn't walk, I couldn't get up, and my hand was ****** up. I was looking on the news and it was lying about me.
Tell me about some of the coverage that bothered you.
The No. 1 thing that bothered me was that dude that wrote that **** that said I pretended to do it. That I had set it up, it was an act. When I read that, I just started crying like a baby, like a *****. I could not believe it. It just tore me apart. And then the news was trying to say I had a gun and I had weed on me. Instead of saying I was a victim, they were making it like I did it.
What about all the jokes saying you had lost one of your testicles?
That didn't really bother me, because I was, like, ****, I'm going to get the last laugh. Because I've got bigger nuts than all these ******. My doctors are, like, "You can have babies." They told me that the first night, after I got exploratory surgery: "Nothing's wrong. It went through the skin and out the skin." Same thing with my head. Through my skin and out the skin.
Have you had a lot of pain since then?
Yes, I have headaches. I wake up screaming. I've been having nightmares, thinking they're still shooting me. All I see is ****** pulling guns, and I hear the dude saying, "Shoot that ************!" Then I'll wake up sweaty as hell and I'll be, like, Damn, I have a headache. The psychiatrist at Bellevue said that's post-traumatic stress.
Why did you leave Bellevue Hospital?
I left Bellevue the next night. They were helping me, but I felt like a science project. They kept coming in, looking at my **** and ****, and this was not a cool position to be in. I knew my life was in danger. The Fruit of Islam was there, but they didn't have guns. I knew what type of ****** I was dealing with.
So I left Bellevue and went to Metropolitan. They gave me a phone and said, "You're safe here. Nobody knows you're here." But the phone would ring and someone would say, "You ain't dead yet?" I was, like, Damn! Those ************* don't have no mercy. So I checked myself out, and my family took me to a safe spot, somebody who really cared about me in New York City.
Why did you go to court the morning after you were shot?
They came to the bed and said, "Pac, you don't need to go to court." I was, like, no. I felt like if the jury didn't see me, they would think I'm doing a show or some ****. Because they were sequestered and didn't know I got shot. So I knew I had to show up no matter what. I swear to God, the farthest thing from my mind was sympathy. All I could think of was, Stand up and fight for your life like you fight for your life in this hospital.
I sat there in a wheelchair, and the judge was not looking me in my eyes. He never looked me in my eyes the whole trial. So the jury came in, and the way everybody was acting, it was like a regular everyday thing. And I was feeling so miracle-ish that I'm living. And then I start feeling they're going to do what they're going to do. Then I felt numb; I said, I've got to get out of here.
When I left, the cameras were all rushing me and bumping into my leg and ****. I was, like, "You ************* are like vultures." That made me see just the nastiest in the hearts of men. That's why I was looking like that in the chair when they were wheeling me away. I was trying to promise myself to keep my head up for all my people there. But when I saw all that, it made me put my head down; it just took my spirit.
Can we talk about the rape case at all?
Okay. Nigel and Trevor took me to Nell's. When we got there, I was immediately impressed, because it was different than any club I'd been in. It wasn't crowded, there was lots of space, there were beautiful women there. I was meeting Ronnie Lott from the New York Jets and Derrick Coleman from the Nets. They were coming up to me, like, "Pac, we're proud of you." I felt so tall that night, because they were people's heroes and they saying I was their hero. I felt above and beyond, like I was glowing.
Somebody introduced me to this girl. And the only thing I noticed about her: She had a big chest. But she was not attractive; she looked dumpy, like. Money came to me and said, "This girl wants to do more than meet you." I already knew what that meant: She wanted to ****. I just left them and went to the dance floor by myself. They were playing some Jamaican music, and I'm just grooving.
Then this girl came out and started dancing-and the **** that was weird, she didn't even come to me face-first, she came ***-first. So I'm dancing to this reggae music; you know how sensuous that is. She's touching my ****, she's touching my balls, she opened my zipper, she put her hands on me. There's a little dark part in Nell's, and I see people over there making out already, so she starts pushing me this way. I know what time it is.
We go over in the corner. She's touching me. I lift up my shirt while I'm dancing, showing off my tattoos and everything. She starts kissing my stomach, kissing my chest, licking me and ****. She's going down, and I'm, like, Oh ****. She pulled my **** out; she started sucking my **** on the dance floor. That **** turned me on. I wasn't thinking, like, This is going to be a rape case. I'm thinking, like, This is going to be a good night. You know what I'm saying?
Soon as she finished that-just enough to get me solid, rock-hard-we got off the dance floor. I told Nigel, "I've got to get out of here. I'm about to take her to the hotel. I'll see you all later." Nigel was, like, "No, no, no. I'm going to take you back." We drive to the hotel. We go upstairs and have sex, real quick. As soon as I came, that was it. I was tired, I was drunk, I knew I had to get up early in the morning, so I was, like, "What are you going to do? You can spend the night or you can leave." She left me her number, and everything was cool. Nigel was spending the night in my room all these nights. When he found out she sucked my **** on the floor and we had sex, he and Trevor were livid! Trevor is a big freak; he was going crazy. All he kept asking me was, "D-d-did you **** in the ***?" He was listening to every single detail. I thought, This is just some guy ****, it's all good.
What happened on the night of the alleged rape?
We had a show to do in New Jersey at Club 88. This dude said, "I'll be there with a limo to pick you up at midnight." We went shopping, we got dressed up, we were all ready. Nigel was saying, "Why don't you give her a call?" So we were all sitting in the hotel, drinking. I'm waiting for the show, and Nigel's, like, "I called her. I mean, she called me, and she's on her way." But I wasn't thinking about her no second time. We were watching TV when the phone rings, and she's downstairs. Nigel gave Man-man, my manager, some money to pay for the cab, and I was, like, "Let that ***** pay for her own cab." She came upstairs looking all nice, dressed all provocative and ****, like she was ready for a prom date.
So we're all sitting there talking, and she's making me uncomfortable, because instead of sitting with Nigel and them, she's sitting on the arm of my chair. And Nigel and Trevor are looking at her like a chicken, like she's, like, food. It's a real uncomfortable situation. So I'm thinking, Okay, I'm going to take her to the room and get a massage. I'm thinking about being with her that night at Nell's. So we get in the room, I'm laying on my stomach, she's massaging my back. I turn around. She starts massaging my front. This lasted for about a half an hour. In between, we would stop and kiss each other. I'm thinking she's about to give me another blow job. But before she could do that, some ****** came in, and I froze up more than she froze up. If she would have said anything, I would have said, "Hold on, let me finish." But I can't say nothing, because she's not saying nothing. How do I look saying, "Hold on"? That would be like I'm making her my girl.
So they came and they started touching her ***. They going, "Oooh, she's got a nice ***." Nigel isn't touching her, but I can hear his voice leading it, like, "Put her panties down, put her pantyhose down." I just got up and walked out the room.
When I went to the other suite, Man-man told me that Talibah, my publicist at the time, had been there for a while and was waiting in the bedroom of that suite. I went to see Talibah and we talked about what she had been doing during the day, then I went and laid down on the couch and went to sleep. When I woke up, Nigel was standing over me going, "Pac, Pac," and all the lights was on in both rooms. The whole mood had changed, you know what I'm saying? I felt like I was drugged. I didn't know how much time had passed. So when I woke up, it was, like, "You're going to the police, you're going to the police." Nigel walks out the room, comes back with the girl. Her clothes is on; ain't nothing tore. She just upset, crying hysterically. "Why you let them do this to me?" She's not making sense. "I came to see you. You let them do this to me." I'm, like, "I don't got time for this **** right here. You got to chill out with that ****. Stop yelling at me and looking at me all crazy." She said, "This not the last time you're going to hear from me," and slammed the door. And Nigel goes, "Don't worry about it, Pac, don't worry. I'll handle it. She just tripping." I asked him what happened, and he was, like, "Too many ******." You know, I ain't even tripping no more, you know? ****** start going downstairs, but nobody was coming back upstairs. I'm sitting upstairs smoking weed, like, Where the **** is everybody at? Then I get a call from Talibah from the lobby saying, "The police is down here."
And that's what landed you in jail. But you're saying that you never did anything?
Never did nothing. Only thing I saw was all three of them in there and that ***** talking about how fat her *** was. I got up, because the ***** sounded sick. I don't know if she's with these ******, or if she's mad at me for not protecting her. But I know I feel ashamed-because I wanted to be accepted and because I didn't want no harm done to me-I didn't say nothing.
How did you feel about women during the trial, and how do you feel about women now?
When the charge first came up, I hated black women. I felt like I put my life on the line. At the time I made "Keep Ya Head Up," nobody had no songs about black women. I put out "Keep Ya Head Up" from the bottom of my heart. It was real, and they didn't defend it. I felt like it should have been women all over the country talking about, "Tupac couldn't have did that." And people was actually asking me, "Did you do it?"
