How Mary J Blige could have prevented the Biggie Smalls and 2Pac beef
Many wouldn’t believe that Mary J Blige once possessed the power to prevent the East Coast-West Coast war of the 1990s. However, few know that she and her label indirectly and accidentally contributed to its escalation in a weird and scary way.
Mary J. Blige was around Bad Boy Entertainment during its peak and was close to all of the artists on the label. From Lil Kim to Biggie Smalls, she knew MCs and also worked with many of the label’s producers.
The beatmakers of Bad Boy made an exceptional number of hits in a very short space of time. Between 1994 and 1997, a handful of musicians created ‘Juicy’, ‘Big Poppa’, ‘Hypnotise’, and more. However, one track was pivotal to the escalation of what was a catastrophically misguided beef, and it was once in the hands of Mary J Blige.
Before the infamous shooting in the lobby of Quad Studios, 2Pac and Biggie Smalls had been extremely close friends. With albums such as 2Pacalypse Now and Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.S already to his name, if anything, 2Pac became a mentor to Biggie, but their friendship turned sour fast.
Although the failed shooting and robbery is cited by many as the beginning of the feud between the two MCs and their labels, Bad Boy and Death Row, one track that intensified 2Pac’s anger was the now-legendary single ‘Who Shot Ya?’ At the time, many perceived it as a diss track aimed directly at the ‘Dear Mama’ rhymer, and its lyrics lend themselves to this theory.
With lines such as “It’s on nigga, fuck all that bickering beef / I can hear sweat trickling down your cheek” and “Recognize my face (uh), so there won’t be no mistake / So you know where to tell Jake, lame n*gga” it’s not hard to see why it was seen as a direct message. Still, Biggie wouldn’t have made this 1995 song if the beat was kept and used by Mary J Blige, who it was initially for.
‘Who Shot Ya?’ was meant for Mary J Blige, whom Biggie had worked with on remixes for her 1992 debut album What’s the 411? In an interview with Revolt, Biggie’s cousin, Lil’ Cease, unveiled that the late Brooklyn icon had recorded the song in early 1994, long before 2Pac’s shooting, and explained how it was intended to be the opening track on Mary J. Blige’s album My Life.
Speaking about the track, Lil’ Cease clarified, “That was supposed to be for Mary J Blige’s album! That was supposed to be the intro for My Life. Intro to the second album. It was Keith Murray, LL Cool J, and B.I.G. on it. That’s the original.”
Still, according to the former Bad Boy emcee, Blige’s label said it was “too hard” and too aggressive to open up an R&B album, so Biggie just took it. Detailing how it fell into his hands after the label’s rejection, Cease told Revolt, “Once they scratched it, B.I.G. was like, ‘Give me the record. I’m gonna f*ck with it.'”
Lil Cease concluded by insisting that it wasn’t a 2Pac diss as it was recorded way before, stating, “It was a B-side record. It was way before [Tupac got shot]. It slipped out with just Big’s first verse. Why would people think that when they know they heard this record before?”