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The beef between Tupac and Biggie Smalls was a watershed moment in hip-hop and was a turning point. As much as it may have entertained the culture, it also exposed how potent hip-hop was and how, through music, a disagreement could transform into an amalgamation of bloodshed and pure horror. 

Hip-hop had seen similar feuds before but never had a conflict polarised the culture that much and never had a situation become so dire that it resulted in murder. The West Coast vs East Coast beef is somewhat of a stain on hip-hop, and nothing of its magnitude has happened since.

With Biggie and Tupac, many people were involved, including other artists and label associates, which turned up the temperature on a feud that could have been quickly ended. Still, over three decades later, when hip-hop fans look back at how it played out, many often forget how quickly it ended relative to when it started.

Tupac was friends with Biggie Smalls until 1994. There is footage of the pair hanging out in 1993, and at this point, they were singing each other’s praises. It is objectively true that, at this point, there was no bad blood between the artists.

Concerning the beef at large, it was an event that sparked the nastiness. In 1994, while recording his album Me Against The World, Tupac happily agreed to collaborate with some East Coast artists, so he took a trip to New York City to get in the studio.

According to several police reports, Shakur was invited by a man named Ron G to record some tracks with two upcoming rappers named Booker and Lil Shawn. The studio where they were all set to record was Quad Studios, located on Seventh Avenue between 48th and 49th Street near Times Square.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. However, upon exiting the building while in the lobby, the emcee was ambushed and shot. According to the rapper, the shooters were wearing labelled garments worn by gangs in Brooklyn. Even worse, Tupac later asserted that he recognised two of the three men as associates of Biggie Smalls.

This shooting sparked the match, and what followed is still highly debated. Within months of his shooting, Biggie Smalls released the infamous track, ‘Who Shot Ya’. Whether or not this is a diss track aimed at Tupac explicitly is still a raging debate, and if it is, it would be the first diss track of the East Coast vs West Coast beef. 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 “Recognise 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.

LL Cool J has previously attempted to dispel the myths surrounding the track by saying he was present when Biggie wrote it and that it was not a diss, but only the late legend himself could confirm this. However, when it was released in February 1995, Tupac was incarcerated on Rikers Island and couldn’t respond. Aside from various insulting comments in interviews, his first official response on record was ‘Hit Em Up’.

Former Bad Boy Records president Kirk Burrowes, in an interview with Vlad TV, has previously insisted that, although when Biggie wrote ‘Who Shot Ya,’ he didn’t intend for it to be a diss record, the timing of the song’s rollout and the marketing of it by Diddy was done purposefully to aggravate Tupac.

Regardless of opinion, there is no earlier sign of discord before 1994, and it is the only track (before ‘Hit ‘Em Up) that could be seen as the first diss track of the Biggie and Tupac Beef.