Cause we all got at least one question, and we all got at least one answer too!
I grew up in Northern California and we claimed 2Pac as one of us even though by the time he went to Death Row he switched to representing LA instead of the Bay. After Pac was murdered, I had friends who wouldn't even listen to Biggie out of respect for Pac. Even though I listened to Biggie at times, I can't deny that I intentionally avoided listening to him at times as well. It was silly tribalistic stuff, but it was the era. I remember watching a guy in New York request California Love on MTV. I told myself I would never recommend a Biggie song haha. It is even more silly considering Pac was originally from the East Coast. I was curious if you guys noticed similar things on the East Coast. Did you know people who avoided listening to Pac or West Coast artists before or after Biggie was killed?
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All of my friends and I were kind of hating on what Biggie had become with all of the shiny suit, champagne shit. It was more army fatigues vs Versace suits than East Coast vs. West Coast for us. We never hated on West Coast gangster rap because we looked at it as sort of a separate genre of music that we enjoyed separately in a different way if that makes sense. (Although there were always dope east/west collabs.) But yeah, we were always more critical of Big.
Mid forties female from Queens can confirm this how we was feelin in QB back then lol!!
No hate to west coast whatsoever just like hating on ppl gettin fancy and forgetting where they came from (which Wu-Tang proved you could be successful and GIVE back and not forget where you came from)lol def Versace suits vs Camo time 🤣💯
It felt like Biggie just used NY for clout by time he dead ,I did not feel like he was with us any more.
I so I love this comment!
I’m so tired of media portrayals of eastcoast ppl in the scene like rabidly hatin pac when we were busy side eying Biggie 🤣
I’ll expand in another comment but you really nailed it here from my experiences🙏
Also from my perspective QB artists and affiliate and the neighborhood as well (which was super tight knit)really fought hard against stokin Nas / Cormega beef for this very reason.
I remember ppl legit sayin: “For Real staying neutral on this shit, we ain’t need to be EVEN havin none of that shit like TuPac and Biggie”… followed by murmurs of agreement by most around us.
The pac vs big thing took up way too much space when reported on then I feel like it actually did in the scene in NYC.
Edited cuz accidentally deleted crucial sentence. ✌️ And nvm my comments all together lol
Point is I wholeheartedly agree!
Thats super interesting what you said about Queensbridge at that time.
There’s also the fact that Pac was doing stuff with Duck Down and Duck Down vs. Bad Boy in general. Also Jeru with One Day. I remember the first time I heard that and Stretch Armstrong just kept bringing back that first verse. We were hyped!
It’s crazy like once the beef really blew up and The Firm shit was way over with there kinda wasn’t room to be neutral lol… but I think it definitely would have been much worse and him and Corey never gotten to make up if it hadn’t been so resisted in the first place.
The scenes specific to neighborhood and definitely class played a big role in how things were perceived day to day as opposed to how they are retold in media or shown at the time.
There was just sooo much music coming out of the tri-state a lot of it shooting off into areas we think of now as sub genres that for me and my friends big and pac were not thought about as much as portrayed.
Like this sub is way more obsessed with it then I ever remember anyone being back then.
But shit was so different then I mean you had Dead Prez playing punk venues and not being accepted at traditionally thought of rap/hip hop venues.
There had been soo many young kids takin notes from Eric B and Rakim coming of age that had something to say in their own way and figuring out where everyone fit was wild times!
plus the mixtape cd era was coming !!!
Idk and scenes seemed to change every week and there were cliques… like Blackstar fans were a whole snooty uppity thing back then.
But again this also relates to age I think someone ten years older than me growing up in NYC might have a different perspective and be more attached to Biggie?
Idk I feel like we were just more divided amongst ourselves lol then we were tryin to fight another coast.
Yes! I got way too wrapped up in the 89.9, Fat Beats world (and I definitely saw Dead Prez at a few clubs that probably had punk rock on other nights!) Thank god the mixtape era came along just in time as that indie/backpack scene got super corny.
I saw Rahzel with dilated peoples at a small/medium rave. Was incredible. Then caught Donald Glaude’s set.
As somebody from younger generation than yours, let me just say Im so glad people like you are on this sub.
I would like to ask you so much questions about hip hop from that era, but right now I can just thank you for spreading the culture!
🙏✌️🥲awww TY!
As a guy in Canada with no affiliation, this is so interesting to hear and I totally feel you. When Puffy's indulgent influence grew on Biggie it made me check out, luckily it made my love for Guys like WuTang and Mobb Deep grow even more because it felt like they didn't forget their roots. Brag rap never connected with me, I always hated it and when I started seeing videos of dudes in boats with strippers, flashy jewelry, designer clothes, and mansions. At that point the music loses its soul and humanity and I don't fuck with that.
For real I can feel someone heart turned to garbage when showin off the bag is all ya want to rap about and then I’m looking for the exit >>>>💨
It's a common trope with a lot of art, if you wanna connect with an audience you have to be relatable. I'm sorry but if all your content is rapping about millions in the bank, Rolls Royce's, thousand dollar a plate restaurants, etc you can't connect with the average listener and you're going to lose a lot of your OG fans. And if your passion is money and greed, it also means leaving behind the people that got you there in the first place.
💯
Do yall still stand by this take?
Definitely not, haha. The amount of dope music I missed out on as a kid being such a puritanical, boom bap, backpack type hip hop head was nuts.
