The Iconic Rivalry | When Legends First Met

The Iconic Rivalry: Biggie and Tupac

“I kind of realized how powerful Tupac and I were. You know what I’m saying? Because we are two individual people, we raised a coastal beat.” They were two of the most iconic names in hip hop history: Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, better known as The Notorious B.I.G. What began as a powerful friendship soon spiraled into one of the most talked-about rivalries in music, marked by loyalty, betrayal, and tragedy. Through tension, music, and media frenzy, their stories became forever linked. “If they want to come and use this business opportunity to get on some gangster, you know, we do that better than anybody.” Join us as we talk about what Biggie Smalls said when he, one week before his death, broke his silence about Tupac.

When Legends First Met

Everything started in 1993. In a world where East Coast and West Coast were still shaking hands, not throwing punches, Tupac Shakur was already a rising storm—a platinum-selling rapper, a movie star, a symbol of raw, unfiltered energy. Biggie Smalls, still just Christopher Wallace to most, was trying to make his voice heard in the noise of Brooklyn. His first single, “Party and Bullshit,” had just dropped. It was fresh. It was hungry, but he wasn’t a household name yet.

They met through music, naturally. Some say it happened on the set of Poetic Justice. Tupac was playing Biggie’s track on repeat, nodding along to the beat, loud and proud. That alone was a big moment for Biggie. Imagine hearing your voice echo out of the speakers while one of the biggest names in rap is vibing to it like it’s his anthem. That wasn’t just flattery; it was recognition.

But the real connection didn’t happen on a set. It happened in a house with the smell of steak in the air, the sound of laughter, and Kool-Aid in plastic cups. Tupac didn’t greet Biggie like a fan; he treated him like a brother. He walked into the kitchen, grabbed a pan, and started cooking for everyone. Steaks, fries, and bread were Pac’s version of a warm welcome. No cameras, no stage, just two young men from different coasts breaking bread and swapping stories.

That night marked the beginning of something rare. Tupac, already glowing in the spotlight, didn’t look down on Biggie; he lifted him up. He gave advice, passed along bottles of Hennessy, and offered a couch to crash on when Biggie was in LA. The respect was mutual, the energy magnetic, and it didn’t take long before the world caught a glimpse of that chemistry.

On July 23, 1993, Tupac and Biggie shared a stage at the Palladium in New York. There, in the heat of the crowd, they freestyled together, back and forth, word for word. No beef, no rivalry, just skill meeting skill. They weren’t just friends; they were mirrors of each other. Different coasts, different pasts, but the same hunger. Biggie even asked Tupac to manage him, to take his career under his wing. That’s how deep the trust ran. It’s hard not to wonder what could have been if things stayed that way.

Before the shadows came, before the headlines and the gunfire, there was this: Tupac making dinner in a cramped kitchen, Biggie laughing at the table. Two future legends completely unaware of the storm ahead. But even then, there were cracks forming under the surface. When Tupac started hanging out with some tough, fast-moving figures in New York—people like Haitian Jack and Jimmy Henchmen—Biggie warned him to be careful. Biggie told him not to trust everyone with a smile. But Tupac didn’t listen. Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he didn’t want to. But that was the beginning. What neither of them knew was that this bond would eventually twist into one of the most infamous feuds in music history. And just one week before his own death, Biggie finally broke his silence about it.

The Night Everything Changed

Fast forward to November 30, 1994. The air in New York City was cold, sharp, the kind of night that carries a quiet tension. Tupac Shakur had flown in to do what he always did: hustle, record, and stay busy. He was working on features, guest appearances—anything that could keep money coming in. He was fighting a legal case at the time, and every studio verse meant another dollar toward his freedom.

That evening, Tupac was called to Quad Recording Studios in Times Square. The call came from Lil Cease, one of Biggie’s close affiliates in Junior M.A.F.I.A. Tupac trusted them. These weren’t strangers; they were his people. Upstairs in the studio was Biggie, supposedly working on a project with another rapper, Little Shawn. Tupac was told to swing by and lay down a verse. Just another night in the life of an artist on the move.

But the night didn’t unfold the way it was supposed to. As Tupac walked through the lobby of Quad Studios, he heard voices from above, familiar ones. Cease was excited. He ran down to meet Pac, smiling, full of energy. But just moments later, the hallway turned into chaos. Three armed men confronted Tupac in the lobby. He said later that he tried to fight back, even wrestled one of them for a gun, but the moment was too fast and too violent. Shots rang out. One bullet grazed his head, and another tore through his leg. Five in total. They beat him, took his jewelry, and left him bleeding on the cold floor. It wasn’t just an attack; it was a message.