Then, going to trial, I started seeing the black women that was helping me. Now I've got a brand-new vision of them, because in here, it's mostly black female guards. They don't give me no extra favors, but they treat me with human respect. They're telling me, "When you get out of here, you gotta change." They be putting me on the phone with they kids. You know what I'm saying? They just give me love.
What's going to happen if you have to serve time?
If it happens, I got to serve it like a trooper. Of course, my heart will be broke. I be torn apart, but I have to serve it like a trooper.
I understand you recently completed a new album.
Rapping...I don't even got the thrill to rap no more. I mean, in here I don't even remember my lyrics.
But you're putting out the album, right?
Yeah. It's called Me Against the World. So that is my truth. That's my best album yet. And because I already laid it down, I can be free. When you do rap albums, you got to train yourself. You got to constantly be in character. You used to see rappers talking all that hard ****, and then you see them in suits and **** at the American Music Awards. I didn't want to be that type of *****. I wanted to keep it real, and that's what I thought I was doing. But now that **** is dead. That Thug Life ****...;I did it, I put in my work, I laid it down. But now that **** is dead.
What are your plans after prison?
I'm going to team up with Mike Tyson when we get out. Team up with Monster Kody [now known as Sanyika Shakur] from California. I'm going to start an organization called Us First. I'm going to save these young ******, because nobody else want to save them. Nobody ever came to save me. They just watch what happen to you. That's why Thug Life to me is dead. If it's real, then let somebody else represent it, because I'm tired of it. I represented it too much. I was Thug Life. I was the only ***** out there putting my life on the line.
Has anybody else been there for you?
Since I've been in here I got about 40 letters. I got little girls sending me money. Everybody telling me that God is with me. People telling me they hate the dudes that shot me, they're going to pray for me. I did get one letter, this dude telling me he wished I was dead. But then I got people looking out for me, like Jada Pinkett, Jasmine Guy, Treach, Mickey Rourke. My label, Interscope Records, has been extremely supportive. Even Madonna.
Can you talk about your relationship with Madonna and Mickey Rourke?
I was letting people dictate who should be my friends. I felt like because I was this big Black Panther type of *****, I couldn't be friends with Madonna. And so I dissed her, even though she showed me nothing but love. I felt bad, because when I went to jail, I called her and she was the only person that was willing to help me. Of that stature. Same thing with Mickey Rourke-he just befriended me. Not like black and white, just like friend to friend. And from now on, it's not going to be a strictly black thing with me. I even apologized to Quincy Jones for all the stuff I said about him and his wives. I'm apologizing to the Hughes Brothers...but not John Singleton. He's inspiring me to write screenplays, because I want to be his competition. He fired me from Higher Learning and gave my idea to the next actor.
Do you worry about your safety now?
I don't have no fear of death. My only fear is coming back reincarnated. I'm not trying to make people think I'm in here faking it, but my whole life is going to be about saving somebody. I got to represent life. If you saying you going to be real, that's how you be real-be physically fit, be mentally fit. And I want ****** to be educated. You know, I was steering people away from school. You gotta be in school, because through school you can get a job. And if you got a job, then that's how they can't do us like this. Do you think rap music is going to come under more attack, given what's happened to you?
Oh, definitely. That's why they're doing me like this. Because if they can stop me, they can stop 30 more rappers before they even born. But there's something else I understand now: If we really are saying rap is an art form, then we got to be true to it and be more responsible for our lyrics. If you see everybody dying because of what you saying, it don't matter that you didn't make them die, it just matters that you didn't save them.
You mentioned Marvin Gaye in "Keep Ya Head Up." A lot of people have compared you to him, in terms of your personal conflicts.
That's how I feel. I feel close to Marvin Gaye, Vincent van Gogh.
Why van Gogh?
Because nobody appreciated his work until he was dead. Now it's worth millions. I feel close to him, how tormented he was. Him and Marvin too. That's how I was out there. I'm in jail now, but I'm free. My mind is free. The only time I have problems is when I sleep.
So you're grateful to be where you are now?
It's a gift-straight-up. This is God's will. And everybody that said I wasn't nothing...my whole goal is to just make them ashamed that they wrote me off like that. Because I'm 23 years old. And I might just be my mother's child, but in all reality, I'm everybody's child. You know what I'm saying? Nobody raised me; I was raised in this society. But I'm not going to use that as an excuse no more. I'm going to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and I'm going to make a change. And my change is going to make a change through the community. And through that, they gonna see what type of person I truly was. Where my heart was. This Thug Life stuff, it was just ignorance. My intentions was always in the right place. I never killed anybody, I never raped anybody, I never committed no crimes that weren't honorable-that weren't to defend myself. So that's what I'm going to show them. I'm going to show people my true intentions, and my true heart. I'm going to show them the man that my mother raised. I'm going to make them all proud.
We had a show to do in New Jersey at Club 88. This dude said, "I'll be there with a limo to pick you up at midnight." We went shopping, we got dressed up, we were all ready. Nigel was saying, "Why don't you give her a call?" So we were all sitting in the hotel, drinking. I'm waiting for the show, and Nigel's, like, "I called her. I mean, she called me, and she's on her way." But I wasn't thinking about her no second time. We were watching TV when the phone rings, and she's downstairs. Nigel gave Man-man, my manager, some money to pay for the cab, and I was, like, "Let that ***** pay for her own cab." She came upstairs looking all nice, dressed all provocative and ****, like she was ready for a prom date.
So we're all sitting there talking, and she's making me uncomfortable, because instead of sitting with Nigel and them, she's sitting on the arm of my chair. And Nigel and Trevor are looking at her like a chicken, like she's, like, food. It's a real uncomfortable situation. So I'm thinking, Okay, I'm going to take her to the room and get a massage. I'm thinking about being with her that night at Nell's. So we get in the room, I'm laying on my stomach, she's massaging my back. I turn around. She starts massaging my front. This lasted for about a half an hour. In between, we would stop and kiss each other. I'm thinking she's about to give me another blow job. But before she could do that, some ****** came in, and I froze up more than she froze up. If she would have said anything, I would have said, "Hold on, let me finish." But I can't say nothing, because she's not saying nothing. How do I look saying, "Hold on"? That would be like I'm making her my girl.
So they came and they started touching her ***. They going, "Oooh, she's got a nice ***." Nigel isn't touching her, but I can hear his voice leading it, like, "Put her panties down, put her pantyhose down." I just got up and walked out the room.
When I went to the other suite, Man-man told me that Talibah, my publicist at the time, had been there for a while and was waiting in the bedroom of that suite. I went to see Talibah and we talked about what she had been doing during the day, then I went and laid down on the couch and went to sleep. When I woke up, Nigel was standing over me going, "Pac, Pac," and all the lights was on in both rooms. The whole mood had changed, you know what I'm saying? I felt like I was drugged. I didn't know how much time had passed. So when I woke up, it was, like, "You're going to the police, you're going to the police." Nigel walks out the room, comes back with the girl. Her clothes is on; ain't nothing tore. She just upset, crying hysterically. "Why you let them do this to me?" She's not making sense. "I came to see you. You let them do this to me." I'm, like, "I don't got time for this **** right here. You got to chill out with that ****. Stop yelling at me and looking at me all crazy." She said, "This not the last time you're going to hear from me," and slammed the door. And Nigel goes, "Don't worry about it, Pac, don't worry. I'll handle it. She just tripping." I asked him what happened, and he was, like, "Too many ******." You know, I ain't even tripping no more, you know? ****** start going downstairs, but nobody was coming back upstairs. I'm sitting upstairs smoking weed, like, Where the **** is everybody at? Then I get a call from Talibah from the lobby saying, "The police is down here."
And that's what landed you in jail. But you're saying that you never did anything?
Never did nothing. Only thing I saw was all three of them in there and that ***** talking about how fat her *** was. I got up, because the ***** sounded sick. I don't know if she's with these ******, or if she's mad at me for not protecting her. But I know I feel ashamed-because I wanted to be accepted and because I didn't want no harm done to me-I didn't say nothing.
How did you feel about women during the trial, and how do you feel about women now?
When the charge first came up, I hated black women. I felt like I put my life on the line. At the time I made "Keep Ya Head Up," nobody had no songs about black women. I put out "Keep Ya Head Up" from the bottom of my heart. It was real, and they didn't defend it. I felt like it should have been women all over the country talking about, "Tupac couldn't have did that." And people was actually asking me, "Did you do it?"
Then, going to trial, I started seeing the black women that was helping me. Now I've got a brand-new vision of them, because in here, it's mostly black female guards. They don't give me no extra favors, but they treat me with human respect. They're telling me, "When you get out of here, you gotta change." They be putting me on the phone with they kids. You know what I'm saying? They just give me love.
What's going to happen if you have to serve time?
