Videos by According2HipHop
Most people remember Tupac Shakur’s 1996 song Hit ‘Em Up as the song that aimed at Biggie Smalls and Bad Boy Records. But Pac targeted a lot of the industry’s top tastemakers on that track. Including the rap duo, Mobb Deep.
Havoc Reveals How Beef With Tupac Started
During a recent interview on Drink Champs, one half of the duo, Havoc, revealed why the duo became a target on the song. According to Havoc, Pac believed that the group had thrown shade at him after he had denounced gangster rap.
“I believe it was a combo of things. On ‘Survival of the Fittest,’ we [rapped], ‘Thug life, we still livin’ it.’ At the time, [2pac] had an article in Vibe magazine when he was like, ‘I don’t want to do this thug shit anymore,’” Havoc said. “So he probably thought we were like, ‘Thug life, we still living it, fuck what he’s doin’.’ It piled up on ‘L.A., L.A.’ and it was like, fuck these n-ggas.”
Mobb Deep caught perhaps the most sadistic stray on the song, where Tupac raps:
“Oh yeah, Mobb Deep, huh, you wanna fuck with us? /You lil’ young-ass motherfuckers / Don’t one of you n-ggas got sickle-cell or somethin’? You better back the f**k up before you get smacked the f**k up. F**k around and have a seizure or a heart attack or something.”
Those lyrics were aimed at the other half of the rap duo, Prodigy, who had been diagnosed with sickle cell. To add insult to injury, Prodigy passed away from complications from the disease in 2017.
Tupac has become a major topic of discussion lately thanks to Drake. Drake went viral in August after he revealed he purchased Tupac Shakur’s Death Row chain in a social media post..
In a recent interview with The Latest, Mopreme called out the rap star for purchasing Pac’s alleged Death Row chain. Especially after Drake recently threw shade at American rappers, claiming that artists from the United Kingdom are better.
“My man needs to think more about his moves. Because I just saw in London, talking about, ‘London got the best rappers. London rappers are better than American rappers.’ So why are you so seeking after the king of raps’ jewels, literal jewels?” Mopreme said. “If England has the best rappers, why are you doing this? So I don’t know.”