Still conscious, Tupac made his way upstairs. There he found Biggie. He later said his face looked strange—surprised, shaken, maybe even guilty. Biggie tried to explain it later. He said he couldn’t believe Tupac thought he was involved. “I’m still thinking this dude’s my man,” Biggie said. “This BS just got to be talk. I can’t believe he would think I would do that to him.” But Pac wasn’t hearing it. In his mind, there was no coincidence. He had been called to that studio, and moments later he was nearly killed. The dots were already connecting in his head, whether they belonged together or not. He didn’t believe in coincidence anymore. He believed in betrayal.

What made it worse was what followed. While Pac was in the hospital and later locked up after being sentenced for assault charges, the world kept spinning. Biggie released a new track called “Who Shot Ya?” —a grim, aggressive song that seemed to mock everything Pac had just survived. Biggie swore the track had been written before the shooting, that it had nothing to do with Tupac. But the timing, the title—it didn’t feel like a coincidence. Tupac was in prison now. No freedom, no mic, no stage to defend himself. Just thoughts and anger.

Rumors were spreading. The streets were talking. Some said Bad Boy had something to do with it. Others said it was a robbery, nothing more. But Tupac’s mind was made up. The betrayal, whether real or not, had already taken root in his heart. And what made the betrayal cut deeper was the past. Tupac had let Biggie crash on his couch in California. He had given him advice when Biggie was just starting out. They had shared stages, shared laughter, and even shared meals. That was brotherhood. Now, that brotherhood was dust. In Tupac’s world, loyalty was everything. And in his eyes, Biggie had broken that code. Maybe it was just paranoia. Maybe it was a misunderstanding wrapped in bad timing and street whispers. But to Tupac, it was real. The trust was gone, and the friendship was dead.

The shooting at Quad Studios didn’t just leave scars on Tupac’s body; it split the rap world in two. It marked the moment where everything began to spiral, and nothing was ever the same again. But what haunted Biggie most wasn’t just the fallout; it was what he couldn’t say. And one week before his own death, he finally said it.

The Conflict Between the Two Coasts

Tupac Shakur, locked up and furious, felt betrayed, isolated, and hunted. In his mind, the people he once trusted had turned their backs on him. The Quad Studio shooting still burned in his memory, and the whispers that Biggie might have known something, worse, had been involved, never stopped echoing in his ears.

Then came Suge Knight, the CEO of Death Row Records, a man who didn’t just move through the music industry; he stormed through it. He stepped in like a general choosing his next soldier. Suge wasn’t just offering Tupac a record deal; he was offering revenge. He flew across the country, posted the $1.4 million bail that freed Tupac from Clinton Correctional, and picked him up in a limousine. That gesture alone was pure power. Tupac didn’t just leave prison that day; he left with a new uniform, a new team, and a war waiting for him on the other side.

Once Tupac signed with Death Row, the rivalry between the East Coast and the West Coast turned from music into something much heavier. Before that, it was all smoke—insults in songs, competition in record sales, jabs thrown during interviews. But now, with Tupac joining the Death Row camp, the flame caught. This wasn’t just a beef between artists anymore; it became a bitter and dangerous feud between two coasts, two worlds, and two massive egos: Death Row and Bad Boy.

Death Row was already a powerhouse on the West Coast with artists like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and now Tupac. It carried the sound of rebellion and defiance. Bad Boy Records held down the East with polish, precision, and swagger. At the 1995 Source Awards in New York, Suge Knight stepped onto the stage, looked straight into the crowd of East Coast industry figures, and took aim at Bad Boy Records with a venomous speech about executive producers dancing in videos. The boos started almost instantly. Moments later, Snoop Dogg grabbed the mic and threw fuel on the fire, calling out the New York crowd for not showing love. That night, the room split in half, and so did hip hop.

But this tension wasn’t born with Tupac and Biggie. The seeds had been planted years before. Since the early ’90s, West Coast artists had grown tired of being dismissed by their East Coast counterparts who acted like they were the gatekeepers of real hip hop. Tracks like Tim Dog’s “Fuck Compton” mocked West Coast acts, and Dre’s The Chronic fired back, setting off a chain of lyrical back-and-forths. Still, the competition stayed mostly on wax until Tupac and Biggie brought real heat to it. When Tupac came out of prison and stepped into the Death Row camp, he was returning to war. He came back to destroy. With Suge Knight behind him and Death Row’s full power at his back, Tupac became the face of West Coast vengeance. And then he dropped “Hit ‘Em Up.”

