Credit: Alamy

Tupac Shakur may have been signed to the label owned by Dr Dre, but that didn’t stop him from taking shots at the NWA member. The ‘Hit Em Up’ rapper dissed Dre on his 1996 song ‘Toss It Up’, which appeared on his The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory album. The track, featuring Danny Boy, K-Ci and JoJo, Aaron Hall, saw him accuse Dre of being homosexual.

In the song, he raps, “No longer Dre Day, arrivederci/ Blown and forgotten, rotten for plottin’ child’s play/ Check your sexuality, as fruity as this Alizé/ Quick to jump ship, punk trick, what a dumb move/ Cross Death Row, now who you gon’ run to?”

Tupac was on Death Row Records between 1995 and 1996, and his fourth album, All Eyez on Me, was released through the label. The project included the songs ‘Can’t C Me’ with George Clinton and ‘California Love’, which Dre produced.

However, label co-founder Suge Knight once claimed that Tupac and Dre didn’t like each other. Knight told TMZ, “‘Pac and Dre was never in the studio together. They wasn’t in the studio doing ‘California Love’. They hated each other. That simple.”

Tupac once revealed that Dre didn’t show up for his witness testimony during Snoop Dogg’s murder trial, which could have saved Snoop from imprisonment earlier than it was decided. He also had issues with Dre taking credit for songs he didn’t produce, having left Death Row following a contract dispute. ‘Toss It Up’ was released in September 1996, less than two weeks after Tupac’s death, so Dre never responded.

The song was originally a remix of ‘No Diggity’, the Blackstreet song that featured Dre shortly after leaving Death Row. Danny Boy told HipHopDX, “That was really a diss song [aimed at Dr Dre]. They heard [‘No Diggity’ featuring Dre], and the next thing you know, we was in the studio cutting it. We took the [Blackstreet] track. They wasn’t given nothing [by Dr Dre].”

He continued, “We sang ‘Toss It Up’ [over] the same ‘No Diggity’ track, and [Blackstreet] did a cease and desist letter to us and stated that we couldn’t [release] it. So, that’s how the remix – the [version] that everybody had an opportunity to hear, that’s [why] the beat changed.”

‘California Love’ was one of Tupac’s biggest singles, with Dre seeing the beat as one of his prized possessions, according to Kurupt. However, Knight allegedly made him give it to Tupac. “Dr Dre was working on that record for a while before Tupac came home,” he told The Art of Dialogue. “I looked at that beat like Dr Dre’s heart.”

He continued, “Like, he had a plan for it. He was trying to figure out, ‘What am I gonna do with this beat?’ ’Cause it was so gruesome and bangin’, but it was fun. Tupac came home. So when he gave him ‘California Love’, I looked at it like Dr Dre gave Tupac his heart. ‘Cause I used to go in there when he was working on it, and that was his baby.”