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Indian Express

‘P Diddy would rather die than let go of rights to Biggie Smalls' music': How Diddy was at the epicentre of both Tupac and Biggie's death

When DJ Kool Herc invited his friends to help him MC a party for his sister, an important branch of hip-hop was born: rap. A genre that has facilitated revolution and restitution for half a century, a genre that introduced the world to Lauryn Hill's cadence, Wu-Tang Clan's collaborative precision, Eminem's controversy and Tupac's honesty. Among the greatest to ever pick up the pen and mic was Christopher George Latore Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls or The Notorious B.I.G. A chubby and angry kid from New York, who decided to take over the world of storytelling and music, 16 bars at a time. Just like so many other artistes, though, there was a man behind the curtain, pulling all the strings, and for Biggie, that man was Sean Combs, better known as Diddy. Biggie naturally took to creative writing, something that took Diddy decades to realise he couldn't do. It's a tale as old as time that budding artists with rough childhoods have an affinity for being discovered by manipulative executives, and Biggie's first demo tape found its way to the desk of Diddy, who was, of course, an upstanding and law-abiding man by all standards. After being fired from Uptown Records (of course, no fault of his own), Diddy decided to helm Bad Boy Records, a label that decided to take RnB and rap artists from the streets of the East Coast to the big dance. He signed Biggie, and he took this opportunity by the throat, as his first breakout track, 'Party and Bullshit', appeared on the soundtrack for the film Who's The Man (1993). ALSO READ: Remembering Eric 'Eazy-E' Wright: A pioneer of hip-hop gone too soon Biggie started climbing the stairs to success almost too fast, and a 21-year-old kid needs guidance in order to deal with that kind of fame and money. Just like Jerry Heller for NWA and the Colonel for Elvis, Diddy stepped into that role. He became Biggie's consigliere, and though the setting and intensity of this story might be similar to The Godfather, Diddy was no Robert Duvall. All this would soon start coming to light, as Biggie became more of a household name and his contemporaries and peers started seeing him for who he really was, one of the most gifted MCs to ever pick up the microphone. To put Biggie's relationship with Tupac in the Indian context, Mirza Ghalib, one of the most recognisable Urdu poets of all time, had Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq as a competitor. A court poet of the emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, Zauq and Ghalib often used to take shots at one another, and while it wasn't exactly like the rap battles at the end of 8 Mile, both pushed each other to be better. As Biggie made a name for himself with his debut album, Ready to Die, Pac started viewing him as a peer, even though he already had two successful albums making the rounds of every music store in the country. While both men are considered by many to be equals, when it comes to storytelling through music, there was one thing that Tupac was better at than Biggie, and that was reading people. He saw through Diddy from their very first meeting, and according to hip-hop photographer Monique Bunn, Pac viewed Diddy as a 'corny executive', and even after several attempts made by the latter to befriend the California rapper, Pac wasn't interested. His relationship with Biggie grew stronger, but as the months passed, a certain incident would sow the first seed in one of the biggest and most destructive feuds in hip-hop history. ALSO READ: Frank Sinatra 'facilitated' John F Kennedy's other life, but couldn't outrun his mafia connections: The rise and ruin of their unlikely friendship While fighting a trial for sexual abuse, Pac travelled to Quad Records in Manhattan in order to record a few songs in order to manage his growing expenses. Here, the rapper was confronted by three armed men, who robbed him and shot him 5 times, and it did not help that this happened on Biggie's turf. Like it or not, the West and the East division matters in hip-hop; it is a line in the sand, which only a few rappers have dared cross, and Pac getting shot 'behind enemy lines' was a major step back in relations between the two coasts. After recovery, Pac was found guilty and was jailed, and on the other side of the wall, Biggie was now surrounded by only yes-men and, of course, Diddy, who had his golden goose all to himself. The fallout of the shooting was bad for safety but good for business, as Biggie and Pac both released diss tracks, and both songs broke the charts. The feud continued until September 7, 1996, when Pac was shot dead while travelling in his BMW with Death Row record label exec Suge Knight. Though reports suggested that Diddy's associated were involved in the shooting, he was never convicted. Just like his contemporary on the other side of the country, Biggie's career was short-lived too, as the rapper was assassinated just a year later, in Los Angeles, California. After his death, Diddy fought to regain the rights to Biggie's music, and according to an exec from the record label, he went on record and said, 'I will never give it up until I'm dead and my bones are crushed into powder.' After Pac's death, Biggie had started wising up, and wanted to leave Bad Boy Records, but Diddy wouldn't let him. Rolling Stone magazine had even offered putting Biggie on the cover after his death, but Diddy refused, and said he wanted to be on the cover to promote his debut album, 'No Way Out.' At the end of it, no matter how tragic their deaths were, all one wants to do is remember the things they did when they were alive. None of them were close to perfect, but somehow a gangster and a fiend found themselves perched up right at the top of hip-hop history. Most artists or rappers have multi-decade careers, their fan base spanning across several generations due to their longevity. But Pac and Biggie were active for a combined 8 years, and yet they did more for the genre than anyone ever could. While we acknowledge what manipulative managers or record executives have done to the careers and personal lives of artists, no one will remember the Colonel or Yeller, just like no one will remember Diddy for being an exec. We will remember Biggie, though. We will pray that on a cold winter evening, when our joints are old and hearing is weak, someone from the next generation will ask us, Who was he? The chubby, angry kid from New York, who ruled the world from his 'Life After Death'.