The track wasn’t just a diss. From the very first line, Tupac made it personal, direct, and impossible to ignore. He didn’t hide behind metaphors or clever wordplay; he called names. He threw punches meant to land hard, and they did. In just a few minutes, he turned years of pain, betrayal, and bitterness into a nuclear-level response that changed the sound and purpose of rap forever. “Hit ‘Em Up” was fury over the Quad Studio shooting. It was revenge for feeling abandoned while behind bars. It was aimed not just at Biggie but at his entire crew.

The release of the track shocked the world. No one had heard anything like it before. Tupac was an attacking character. He brought up old favors, past friendships, and accusations that crossed the line between art and real life. And when he dragged Biggie’s estranged wife into the story, claiming he’d slept with her, it was humiliation for Biggie.

Now, let’s talk about Biggie’s estranged wife and a singer on the Bad Boy label. In late 1995, Tupac met her at a party. She agreed to record vocals for one of his tracks. Afterward, rumors exploded. Tupac started dropping hints that they had been intimate, that she had brought him gifts, that their connection was more than professional. He fed the story to journalists, and the headlines ran with it. Faith denied everything. She said Tupac never paid her for her work and that his stories were nothing more than lies. But it didn’t matter. The damage was done.

Biggie, despite his anger, kept his public cool. He didn’t lash out with diss tracks. He didn’t take the bait. But behind closed doors, the pressure was eating him alive. The idea that his wife might have been involved with the man accusing him of betrayal was too much to carry. The line between music and real life had already blurred; now it had disappeared completely. As 1996 rolled on, the war didn’t slow down. More diss tracks dropped. More interviews turned into battlegrounds. More people picked sides. And behind it all were two men, Tupac and Biggie—once friends, now symbols of something much bigger than themselves.

The Death of Tupac

However, it wasn’t long before this rivalry turned into something fatal—something that reached far beyond music and spilled into real life, claiming one of its greatest voices. On September 7, 1996, Tupac attended the Mike Tyson versus Bruce Seldon fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. He arrived with Suge Knight, the head of Death Row Records, as part of a high-profile entourage that had become as much about protection as it was about presence. The night was supposed to be one of celebration. Tyson won his fight quickly, and the crowd, buzzing with energy, spilled into the lavish corridors of the casino hotel.

But it was in the lobby, just minutes after the fight, that everything began to unravel. Travon Lane, a Death Row affiliate and member of the Mob Piru gang, spotted Orlando Anderson, a known member of the Southside Compton Crips, standing near the entrance. Months earlier, Anderson had allegedly tried to rob Lane in a mall. Now, with that memory still raw, Lane pointed Anderson out to Tupac. Tupac didn’t hesitate. Surveillance footage would later show him approaching Anderson, asking him where he was from, then throwing the first punch. Chaos erupted as Tupac, Knight, and others joined in beating Anderson to the ground. Security broke up the fight quickly, but the damage had been done. What may have felt like justice in the moment would set a darker course for the rest of the night.

Tupac returned to his hotel, the Luxor, and told his girlfriend, Kidada Jones, what had happened. He had promised to come back for her after the fight. But now his mood had changed. He showered, changed clothes, and got ready to attend a charity event at Club 662, owned by Suge Knight. The party was meant to be another public moment for Death Row. But Tupac never made it to the stage.

Just after 11 p.m., while stopped at a red light at the intersection of East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane, Tupac and Suge were seated in a black BMW. A car full of women had pulled up next to them on the left, and Tupac had been leaning out the window, joking with them, flashing his usual charm. The air was hot and heavy, the energy of the Vegas strip buzzing in the background. Then a white Cadillac pulled up on the right. Without warning, the rear passenger window rolled down, and a hand emerged holding a Glock. Gunshots erupted into the night. Loud and fast.

Tupac was struck four times. Twice in the chest, once in the thigh, and once in the arm. One bullet tore into his lung. Suge was grazed by shrapnel, though he managed to stay behind the wheel and drive them a short distance before being stopped again by police. Within minutes, paramedics rushed Tupac to the University Medical Center. His condition was critical. He was sedated, placed on life support, and eventually put into a medically induced coma. For six days, his friends, family, and the entire hip hop world held their breath. Gobi Raheem, a video director close to Death Row, visited Tupac in the hospital and would later say they were afraid the shooters might come back to finish the job. Rumors swirled. Some said the killers had called Death Row directly, threatening that the job wasn’t done.

Inside the hospital room, machines beeped and hissed while Tupac lay still. His girlfriend Kidada stayed close, whispering to him, trying to reach the man who had once seemed invincible. She played music next to his bed, hoping he would hear something familiar and come back. At one point, she said he stirred when she played “Vincent” by Don McLean, his eyes swollen and filled with tears. But the recovery never came. On the afternoon of September 13, 1996, Tupac’s body gave in. Complications from his injuries—respiratory failure followed by cardiac arrest—took over. His mother, Afeni Shakur, made the final decision. At 4:03 p.m., Tupac Amaru Shakur was pronounced dead. He was only 25 years old.

