The fatal rivalry between Biggie Smalls and Tupac remains one of music’s biggest tragedies. Both men lost their lives while they were at the top of the game, and the whole sorry scenario was avoidable. Following Pac’s murder, how out of hand the situation got finally struck Biggie.
To start with, the two men didn’t always have hatred for one another, and they used to be friends. At one point, Biggie even wanted Pac to manage his career, which signified just how high he thought of him. Whenever he’d be in Los Angeles, he’d stay at Shakur’s house, but things turned sour and then, tragically, they turned deadly.
Their murders both remain unsolved, but what is indisputable is the connection between the cases. They managed to turn the East Coast and West Coast against each other which ultimately would lead to both men losing their lives.
Even over a quarter of a century on, there is still immense fascination regarding how both men died, and it continues to be the source of various documentaries. However, one thing that is often overlooked is how Pac’s death affected Big.
Snoop Dogg later revealed how Biggie responded to his former friend’s murder, and surprisingly said, “He [B.I.G. ] looked me in my eyes, and he say something that, you know what I’m saying, he’s sad that Tupac is dead, but I can look in his eyes, and I could see that he hurt. He didn’t even have to say it, I could see that he hurt behind Tupac being dead.
“This is not a man that’s happy or glamorised. This is his friend that’s dead, they had a misunderstanding and he could never get no justice for his emotions, but he’s showing me his emotions. And he explained to me how much he loved Tupac.”
Behind closed doors, perhaps, Biggie was willing to be more open with his emotions than in public. When he appeared on Rap City in 1997, he remained somewhat guarded on that front, although the gravitas and unavoidable nature of the incident was also not lost on him.
“I kind of realised how powerful Tupac and I was,” Biggie explained. “We as two individual people raised a coastal beef. One man against one man made the whole West Coast hate the East Coast and vice versa. That really bugged me out. It was like, you don’t like me, so this whole coast don’t like me, so my whole coast don’t like him.
“It let me know how much strength I had for what I’m trying to do now. I’ve gotta be the one to be able to flip it and bring my power because he can’t be there. He can’t be the one to squash it because he’s gone, so I’ve got to take the weight from both sides.”
See the interview below.