If it happens, I got to serve it like a trooper. Of course, my heart will be broke. I be torn apart, but I have to serve it like a trooper.
I understand you recently completed a new album.
Rapping...I don't even got the thrill to rap no more. I mean, in here I don't even remember my lyrics.
But you're putting out the album, right?
Yeah. It's called Me Against the World. So that is my truth. That's my best album yet. And because I already laid it down, I can be free. When you do rap albums, you got to train yourself. You got to constantly be in character. You used to see rappers talking all that hard ****, and then you see them in suits and **** at the American Music Awards. I didn't want to be that type of *****. I wanted to keep it real, and that's what I thought I was doing. But now that **** is dead. That Thug Life ****...;I did it, I put in my work, I laid it down. But now that **** is dead.
What are your plans after prison?
I'm going to team up with Mike Tyson when we get out. Team up with Monster Kody [now known as Sanyika Shakur] from California. I'm going to start an organization called Us First. I'm going to save these young ******, because nobody else want to save them. Nobody ever came to save me. They just watch what happen to you. That's why Thug Life to me is dead. If it's real, then let somebody else represent it, because I'm tired of it. I represented it too much. I was Thug Life. I was the only ***** out there putting my life on the line.
Has anybody else been there for you?
Since I've been in here I got about 40 letters. I got little girls sending me money. Everybody telling me that God is with me. People telling me they hate the dudes that shot me, they're going to pray for me. I did get one letter, this dude telling me he wished I was dead. But then I got people looking out for me, like Jada Pinkett, Jasmine Guy, Treach, Mickey Rourke. My label, Interscope Records, has been extremely supportive. Even Madonna.
Can you talk about your relationship with Madonna and Mickey Rourke?
I was letting people dictate who should be my friends. I felt like because I was this big Black Panther type of *****, I couldn't be friends with Madonna. And so I dissed her, even though she showed me nothing but love. I felt bad, because when I went to jail, I called her and she was the only person that was willing to help me. Of that stature. Same thing with Mickey Rourke-he just befriended me. Not like black and white, just like friend to friend. And from now on, it's not going to be a strictly black thing with me. I even apologized to Quincy Jones for all the stuff I said about him and his wives. I'm apologizing to the Hughes Brothers...but not John Singleton. He's inspiring me to write screenplays, because I want to be his competition. He fired me from Higher Learning and gave my idea to the next actor.
Do you worry about your safety now?
I don't have no fear of death. My only fear is coming back reincarnated. I'm not trying to make people think I'm in here faking it, but my whole life is going to be about saving somebody. I got to represent life. If you saying you going to be real, that's how you be real-be physically fit, be mentally fit. And I want ****** to be educated. You know, I was steering people away from school. You gotta be in school, because through school you can get a job. And if you got a job, then that's how they can't do us like this. Do you think rap music is going to come under more attack, given what's happened to you?
Oh, definitely. That's why they're doing me like this. Because if they can stop me, they can stop 30 more rappers before they even born. But there's something else I understand now: If we really are saying rap is an art form, then we got to be true to it and be more responsible for our lyrics. If you see everybody dying because of what you saying, it don't matter that you didn't make them die, it just matters that you didn't save them.
You mentioned Marvin Gaye in "Keep Ya Head Up." A lot of people have compared you to him, in terms of your personal conflicts.
That's how I feel. I feel close to Marvin Gaye, Vincent van Gogh.
Why van Gogh?
Because nobody appreciated his work until he was dead. Now it's worth millions. I feel close to him, how tormented he was. Him and Marvin too. That's how I was out there. I'm in jail now, but I'm free. My mind is free. The only time I have problems is when I sleep.
So you're grateful to be where you are now?
It's a gift-straight-up. This is God's will. And everybody that said I wasn't nothing...my whole goal is to just make them ashamed that they wrote me off like that. Because I'm 23 years old. And I might just be my mother's child, but in all reality, I'm everybody's child. You know what I'm saying? Nobody raised me; I was raised in this society. But I'm not going to use that as an excuse no more. I'm going to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and I'm going to make a change. And my change is going to make a change through the community. And through that, they gonna see what type of person I truly was. Where my heart was. This Thug Life stuff, it was just ignorance. My intentions was always in the right place. I never killed anybody, I never raped anybody, I never committed no crimes that weren't honorable-that weren't to defend myself. So that's what I'm going to show them. I'm going to show people my true intentions, and my true heart. I'm going to show them the man that my mother raised. I'm going to make them all proud.
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puff and big's reaction:
Puffy's Reaction To Shooting In Vibe Magazine
Basically, the whole thing must have been a dream. We were shooting Biggie’s “Warning” video, and I see one of the Bad Boy staff members on his way to Biggie’s session. I knew that Biggie had a session with Junior Mafia, but I didn’t know it was right around the corner. So I’m going to check B.I.G., you know what I’m saying?
When I get off the elevator at Quad, you have to stop in a reception area, and there’s this Little Shawn session with Andre. So I stopped to say “What’s up?” to them. I’m about to go up to Biggie’s session when Pac comes out the elevator and he’s shot up. He had some blood coming out of his head, but there wasn’t a lot of blood. He was holding his groin area and limping a little bit.
Nobody turned their backs on him; niccas was all up on him. Immediately, Andre was, like, “Oh my God, call the ambulance.” Tupac wanted to go to the phone, so me and my man Groovy Lou was by his side, trying to hold him up, getting him to calm down. He was telling Groovy Lou to roll him a blunt. He definitely brought the theatrics to it.
He got a lot of people in a lot of ******-t with that interview. The way it was written, it was open-ended, like me and B.I.G. and Andre had something to do with it. I would never, ever purposely try to hurt no next man. That man had his own beefs with niccas. I ain’t never had no beef with that man.
I hope that his Thug Life sh-t is really over. But on the real, if you gonna be a motherfu-kin’ thug, you gots to live and die a thug, you know what I’m sayin’? There ain’t no jumpin’ in and out of thugism. If that’s what you choose to do, you gots to go out like that. I ain’t no thug. Only thugs I know is dead or in jail. Or about to be.
Even still, I ain’t got no beef. I pray for him, and it’s all good. I’m writing him a letter. I want to hear what he’s thinking face-to-face. Out of everybody, I’m the easiest to forgive. I’ve been there where the whole press is against you, the world ain’t understanding you, niccas don’t know what really went on. And you get confused. That’s the only thing I can see is confusion.
Vibe Magazine, September 1996. Puffy and Biggie Break Their Silence On Tupac, [rip] Row, And All The East-West Friction. A Tale of Bad Boys and Bad Men.
Now, we can settle this like we got some cla#s, or we can get into some gangster sh-t. -Max Julien as Goldie in The Mack
It’s hard to believe that someone who has seen so much could have such young eyes. But the eyes of Sean “Puffy” Combs, bright, brown, and alert, reflect the stubborn innocence of childhood. His voice, however, tells another story. Sitting inside the control room of Daddy’s House Studios in Midtown Manhattan, dressed in an Orlando Magic jersey and linen slacks, Puffy speaks in low, measured tones, almost whispering.
“I’m hurt a little bit spiritually by all the negativity, by this whole [rip] Row-Bad Boy sh-t,” says Puffy, president of Bad Boy Entertainment, one of the most powerful creative forces in black music today. And these days, one of the most tormented. “I’m hurt that out of all my accomplishments, it’s like I’m always getting my most fame from negative drama. It’s not like the young man that was in the industry for six years, won the ASCAP Songwriter of the Year, and every record he put out went at least gold…. All that gets overshadowed. How it got to this point, I really don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
So is everyone else. What’s clear is that a series of incidents-Tupac Shakur catching bullets at a New York studio in November ‘94, a close friend of [rip] Row CEO Suge Knight being k#lled at an Atlanta party in September ‘95, the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac facing off after the Soul Train Music Awards in L.A. this past March-have led to much finger-pointing and confusion. People with little or no connection to [rip] Row or Bad Boy are choosing up sides. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, hip hop heads are proclaiming their “California Love” or exclaiming that the “the East is in the house” with the loyalty of newly initiated gang members. As Dr. Dre put it, “Pretty soon, niccaz from the East Coast ain’t gonna be able to come out here and be safe. And vice versa.”
Meanwhile, the two camps that have the power to put an end to it all have yet to work out their differences. Moreover, Suge Knight’s [rip] Row camp, while publicly claiming there is no beef, has continued to aggravate the situation: first, by making snide public comments about the Bad Boy family, and second, by releasing product that makes the old Dre-vs.-Eazy conflict look tame. The intro to the video for the Tupac/Snoop Doggy Dogg song “2 of Americaz Most Wanted” features two characters named Pig and Buff who are accused of setting up Tupac and are then confronted in their office. And the now infamous B-side, “Hit ‘Em Up,” finds Tupac, in a fit of rage, telling Biggie, “I fu-ked your bi-ch, you fat motherfu-ker,” and then threatening to wipe out all of Bad Boy’s staff and affiliates.