Biggie’s Final Reflections

After Tupac’s death, nothing was the same anymore. Everyone was waiting for Biggie’s answer. And there were quite a few of them: interviews, statements, and subtle remarks scattered across appearances and performances. However, one stood out from them all. One week before his death, Biggie Smalls broke his silence about Tupac. That moment was heavy, not just because of what he said, but because of the way he said it.

What Biggie said then was, “Tupac was not just my rival. He was powerful.” He didn’t speak with bitterness or anger. He didn’t try to defend every decision he had made during the chaos of their feud. Instead, he acknowledged the weight of what had happened and, more importantly, the role both of them had played in creating it. He admitted that he had only started to understand the true impact of their conflict once it was already out of control. Two young men, both icons in their own right, had somehow ended up representing entire coasts, entire cities, and entire mentalities. And that was never the plan.

Biggie said the realization hit him hard, that it wasn’t just personal anymore, that the feud had grown into something much bigger, something he couldn’t contain even if he wanted to. He explained how it confused and hurt him to see strangers treat him like an enemy simply because of what coast he came from. There were people, he said, who didn’t even know him, who hated him because of what Tupac had said, or because of the way the media had twisted every small detail into a new headline. He expressed regret over the way things had escalated. Not in a way that pointed fingers, but in a way that showed that he understood it had all gone too far.

He reflected on Ready to Die and how that album had been born out of pain and frustration. At the time, he had felt like he was surrounded by loss, by struggle, by streets that didn’t care if he lived or died. But now, just days before the release of Life After Death, he explained that things were different. He wasn’t the same man anymore. He couldn’t rap about the streets the same way because he had seen where it led. He had seen what it did to Tupac, and he had started to feel like it might happen to him, too. And unfortunately, he was right.

He said he didn’t want to carry the war anymore, not because he was afraid, but because he knew what the price was. He admitted that it was on him now to change the tone, to use his influence to heal instead of divide. He understood that Tupac couldn’t be the one to stop it because he was gone. So Biggie said, “It’s on me now.” That moment in the interview was different. It didn’t sound like a rapper talking to the press. It sounded like a man who had lived through something traumatic, who was finally beginning to process it all. He didn’t glorify the beef. He didn’t smile when speaking Tupac’s name. He looked down, paused often, and let the silence speak for the words he couldn’t find.

He mentioned that he had worked with artists from across the country, not to make a statement, but to prove that it could be done. He wanted people to see that unity was still possible even after everything. That artists from opposite sides could still respect each other, still collaborate, and still create something meaningful together.

Another Victim

Biggie knew from the interview that his end would come, but he never dreamed it would come so soon. Christopher Wallace, better known as The Notorious B.I.G., had traveled to Los Angeles in February 1997. He was promoting Life After Death, his highly anticipated second album, and filming the music video for its lead single, “Hypnotize.” The energy around him was massive. The album was set to release on March 25. It was meant to be his comeback, his transition from raw street tales to something more evolved, more complete.

On March 7, he walked onto the stage at the Soul Train Music Awards to present an award to Toni Braxton. The crowd’s reaction was split. Some cheered, but others booed. That tension in the room was a reminder that the wounds left by the coastal feud were still fresh. Biggie didn’t respond with anger. He said what he needed to and left the stage. He had planned to fly to London the next day, but instead he decided to stay in LA one more night. That decision would prove fatal.

On March 8th, Biggie attended a crowded afterparty at the Petersen Automotive Museum hosted by Vibe magazine. The event was packed with celebrities from across entertainment: singers, actors, producers, and even known gang members. Over a thousand guests moved through the museum’s halls, dancing, drinking, and forgetting the outside world for a while, but the night didn’t last. Authorities shut it down due to overcrowding and noise complaints, forcing the party to spill onto the streets of Los Angeles just past midnight.

Biggie left the venue in one of two green GMC Suburbans, sitting in the front passenger seat with friends Lil’ Cease, Damian “D-Roc” Butler, and his driver Gregory “G-Money” Young. Traffic had built up around the museum, and at 12:45 a.m., Biggie’s SUV pulled up to a red light at Wilshire and Fairfax. That was the moment. A dark Chevrolet Impala crept up alongside their vehicle. The man behind the wheel, described as wearing a light blue suit and bow tie, rolled down his window, pulled out a 9mm pistol, and opened fire. Six bullets tore through the quiet. Four of them struck Biggie. The car sped off and vanished into the night.