Did Michael Jackson really turn down 2Pac because he loved Biggie?
Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls had one of the biggest hip-hop rivalries of all time, with the two rappers killed in drive-by shootings within six months of each other in 1996 and 1997. The beef also spilt to potential collaborators, with Michael Jackson allegedly turning down 2Pac over his love for Biggie.
Napoleon of Outlawz, ‘Pac’s former group, once claimed that MJ stood the ‘California Love’ rapper up at a studio session. He alleged that instead of informing 2Pac that he wouldn’t attend, he left him hanging.
“’Pac mentioned one time he was called to the studio to do a song for Michael Jackson, to lay a verse,” Napoleon told Cam Capone News. “He told his mother, his family, he was excited. He went to the studio and he’s like, ‘Where’s Michael Jackson?’ They said, ‘Oh he can’t come. They want you to lay the verse.’ He got up and left. And that’s Michael Jackson. ‘He wasn’t man enough to come say hi to me and speak to me? I don’t want to get on his song.’”
Napoleon stated that Tupac had good reasons for ditching the studio sessions. “He walked out on the opportunity because he was more about ethics and morals,” he said. “Like, ‘We look up to you. If you want me to be on the song, at least say hi to me.’ I don’t think ‘Pac was just doing stuff for money. It was more personal if he get on a record with you and stuff like that. He didn’t really care about the money.”
Quincy Jones’ son, QD3, previously alleged that 2Pac tried to get Jackson on the song ‘Thug Nature’. He claimed MJ denied the request because he was loyal to Biggie, who had previously collaborated with on ‘This Time Around’ for his 1995 album, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I. However, former Death Row Records singer Danny Boy dismissed those comments during an interview with The Art of Dialogue.
“Shut up, lies,” he said. “I hate to be like, ‘That wasn’t said,’ but I remember myself being in the meeting with Michael Jackson and the All Eyez on Me album being played for him, and Michael went crazy. So I don’t see him saying he messed with Biggie and not Tupac, or you know what I’m saying. “[Death Row Records co-founder] Suge [Knight] and the Jacksons are very close. They were at that time, so that just don’t sound right to me.”
On another occasion, Wack 100 claimed Jackson fought with 2Pac and “whooped his ass” in defence of Quincy Jones and his eldest daughter, Kidada Jones. While he only learned about the alleged incident from someone else, he believed it was true.
“The man spoke on it, he witnessed it,” he said about a video posted to the WiLD 94.1 YouTube channel. “Google it, it’s the whole interview. He said that that n*gga [Tupac] was disrespecting Quincy Jones’ daughter. Mike said, ‘I watched that girl grow up’ and flighted him. Whooped him. You think I’m capping?”