While the records fly off the shelves and the streets get hotter and hotter, Puffy and Big have remained largely silent. Both say they have been reluctant to discuss the drama in any detail because they feel the media and the public have blown it out of proportion. But with knuckleheads questioning why they haven’t brought the ruckus and do-gooders questioning why they haven’t made peace, they’ve decided to end their verbal hiatus.
Why would I set a ***** up to get shot?” says Puffy. “If I’ma set a ***** up, which I would never do, I ain’t gonna be in the country. I’ma be in Bolivia somewhere.” Once again, Puffy is answering accusations that he had something to do with Shakur’s shooting at New York’s Quad Recording Studio, the event that sowed the seeds of Tupac’s beef with the East.
In April 1995, Tupac told VIBE that moments after he was ambushed and shot in the building’s lobby, he took the elevator up to the studio, where he saw about 40 people, including Biggie and Puffy. “Nobody approached me. I noticed that nobody would look at me,” said Tupac, suggesting that the people in the room knew he was going to be shot. In “Hit ‘Em Up,” Tupac does more than suggest, rapping, “Who shot me? But ya punks didn’t finish / Now you’re about to feel the wrath of a menace.”
But Puffy says Tupac’s barking up the wrong tree: “He ain’t mad at the niccas that shot him; he knows where they’re at. He knows who shot him. If you ask him, he knows, and everybody in the street knows, and he’s not stepping to them, because he knows that he’s not gonna get away with that sh-t. To me, that’s some real sucker sh-t. Be mad at everybody, man; don’t be using niccas as scapegoats. We know that he’s a nice guy from New York. All sh-t aside, Tupac is a nice, good-hearted guy.”
Taking a break from recording a new joint for his upcoming album, Life After [rip], Big sinks into the studio’s sofa in a blue Sergio Tacchini running suit that swishes with his every movement. He is visibly bothered by the lingering accusations. “I’m still thinking this *****’s my man,” says Big, who first met Tupac in 1993 during the shooting of John Singleton’s Poetic Justice. “This sh-t’s just got to be talk, that’s all I kept saying to myself. I can’t believe he would think that I would sh-t on him like that.”
He recalls that on the movie set, Tupac kept playing Big’s first single, “Party and ******-t.” Flattered, he met Tupac at his home in L.A., where the two hung out, puffed lah, and chilled. “I always thought it to be like a Gemini thing,” he says. “We just clicked off the top and were cool ever since.” Despite all the talk, Big claims he remained loyal to his partner in rhyme through thick and thin. “Honestly, I didn’t have no problem with the *****,” Big says. “There’s sh-t that muthafu-kas don’t know. I saw the situations and how sh-t was going, and I tried to school the *****. I was there when he bought his first Rolex, but I wasn’t in the position to be rolling like that. I think Tupac felt more comfortable with the dudes he was hanging with because they had just as much money as him.
“He can’t front on me,” says Big. “As much as he may come off as some Biggie hater, he knows. He knows when all that sh-t was going down, I was schooling a ***** to certain things, me and [Live Squad rapper] Stretch-God bless the grave. But he chose to do the things he wanted to do. There wasn’t nothing I could do, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t my man.”
While Tupac was taking shots at Biggie-claiming he’d bit his “player” style and sound-Suge was cooking up his own beef with Bad Boy. At the Source Awards in August 1995, Suge made the now legendary announcement, “If you don’t want the owner of your label on your album or in your video or on your tour, come sign with [rip] Row.” Obviously directed at Puffy’s high-profile role in his artists’ careers, the remark came as a shock. “I couldn’t believe what he said,” Puffy recalls. “I thought we was boys.” All the same, when it came time for Puffy to present an award, he said a few words about East-West unity and made a point of hugging the recipient, [rip] Row artist Snoop Doggy Dogg.
Nonetheless, Suge’s words spread like flu germs, reigniting ancient East-West hostilities. It was in this increasingly tense atmosphere that Big and the Junior M.A.F.I.A. clique reached Atlanta for Jermaine Dupri’s birthday party last September. During the after-party at a club called Platinum House, Suge Knight’s close friend Jake Robles was shot. He died at the hospital a week later. Published reports said that some witnesses claimed a member of Puffy’s entourage was responsible.
At the mention of the incident, Puffy sucks his teeth in frustration. “Here’s what happened,” he says. “I went to Atlanta with my son. At that time, there wasn’t really no drama. I didn’t even have bodyguards, so that’s a lie that I did. I left the club, and I’m waiting for my limo, talking to girls. I don’t see [Suge] go into the club; we don’t make any contact or nothing like that. He gets into a beef in the club with some niccas. I knew the majority of the club, but I don’t know who he got into the beef with, what it was over, or nothing like that. All I heard is that he took beef at the bar. I see people coming out. I see a lot of people that I know, I see him, and I see everybody yelling and screaming and sh-t. I get out the limo and I go to him, like, `What’s up, you all right?’ I’m trying to see if I can help. That’s my muthafu-kin’ problem,” Puffy says, pounding his fist into his palm in frustration. “I’m always trying to see if I can help somebody.
“Anyway, I get out facing him, and I’m, like, `What’s going on, what’s the problem?’ Then I hear shots ringing out, and we turn around and someone’s standing right behind me. His man-God bless the dead-gets shot, and he’s on the floor. My back was turned; I could’ve got shot, and he could’ve got shot. But right then he was, like, `I think you had something to do with this.’ I’m, like, `What are you talking about? I was standing right here with you!’ I really felt sorry for him, in the sense that if he felt that way, he was showing me his insecurity.”
Basically, the whole thing must have been a dream. We were shooting Biggie’s “Warning” video, and I see one of the Bad Boy staff members on his way to Biggie’s session. I knew that Biggie had a session with Junior Mafia, but I didn’t know it was right around the corner. So I’m going to check B.I.G., you know what I’m saying?
When I get off the elevator at Quad, you have to stop in a reception area, and there’s this Little Shawn session with Andre. So I stopped to say “What’s up?” to them. I’m about to go up to Biggie’s session when Pac comes out the elevator and he’s shot up. He had some blood coming out of his head, but there wasn’t a lot of blood. He was holding his groin area and limping a little bit.
Nobody turned their backs on him; niccas was all up on him. Immediately, Andre was, like, “Oh my God, call the ambulance.” Tupac wanted to go to the phone, so me and my man Groovy Lou was by his side, trying to hold him up, getting him to calm down. He was telling Groovy Lou to roll him a blunt. He definitely brought the theatrics to it.
He got a lot of people in a lot of ******-t with that interview. The way it was written, it was open-ended, like me and B.I.G. and Andre had something to do with it. I would never, ever purposely try to hurt no next man. That man had his own beefs with niccas. I ain’t never had no beef with that man.
I hope that his Thug Life sh-t is really over. But on the real, if you gonna be a motherfu-kin’ thug, you gots to live and die a thug, you know what I’m sayin’? There ain’t no jumpin’ in and out of thugism. If that’s what you choose to do, you gots to go out like that. I ain’t no thug. Only thugs I know is dead or in jail. Or about to be.
Even still, I ain’t got no beef. I pray for him, and it’s all good. I’m writing him a letter. I want to hear what he’s thinking face-to-face. Out of everybody, I’m the easiest to forgive. I’ve been there where the whole press is against you, the world ain’t understanding you, niccas don’t know what really went on. And you get confused. That’s the only thing I can see is confusion.
Vibe Magazine, September 1996. Puffy and Biggie Break Their Silence On Tupac, [rip] Row, And All The East-West Friction. A Tale of Bad Boys and Bad Men.
Now, we can settle this like we got some cla#s, or we can get into some gangster sh-t. -Max Julien as Goldie in The Mack
It’s hard to believe that someone who has seen so much could have such young eyes. But the eyes of Sean “Puffy” Combs, bright, brown, and alert, reflect the stubborn innocence of childhood. His voice, however, tells another story. Sitting inside the control room of Daddy’s House Studios in Midtown Manhattan, dressed in an Orlando Magic jersey and linen slacks, Puffy speaks in low, measured tones, almost whispering.