Hot 97 in New York became a Hip Hop station in 1993. Besides a couple of Pac’s biggest hits, that station blasted anything Bad Boy for the next 6 or 7 years straight. West coast artist got no love on Hot 97. And back then, Hot 97 was the main source of music consumption for the New York area.
Yeah, I remember hearing Pac mentioned in an interview how Flex would ridicule West Coast rap. This was all before the Quad Studio shooting, New York New York shooting in Brooklyn, Source Awards, etc.
They were both legendary and prolific artists, but their lives and styles were completely different. Pac was definitely more poetic in his approach to making music. Biggie was more of a savage with gritty rhyme schemes and street knowledge.
https://youtu.be/3jIiIa4U0K8?feature=shared
The beef was unfortunate and who knows what really happened behind the scenes to cause it, versus what's been shared publicly. I can't see BIG setting up Pac to get shot but I can def see Diddy doing some dirt like that.
Anyway, 90s was the best era for hip hop. Bring old school hip hop back...when it was really about the art.
Pac knew Biggie and Puff didn’t actually set up the attack.
He just had them being the Robert Loggia character when they did the Scarface scene in the 2 of Amerika’s Most Wanted music video because it plays better onscreen than what he was saying in interviews.
What he claimed in interviews is that they knew he was about to get fucked up and didn’t give him a heads-up.
I suppose it’s possible but I can’t imagine why Jimmy Henchman went around telling people like Biggie “we’re going to attack your friend, so keep this a secret”.
Honestly I stopped listening to 2pac after he dropped the biggie diss. I’m from Detroit & I’m a fan of both coasts but the sun rises in the east!! & if I had to choose , east coast is where 75% of my favorite rappers are from,
Both BIG & Pac were native NY'ers. The Outlaws were from Jersey. We always had love. Shock was the reaction to the violence that happened. This was hardly the fist M.C. battle in history, and we thought it'd stay on wax where it belonged. I'm Brooklyn born and raised and while who the better M.C. was is debatable - Tupac was absolutely more of a talented individual than BIG could ever hope to be.
I lived through it but I was young and living in the Midwest at the time.
I listened to both frequently. To this day, they’re two of my favorite artists of all time.
As a joke cause Tupac is also from NY
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MTV and Vibe magazine definitely exaggerated it as West Coast vs. East Coast. It was just catchier than Suge/Pac vs Puffy/Big. There were plenty of West Coast rappers who hated each other, plenty of East Coast rappers who hated each other and plenty of West Coast and East Coast rappers who got along with each other.
Biggie outshined pac in every way. Tupac tried to be gangsta and got killed for it
Thankfully, Biggie survived.
Tupac went through some shit; got him rightly paranoid. He had no choice. Getting shot at, incarcerated, people want him dead…..
It fuck anyone up. All one has left after that are ride or die when one’s on the street.
If you know, you know.
Yeah, listening to some of his music now and thinking about what happened, he seemed like someone deeply paranoid.
How many movies was Biggie in? How many albums did Biggie have? How many books of poetry did Biggie have published?
You may think he's the better MC/rapper, but he didn't outshine Pac in every way.
Lmao he never repped the bay but they still claim him like crazy I don’t understand it
"I'm comin' outta OAKTOWN b**** f*** around"
He repped Oakland on his first 2 albums and around the 91-93 time frame. Songs like Representin 93’, Gaffled like That, Slippin into Darkness, Nothin But Love, We Do This, etc..
He went from MC New York to the Menace of Marin to an Oakland OG to “to Live and Die in LA”. Chino XL rapped about Tupac always changing his city when they were dissing each other.
Pac claimed Oakland on more songs than any other place.
He was kind of a turf hopper it appears. Seems like he may have felt a way being from NY and wanting more praise there. Especially after making a dedication song in Old school
Looks like mr. "crazy I don’t understand it " disappeared.
All anyone has to do is you know, actually listen to his music.
He mentions both Marin City and Oakland on his first album. He claims Oakland on S4MN and on a bunch of other songs. He doesn’t claim any other city nearly as often as he does Oakland.
He mentions in interviews how he moved around quite a lot.
On MATW, he makes a song letting you know he spent early years in NY and praises 80s NY rappers.
On AEOM and Makaveli he’s more on his West Side thing and rapping about how much he enjoys living in LA.
He also had My Block with the outro of talking specifically how he has lived in New York, Baltimore, Marin City, Oakland, and LA.
I personally stopped listening to Pac for the reasons you mentioned but I think most people didn't stop and my crew didn't. They bought his albums as soon as they came out. I'm from Brooklyn, grew up a few blocks from Big. Yeah, we fed into the east vs. west but honestly I remember a lot of dudes still had love for Pac. For three reasons mostly:
First, he represented NYC too for a good part of his career. He was in Juice. So I think we didn't really see him as an outsider. Second, the content of a lot of music was seen as a voice for the hood. So that gave him a lot of love.
I think another key reason, was despite Hit Em Up, Big never ever talked about Pac. So a lot of it was media driven. I read that Jay-Z wanted him to say something but he never did. In Big's bio it was written that he loved Pac and was deeply hurt by the allegations. So he didn't want anyone to respond.
So I think the fact Big never added fuel to the fire, made Pac still respected. Pac took a shot at Nas too at one point. Had NY dudes like Big and Nas and Jay-Z started firing back, it could've been different but it mostly seemed one-sided and media driven.
They are both just MC’s, biggie had way clever rhymes and pac picked cornball disco beats