“I’m hurt a little bit spiritually by all the negativity, by this whole [rip] Row-Bad Boy sh-t,” says Puffy, president of Bad Boy Entertainment, one of the most powerful creative forces in black music today. And these days, one of the most tormented. “I’m hurt that out of all my accomplishments, it’s like I’m always getting my most fame from negative drama. It’s not like the young man that was in the industry for six years, won the ASCAP Songwriter of the Year, and every record he put out went at least gold…. All that gets overshadowed. How it got to this point, I really don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
So is everyone else. What’s clear is that a series of incidents-Tupac Shakur catching bullets at a New York studio in November ‘94, a close friend of [rip] Row CEO Suge Knight being k#lled at an Atlanta party in September ‘95, the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac facing off after the Soul Train Music Awards in L.A. this past March-have led to much finger-pointing and confusion. People with little or no connection to [rip] Row or Bad Boy are choosing up sides. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, hip hop heads are proclaiming their “California Love” or exclaiming that the “the East is in the house” with the loyalty of newly initiated gang members. As Dr. Dre put it, “Pretty soon, niccaz from the East Coast ain’t gonna be able to come out here and be safe. And vice versa.”
Meanwhile, the two camps that have the power to put an end to it all have yet to work out their differences. Moreover, Suge Knight’s [rip] Row camp, while publicly claiming there is no beef, has continued to aggravate the situation: first, by making snide public comments about the Bad Boy family, and second, by releasing product that makes the old Dre-vs.-Eazy conflict look tame. The intro to the video for the Tupac/Snoop Doggy Dogg song “2 of Americaz Most Wanted” features two characters named Pig and Buff who are accused of setting up Tupac and are then confronted in their office. And the now infamous B-side, “Hit ‘Em Up,” finds Tupac, in a fit of rage, telling Biggie, “I fu-ked your bi-ch, you fat motherfu-ker,” and then threatening to wipe out all of Bad Boy’s staff and affiliates.
While the records fly off the shelves and the streets get hotter and hotter, Puffy and Big have remained largely silent. Both say they have been reluctant to discuss the drama in any detail because they feel the media and the public have blown it out of proportion. But with knuckleheads questioning why they haven’t brought the ruckus and do-gooders questioning why they haven’t made peace, they’ve decided to end their verbal hiatus.
Why would I set a ***** up to get shot?” says Puffy. “If I’ma set a ***** up, which I would never do, I ain’t gonna be in the country. I’ma be in Bolivia somewhere.” Once again, Puffy is answering accusations that he had something to do with Shakur’s shooting at New York’s Quad Recording Studio, the event that sowed the seeds of Tupac’s beef with the East.
In April 1995, Tupac told VIBE that moments after he was ambushed and shot in the building’s lobby, he took the elevator up to the studio, where he saw about 40 people, including Biggie and Puffy. “Nobody approached me. I noticed that nobody would look at me,” said Tupac, suggesting that the people in the room knew he was going to be shot. In “Hit ‘Em Up,” Tupac does more than suggest, rapping, “Who shot me? But ya punks didn’t finish / Now you’re about to feel the wrath of a menace.”
But Puffy says Tupac’s barking up the wrong tree: “He ain’t mad at the niccas that shot him; he knows where they’re at. He knows who shot him. If you ask him, he knows, and everybody in the street knows, and he’s not stepping to them, because he knows that he’s not gonna get away with that sh-t. To me, that’s some real sucker sh-t. Be mad at everybody, man; don’t be using niccas as scapegoats. We know that he’s a nice guy from New York. All sh-t aside, Tupac is a nice, good-hearted guy.”
Taking a break from recording a new joint for his upcoming album, Life After [rip], Big sinks into the studio’s sofa in a blue Sergio Tacchini running suit that swishes with his every movement. He is visibly bothered by the lingering accusations. “I’m still thinking this *****’s my man,” says Big, who first met Tupac in 1993 during the shooting of John Singleton’s Poetic Justice. “This sh-t’s just got to be talk, that’s all I kept saying to myself. I can’t believe he would think that I would sh-t on him like that.”
He recalls that on the movie set, Tupac kept playing Big’s first single, “Party and ******-t.” Flattered, he met Tupac at his home in L.A., where the two hung out, puffed lah, and chilled. “I always thought it to be like a Gemini thing,” he says. “We just clicked off the top and were cool ever since.” Despite all the talk, Big claims he remained loyal to his partner in rhyme through thick and thin. “Honestly, I didn’t have no problem with the *****,” Big says. “There’s sh-t that muthafu-kas don’t know. I saw the situations and how sh-t was going, and I tried to school the *****. I was there when he bought his first Rolex, but I wasn’t in the position to be rolling like that. I think Tupac felt more comfortable with the dudes he was hanging with because they had just as much money as him.
“He can’t front on me,” says Big. “As much as he may come off as some Biggie hater, he knows. He knows when all that sh-t was going down, I was schooling a ***** to certain things, me and [Live Squad rapper] Stretch-God bless the grave. But he chose to do the things he wanted to do. There wasn’t nothing I could do, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t my man.”
While Tupac was taking shots at Biggie-claiming he’d bit his “player” style and sound-Suge was cooking up his own beef with Bad Boy. At the Source Awards in August 1995, Suge made the now legendary announcement, “If you don’t want the owner of your label on your album or in your video or on your tour, come sign with [rip] Row.” Obviously directed at Puffy’s high-profile role in his artists’ careers, the remark came as a shock. “I couldn’t believe what he said,” Puffy recalls. “I thought we was boys.” All the same, when it came time for Puffy to present an award, he said a few words about East-West unity and made a point of hugging the recipient, [rip] Row artist Snoop Doggy Dogg.
Nonetheless, Suge’s words spread like flu germs, reigniting ancient East-West hostilities. It was in this increasingly tense atmosphere that Big and the Junior M.A.F.I.A. clique reached Atlanta for Jermaine Dupri’s birthday party last September. During the after-party at a club called Platinum House, Suge Knight’s close friend Jake Robles was shot. He died at the hospital a week later. Published reports said that some witnesses claimed a member of Puffy’s entourage was responsible.
At the mention of the incident, Puffy sucks his teeth in frustration. “Here’s what happened,” he says. “I went to Atlanta with my son. At that time, there wasn’t really no drama. I didn’t even have bodyguards, so that’s a lie that I did. I left the club, and I’m waiting for my limo, talking to girls. I don’t see [Suge] go into the club; we don’t make any contact or nothing like that. He gets into a beef in the club with some niccas. I knew the majority of the club, but I don’t know who he got into the beef with, what it was over, or nothing like that. All I heard is that he took beef at the bar. I see people coming out. I see a lot of people that I know, I see him, and I see everybody yelling and screaming and sh-t. I get out the limo and I go to him, like, `What’s up, you all right?’ I’m trying to see if I can help. That’s my muthafu-kin’ problem,” Puffy says, pounding his fist into his palm in frustration. “I’m always trying to see if I can help somebody.
“Anyway, I get out facing him, and I’m, like, `What’s going on, what’s the problem?’ Then I hear shots ringing out, and we turn around and someone’s standing right behind me. His man-God bless the dead-gets shot, and he’s on the floor. My back was turned; I could’ve got shot, and he could’ve got shot. But right then he was, like, `I think you had something to do with this.’ I’m, like, `What are you talking about? I was standing right here with you!’ I really felt sorry for him, in the sense that if he felt that way, he was showing me his insecurity.”
After the Atlanta shooting, people on both coasts began speculating. Would there be retribution? All-out war? According to a New York Times Magazine cover story, Puffy sent Louis Farrakhan’s son, Mustafa, to talk with Suge. Puffy says he did not send Mustafa but did tell him, “If there’s anything you can do to put an end to this ******-t, I’m with it.” The Times reported that Suge refused to meet with Mustafa. Suge has since declined to speak about his friend’s murk.
Less than two weeks later, when it came time for the “How Can I Be Down?” rap conference in Miami, the heat was on. Suge, who has never concealed his past affiliations with L.A.’s notorious Bloods, was rumored to be coming with an army. Puffy was said to be bringing a ma#sive of New York drug lords and thugs. When the conference came and Puffy did not attend, Billboard reported that it was due to threats from [rip] Row.
On December 16, 1995, it became apparent that the trouble was spilling into the streets. In Red Hook, Brooklyn, shots were fired at the trailer where [rip] Row artists Tha Dogg Pound were making a video for “New York, New York”-which features Godzilla-size West Coasters stomping on the Big Apple. No one was hurt, but the message was clear. Then came “L.A., L.A.,” an answer record from New York MCs Tragedy, Capone, Noreaga, and Mobb Deep. That video featured stand-ins for Tha Dogg Pound’s Daz and Kurupt being kidnapped, tortured, and tossed off the 59th Street Bridge.
By this time, the rumor mill had kicked into overdrive. The latest story was that Tupac was boning Biggie’s wife, Faith Evans, and Suge was getting with Puffy’s ex, Misa Hylton. [rip] Row allegedly printed up a magazine ad featuring Misa and Suge holding Puffy’s two-year-old son, with a caption reading “The East Coast can’t even take care of their own.” The ad-which was discussed on New York’s Hot 97 by resident gossip Wendy Williams-never ran anywhere, but reps were tarnished nonetheless. [rip] Row now denies that such an ad ever existed. Puffy says he didn’t know about any ad. Misa says, “I don’t do interviews.”
Meanwhile, Tupac kept rumors about himself and Faith alive with vague comments in interviews like “You know I don’t kiss and tell.” But in “Hit ‘Em Up,” released this May, he does just that, telling Biggie, “You claim to be a player, but I fu-ked your wife.” (Faith, for her part, denies ever sleeping with Tupac.)
When talk turns to his estranged wife, Biggie shrugs his shoulders and pulls on a blunt. “If the muthafu-ka really did fu-k Fay, that’s foul how he’s just blowin’ her like that,” he says. “Never once did he say that Fay did some foul sh-t to him. If honey was to give you the pus-y, why would you disrespect her like that? If you had beef with me, and you’re, like, `Boom, I’ma fu-k his wife,’ would you be so harsh on her? Like you got beef with her? That sh-t doesn’t make sense. That’s why I don’t believe it.”
What was still mostly talk and propaganda took a turn for the ugly at the Soul Train Awards this past March. When Biggie accepted his award and bigged-up Brooklyn, the crowd hissed. But the real drama came after the show, when Tupac and Biggie came face-to-face for the first time since Pac’s shooting more than two years before. “That was the first time I really looked into his face,” says Big. “I looked into his eyes and I was, like, Yo, this ***** is really buggin’ the fu-k out.”
The following week’s Hollywood Reporter quoted an unnamed source saying that Shakur waved a pistol at Biggie. “Nah, Pac didn’t pull steel on me,” says Big. “He was on some tough sh-t, though. I can’t knock them dudes for the way they go about their biz. They made everything seem so dramatic. I felt the darkness when he rolled up that night. Duke came out the window fatigued out, screaming `West Side! Outlaws!’ I was, like, `That’s Bishop [Tupac’s character in the movie Juice]!’ Whatever he’s doing right now, that’s the role he’s playing. He played that sh-t to a tee. He had his little goons with him, and Suge was with him, and they was, like, `We gonna settle this now.’ “
That’s when Big’s ace, Little Caesar of Junior M.A.F.I.A., stepped up. “The ***** Ceez-pissy drunk-is up in the joint, like, `fu-k you!’ ” Big recalls. “Ceez is, like, `fu-k you, *****! East Coast, muthafu-ka!’ Pac is, like, `We on the West Side now, we gonna handle this sh-t.’ Then his niccas start formulating and my niccas start formulating-somebody pulled a gun, muthafu-kas start screaming, `He got a gun, he got a gun!’ We’re, like, `We’re in L.A. What the fu-k are we supposed to do, shoot out?’ That’s when I knew it was on.”
But not long after the Soul Train incident, it appeared as if [rip] Row might be starting to chill. At a mid-May East-West “rap summit” in Philadelphia, set up by Dr. Ben Chavis to help defuse the situation, Suge avoided any negative comments about Puffy (who did not attend because he says there was too much hype around the event). “There’s nothing between [rip] Row and Bad Boy, or me and Puffy,” said Knight. “[rip] Row sells volume-so how could Puffy be a threat to me, or Bad Boy be a threat to [rip] Row?” A few weeks later, however, [rip] Row released a song that told a different tale.
When Tupac’s “Hit ‘Em Up”-which mimics the chorus of Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s “Player’s Anthem” (“Grab your Glocks when you see Tupac”)-hit the streets of New York, damn near every jeep, coupe, and walkman was pumping it. No fakin’ jacks here, son; Tupac set it on the East something lovely. He says he put out the song in retaliation for Big’s 1995 “Who Shot Ya,” which he took as a comment on his own shooting. “Even if that song ain’t about me,” he told VIBE, “You should be, like, `I’m not putting it out, ‘cause he might think it’s about him.’ “
“I wrote that muthafu-kin’ song way before Tupac got shot,” says Big, like he’s said it before. “It was supposed to be the intro to that sh-t Keith Murray was doing on Mary J. Blige’s joint. But Puff said it was too hard.” As if the lyrical haymakers thrown at Bad Boy weren’t enough, Pac went the extra mile and pulled Mobb Deep into the mix. “Don’t one of you niccas got sickle-cell or something?” he says on the record. “You gonna fu-k around and have a seizure or a heart attack. You’d better back the fu-k up before you get smacked the fu-k up.”
Prodigy of Mobb Deep says he couldn’t believe what he heard. “I was, like, Oh sh-t. Them niccas is sh-ttin’ on me. He’s talking about my health. Yo, he doesn’t even know me, to be talking about sh-t like that. I never had any beef with Tupac. I never said his name. So that sh-t just hurt. I’m, like, Yeah, all right, whatever. I just gotta handle that sh-t.” Asked what he means by “handling” it, Prodigy replies, “I don’t know, son. We gonna see that ***** somewhere and-whatever. I don’t know what it’s gonna be.” In the meantime, the infamous ones plan to include an answer to “Hit ‘Em Up” on the B-side of an upcoming single.
n a recent interview with VIBEonline, Tupac summed up his feelings toward Bad Boy in typically dramatic fashion: “Fear got stronger than love, and niccas did things they weren’t supposed to do. They know in their hearts-that’s why they’re in hell now. They can’t sleep. That’s why they’re telling all the reporters and all the people, `Why they doing this? They fu-king up hip hop’ and blah-blah-blah, ‘cause they in hell. They can’t make money, they can’t go anywhere. They can’t look at themselves, ‘cause they know the prodigal son has returned.”
In the face of all this, one might wonder why Biggie hasn’t retaliated physically to Tupac’s threats. After all, he’s the same Bed-Stuy soldier who rapped, “C-4 to your door, no beef no more.” Says Big, “The whole reason I was being cool from Day One was because of that ***** Puff. ‘Cause Puff don’t get down like that.”
So what about a response on record? “He got the streets riled up because he got a little song dissing me,” Big replies, “but how would I look dissing him back? My niccas is, like, `fu-k dat *****, that *****’s so much on your !!, it don’t even make no sense to say anything.”
Given [rip] Row’s intimidating reputation, does Puffy believe that he’s in physical danger? “I never knew of my life being in danger,” he says calmly. “I’m not saying that I’m ignorant to the rumors. But if you got a problem and somebody wants to get your[..], they don’t talk about it. What it’s been right now is a lot of moviemaking and a lot of entertainment drama. Bad boys move in silence. If somebody wants to get your[..], you’re gonna wake up in heaven. There ain’t no record gonna be made about it. It ain’t gonna be no interviews; it’s gonna be straight-up `Oh sh-t, where am I? What are these wings on my back? Your name is Jesus Christ?’ When you’re involved in some real sh-t, it’s gonna be some real sh-t.
“But ain’t no man gonna make me act a way that I don’t want to act. Or make me be something I’m not. I ain’t a gangster, so why y’all gonna tell me to start acting like a gangster? I’m trying to be an intelligent black man. I don’t give a fu-k if niccas think that’s corny or not. If anybody comes and touches me, I’m going to defend myself. But I’ma be me-a young ***** who came up making music, trying to put niccas on, handle his business, and make some history.”
The history of hip hop is built on battles. But it used to be that when heads had a problem, they could pull a mike and settle it, using hollow-point rhymes to rub their competitors off the map. Well, things done changed. The era of the gun clapper is upon us, with rappers and record execs alike taking their cue from Scarface. Meanwhile, those on the sidelines seem less concerned with the truth than with fanning the flames-gossiping about [rip] threats and retribution, lying in wait for the first sign of bloodshed.
More than anything, Puffy seems exhausted by the whole ordeal. But after all he’s seen in the past two years, nothing can surprise him-except, maybe, the squashing of this beef. “I’m ready for it to come to a head, however it gotta go down,” he says. “I’m ready for it to be out my life and be over with. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I just hope it can end quick and in a positive way, because it’s gotten out of hand.”
Less than two weeks later, when it came time for the “How Can I Be Down?” rap conference in Miami, the heat was on. Suge, who has never concealed his past affiliations with L.A.’s notorious Bloods, was rumored to be coming with an army. Puffy was said to be bringing a ma#sive of New York drug lords and thugs. When the conference came and Puffy did not attend, Billboard reported that it was due to threats from [rip] Row.
On December 16, 1995, it became apparent that the trouble was spilling into the streets. In Red Hook, Brooklyn, shots were fired at the trailer where [rip] Row artists Tha Dogg Pound were making a video for “New York, New York”-which features Godzilla-size West Coasters stomping on the Big Apple. No one was hurt, but the message was clear. Then came “L.A., L.A.,” an answer record from New York MCs Tragedy, Capone, Noreaga, and Mobb Deep. That video featured stand-ins for Tha Dogg Pound’s Daz and Kurupt being kidnapped, tortured, and tossed off the 59th Street Bridge.
By this time, the rumor mill had kicked into overdrive. The latest story was that Tupac was boning Biggie’s wife, Faith Evans, and Suge was getting with Puffy’s ex, Misa Hylton. [rip] Row allegedly printed up a magazine ad featuring Misa and Suge holding Puffy’s two-year-old son, with a caption reading “The East Coast can’t even take care of their own.” The ad-which was discussed on New York’s Hot 97 by resident gossip Wendy Williams-never ran anywhere, but reps were tarnished nonetheless. [rip] Row now denies that such an ad ever existed. Puffy says he didn’t know about any ad. Misa says, “I don’t do interviews.”
Meanwhile, Tupac kept rumors about himself and Faith alive with vague comments in interviews like “You know I don’t kiss and tell.” But in “Hit ‘Em Up,” released this May, he does just that, telling Biggie, “You claim to be a player, but I fu-ked your wife.” (Faith, for her part, denies ever sleeping with Tupac.)
When talk turns to his estranged wife, Biggie shrugs his shoulders and pulls on a blunt. “If the muthafu-ka really did fu-k Fay, that’s foul how he’s just blowin’ her like that,” he says. “Never once did he say that Fay did some foul sh-t to him. If honey was to give you the pus-y, why would you disrespect her like that? If you had beef with me, and you’re, like, `Boom, I’ma fu-k his wife,’ would you be so harsh on her? Like you got beef with her? That sh-t doesn’t make sense. That’s why I don’t believe it.”
What was still mostly talk and propaganda took a turn for the ugly at the Soul Train Awards this past March. When Biggie accepted his award and bigged-up Brooklyn, the crowd hissed. But the real drama came after the show, when Tupac and Biggie came face-to-face for the first time since Pac’s shooting more than two years before. “That was the first time I really looked into his face,” says Big. “I looked into his eyes and I was, like, Yo, this ***** is really buggin’ the fu-k out.”
The following week’s Hollywood Reporter quoted an unnamed source saying that Shakur waved a pistol at Biggie. “Nah, Pac didn’t pull steel on me,” says Big. “He was on some tough sh-t, though. I can’t knock them dudes for the way they go about their biz. They made everything seem so dramatic. I felt the darkness when he rolled up that night. Duke came out the window fatigued out, screaming `West Side! Outlaws!’ I was, like, `That’s Bishop [Tupac’s character in the movie Juice]!’ Whatever he’s doing right now, that’s the role he’s playing. He played that sh-t to a tee. He had his little goons with him, and Suge was with him, and they was, like, `We gonna settle this now.’ “
That’s when Big’s ace, Little Caesar of Junior M.A.F.I.A., stepped up. “The ***** Ceez-pissy drunk-is up in the joint, like, `fu-k you!’ ” Big recalls. “Ceez is, like, `fu-k you, *****! East Coast, muthafu-ka!’ Pac is, like, `We on the West Side now, we gonna handle this sh-t.’ Then his niccas start formulating and my niccas start formulating-somebody pulled a gun, muthafu-kas start screaming, `He got a gun, he got a gun!’ We’re, like, `We’re in L.A. What the fu-k are we supposed to do, shoot out?’ That’s when I knew it was on.”
But not long after the Soul Train incident, it appeared as if [rip] Row might be starting to chill. At a mid-May East-West “rap summit” in Philadelphia, set up by Dr. Ben Chavis to help defuse the situation, Suge avoided any negative comments about Puffy (who did not attend because he says there was too much hype around the event). “There’s nothing between [rip] Row and Bad Boy, or me and Puffy,” said Knight. “[rip] Row sells volume-so how could Puffy be a threat to me, or Bad Boy be a threat to [rip] Row?” A few weeks later, however, [rip] Row released a song that told a different tale.
When Tupac’s “Hit ‘Em Up”-which mimics the chorus of Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s “Player’s Anthem” (“Grab your Glocks when you see Tupac”)-hit the streets of New York, damn near every jeep, coupe, and walkman was pumping it. No fakin’ jacks here, son; Tupac set it on the East something lovely. He says he put out the song in retaliation for Big’s 1995 “Who Shot Ya,” which he took as a comment on his own shooting. “Even if that song ain’t about me,” he told VIBE, “You should be, like, `I’m not putting it out, ‘cause he might think it’s about him.’ “
“I wrote that muthafu-kin’ song way before Tupac got shot,” says Big, like he’s said it before. “It was supposed to be the intro to that sh-t Keith Murray was doing on Mary J. Blige’s joint. But Puff said it was too hard.” As if the lyrical haymakers thrown at Bad Boy weren’t enough, Pac went the extra mile and pulled Mobb Deep into the mix. “Don’t one of you niccas got sickle-cell or something?” he says on the record. “You gonna fu-k around and have a seizure or a heart attack. You’d better back the fu-k up before you get smacked the fu-k up.”
Prodigy of Mobb Deep says he couldn’t believe what he heard. “I was, like, Oh sh-t. Them niccas is sh-ttin’ on me. He’s talking about my health. Yo, he doesn’t even know me, to be talking about sh-t like that. I never had any beef with Tupac. I never said his name. So that sh-t just hurt. I’m, like, Yeah, all right, whatever. I just gotta handle that sh-t.” Asked what he means by “handling” it, Prodigy replies, “I don’t know, son. We gonna see that ***** somewhere and-whatever. I don’t know what it’s gonna be.” In the meantime, the infamous ones plan to include an answer to “Hit ‘Em Up” on the B-side of an upcoming single.
n a recent interview with VIBEonline, Tupac summed up his feelings toward Bad Boy in typically dramatic fashion: “Fear got stronger than love, and niccas did things they weren’t supposed to do. They know in their hearts-that’s why they’re in hell now. They can’t sleep. That’s why they’re telling all the reporters and all the people, `Why they doing this? They fu-king up hip hop’ and blah-blah-blah, ‘cause they in hell. They can’t make money, they can’t go anywhere. They can’t look at themselves, ‘cause they know the prodigal son has returned.”
In the face of all this, one might wonder why Biggie hasn’t retaliated physically to Tupac’s threats. After all, he’s the same Bed-Stuy soldier who rapped, “C-4 to your door, no beef no more.” Says Big, “The whole reason I was being cool from Day One was because of that ***** Puff. ‘Cause Puff don’t get down like that.”
So what about a response on record? “He got the streets riled up because he got a little song dissing me,” Big replies, “but how would I look dissing him back? My niccas is, like, `fu-k dat *****, that *****’s so much on your !!, it don’t even make no sense to say anything.”
Given [rip] Row’s intimidating reputation, does Puffy believe that he’s in physical danger? “I never knew of my life being in danger,” he says calmly. “I’m not saying that I’m ignorant to the rumors. But if you got a problem and somebody wants to get your[..], they don’t talk about it. What it’s been right now is a lot of moviemaking and a lot of entertainment drama. Bad boys move in silence. If somebody wants to get your[..], you’re gonna wake up in heaven. There ain’t no record gonna be made about it. It ain’t gonna be no interviews; it’s gonna be straight-up `Oh sh-t, where am I? What are these wings on my back? Your name is Jesus Christ?’ When you’re involved in some real sh-t, it’s gonna be some real sh-t.
“But ain’t no man gonna make me act a way that I don’t want to act. Or make me be something I’m not. I ain’t a gangster, so why y’all gonna tell me to start acting like a gangster? I’m trying to be an intelligent black man. I don’t give a fu-k if niccas think that’s corny or not. If anybody comes and touches me, I’m going to defend myself. But I’ma be me-a young ***** who came up making music, trying to put niccas on, handle his business, and make some history.”
The history of hip hop is built on battles. But it used to be that when heads had a problem, they could pull a mike and settle it, using hollow-point rhymes to rub their competitors off the map. Well, things done changed. The era of the gun clapper is upon us, with rappers and record execs alike taking their cue from Scarface. Meanwhile, those on the sidelines seem less concerned with the truth than with fanning the flames-gossiping about [rip] threats and retribution, lying in wait for the first sign of bloodshed.
More than anything, Puffy seems exhausted by the whole ordeal. But after all he’s seen in the past two years, nothing can surprise him-except, maybe, the squashing of this beef. “I’m ready for it to come to a head, however it gotta go down,” he says. “I’m ready for it to be out my life and be over with. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I just hope it can end quick and in a positive way, because it’s gotten out of hand.”
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biggie says that pac knew who shot him...and pa was just using them as a scapegoat because he didn't want to put in that work on the streets.
meek meals
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Good stuff. Repped.
mikejeffjo
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This maybe why dude compared Pac to MLK very deep
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Need to catch up on this thread. So much info.
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I've heard this theory as well.
imstillmike
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All smart motha****as. Keep on hating and keep on staying broke. It's different when you are born with nothing then you gain something, your attirude change. If Pac wasn't like that he wouldn't be who he is. While he was in jail he said he wanted to quit rappin but then rappers started to spread rumors about him and he couldn't live with it. He obviously need someone to back him up as he had nobody with him, all turned against him, and he and Suge went to sell some records.
At start it was only for the money from Pac's side what actually he told Biggie. For Suge it was money and revenge for Jake Robles. By spring/summer 96' sht went down. Puffy hired Crips for protection and that escalated, further with media east/west bs. There were shoutouts and beating between gangs behind the scenes. Then Puffy putting money on DR chains and Orlando snatching one, Bloods screwed Crips over some big drug deal and it went out of hands. It was just matter of time. It wasn't a single fault.
About hating on Suge, calling him ***** or whatever but dude had criminal enterprise and billion dollar record company. What you did? Real gangsters feared him, and you talkin **** like he ain't sht to me.
About hating on Pac, he lived in his short life more then any of you. Funny you calling him fake and sht but he was running sht. I respect face to face, this keyboard hating is the lowest way of hating.
In one of his last interview he talking on having their own political party, he talkin about investing in community every time his album hits platinum from his next album, he talkin hes gonna be so much far then he was then in the next 4 years. He planned to build Thugz Mansions around the country for free which would take young black kids outta streets and drugs. If he passed that Death Row era we would see.
Suge got him outta jail and he was loyal dude, if he is down for you he is down for you to death. And he was. Police brutally beated him for no reason, he was harassed several times by the police, thats why he hated them. You haters don't know sht about Pac beside what media and journalists say so quit talkin. What he did to get that tough image you don't know, what he did to get that full of heart image you don't know. He was real. Many of old MOB Piru members who was around at the time consider him a soldier. He wasn't a gangster and he didn't claim he was but he was known to bust when needed. When Chuck Norris kill a bunch of people in a movie is he considered as a killer? No. Is 2pac when talked about gangsta lifestyle in songs considered as a gangster? No, he showed who he is by his actions. And only actions mfks see is mixing going to arts school and next one being a gangsta. Thats what you like to see and hear. Your hate is what keeps you staying broke and thats why you hating on here, pathetic mfks.
Look at the reality for a moment. Look how he went from nobody to a big *** somebody. He paid for that game, everybody learned on his mistakes, hip hop world is 95% influenced by him, he died for the ****. But at the same time he had no other option. Chose to be nothing or die a legend. He did what he did and people should stop hating. Don't forget what color of iPhone 5 your kid want, if you buy him wrong color he might hate you and be depressed. Force it for the best grades in school, if he gets best grade buy him Playstation. Oh you are barely having money so you can't fulfill your promise, he gonna be depressed. Give your daughter Facebook at 15 so she can put on slutty poses on it, take it from her, she gonna hate you. Thats the life you most people is living and by that you can't mess with other people lives. They live or they lived how they did. People like 2pac fighted their whole life, going through struggles and obstacles, try to fit yourself in his shoes. You wouldn't do nothing or made anything. Fear is biggest peoples problem, in fear they will turn the back on you ordo anyrhing. Pac barely had fear, thats why he is what he is now. He went through all that, getting shot, jail and death threats. He died a legend and you are just a random dude strugglin when gas prices go up. Sad.
At start it was only for the money from Pac's side what actually he told Biggie. For Suge it was money and revenge for Jake Robles. By spring/summer 96' sht went down. Puffy hired Crips for protection and that escalated, further with media east/west bs. There were shoutouts and beating between gangs behind the scenes. Then Puffy putting money on DR chains and Orlando snatching one, Bloods screwed Crips over some big drug deal and it went out of hands. It was just matter of time. It wasn't a single fault.
About hating on Suge, calling him ***** or whatever but dude had criminal enterprise and billion dollar record company. What you did? Real gangsters feared him, and you talkin **** like he ain't sht to me.
About hating on Pac, he lived in his short life more then any of you. Funny you calling him fake and sht but he was running sht. I respect face to face, this keyboard hating is the lowest way of hating.
In one of his last interview he talking on having their own political party, he talkin about investing in community every time his album hits platinum from his next album, he talkin hes gonna be so much far then he was then in the next 4 years. He planned to build Thugz Mansions around the country for free which would take young black kids outta streets and drugs. If he passed that Death Row era we would see.
Suge got him outta jail and he was loyal dude, if he is down for you he is down for you to death. And he was. Police brutally beated him for no reason, he was harassed several times by the police, thats why he hated them. You haters don't know sht about Pac beside what media and journalists say so quit talkin. What he did to get that tough image you don't know, what he did to get that full of heart image you don't know. He was real. Many of old MOB Piru members who was around at the time consider him a soldier. He wasn't a gangster and he didn't claim he was but he was known to bust when needed. When Chuck Norris kill a bunch of people in a movie is he considered as a killer? No. Is 2pac when talked about gangsta lifestyle in songs considered as a gangster? No, he showed who he is by his actions. And only actions mfks see is mixing going to arts school and next one being a gangsta. Thats what you like to see and hear. Your hate is what keeps you staying broke and thats why you hating on here, pathetic mfks.
Look at the reality for a moment. Look how he went from nobody to a big *** somebody. He paid for that game, everybody learned on his mistakes, hip hop world is 95% influenced by him, he died for the ****. But at the same time he had no other option. Chose to be nothing or die a legend. He did what he did and people should stop hating. Don't forget what color of iPhone 5 your kid want, if you buy him wrong color he might hate you and be depressed. Force it for the best grades in school, if he gets best grade buy him Playstation. Oh you are barely having money so you can't fulfill your promise, he gonna be depressed. Give your daughter Facebook at 15 so she can put on slutty poses on it, take it from her, she gonna hate you. Thats the life you most people is living and by that you can't mess with other people lives. They live or they lived how they did. People like 2pac fighted their whole life, going through struggles and obstacles, try to fit yourself in his shoes. You wouldn't do nothing or made anything. Fear is biggest peoples problem, in fear they will turn the back on you ordo anyrhing. Pac barely had fear, thats why he is what he is now. He went through all that, getting shot, jail and death threats. He died a legend and you are just a random dude strugglin when gas prices go up. Sad.
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But why?
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i am not sure what caused you to write all of this and why today but
2pac = Legend Among Men
In the words of the Legend himself, "If you can't find something' to live for, you best find somethin' to die for".
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Haitian Jack was big underground name once upon the time . Now he is nobody. Forget him. He is exposed as a snitch and there is a mark on him. From NY to LA. What you trying to claim is that Pac was a coward and a faker. That is what you want to hear. Well, that ain't gonna happen. Most he went is being a low profile gangster robbing drug dealers, Pac went up to be multimillionare paid brother. No matter how much money he had when he died, while he lived he lived as a paid mfka.
Look Pac didn't grow up in the same black neighbrhood, he moved a lot and he didn't grew up in hood. He was all over. Haitian Jack was a dude who grew up on street in the violence and and thats the only way he knew. But Pac coming newly introduced to all that lifestyle he had some big *** balls to run around some sociopath gangsters. He was like 23 at the time and Jack was 30 or so. If you are face to face with some of those dudes you gonna sht bricks, so mouth shut.
To end this, Fk haters, keep on hating and keep on staying broke. Lot of sht talkers nowadays but they ain't doing nothing when you see them. So keep hating and try to bring down somebody. You'll figure that you're stupid eventually.
Look Pac didn't grow up in the same black neighbrhood, he moved a lot and he didn't grew up in hood. He was all over. Haitian Jack was a dude who grew up on street in the violence and and thats the only way he knew. But Pac coming newly introduced to all that lifestyle he had some big *** balls to run around some sociopath gangsters. He was like 23 at the time and Jack was 30 or so. If you are face to face with some of those dudes you gonna sht bricks, so mouth shut.
To end this, Fk haters, keep on hating and keep on staying broke. Lot of sht talkers nowadays but they ain't doing nothing when you see them. So keep hating and try to bring down somebody. You'll figure that you're stupid eventually.
- 40,420
- 41,078
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2002
Getting bent all out of shape when someone says Tupac wasn't the realest, doesn't help anything.
If someone told you Michael Jordan wasn't the greatest ball player of all time, you wouldn't get offended and argue, you'd laugh it off and said person's opinion would carry no weight.
Are you trying to convince the "haters" or yourself???
If someone told you Michael Jordan wasn't the greatest ball player of all time, you wouldn't get offended and argue, you'd laugh it off and said person's opinion would carry no weight.
Are you trying to convince the "haters" or yourself???
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- Joined
- Oct 2, 2013
Look, to be simple, if you don't like the man and his music there is really no need to talk about him. Ya'll talked lot of sht but I would like to see you how would you deal with those situations in his place. Time was, if you want to be accepted in the bizz prove something. Pac gave his life for the game. If you don't like it, your problem. And I don't like when people talk something they don't know about, but just to bring the mans name down.
