S. Samuel
Flipmode Squad leader Busta Rhymes has cleared the air on past rumors and speculation surrounding tensions between A Tribe Called Quest and the late Tupac Shakur stemming from a publicized 1994 Source Awards incident.
According to Busa Busss, the late rap mogul accidentally came out during ATCQ’s acceptance speech which made it look like Pac had problems with the New York crew.
“Tribe had got the award for best hip-hop group of the year,” Busta explained in an interview, “I don’t know if Pac’s people, at the time, knew that Tribe was still getting their award and doing their acceptance speech. So it looked like Pac just went out there and started performing on some ‘F*ck the award sh*t, I’m just gonna do my sh*t on top of the n*ggas. Whatever.’ So it looked crazy from the front because it was like these n*ggas were in the middle of their acceptance speech — it just looked like a crazy disrespect to Tribe. So the beef started immediately. Fortunately it didn’t get to no physical sh*t but I don’t know if too many people knew about this at the time when it went down, even after, that it was a big misunderstanding.” (This Is 50)
Busta also revealed how close they came to publicly calling a truce for the entire world to see.
“The whole world knows what my history and what my relationship is with Tribe. Me and Pac had a conversation about that,” Busta added. “Pac made it clear to me that he didn’t mean to do that. That wasn’t his fault and he didn’t understand how or why it happened that way but you know how it goes, your music starts going, you going to do what you’re supposed to do. And rightfully so, he is supposed to go out there if he hears his sh*t and start rocking. Pac actually was seeing how we could coordinate getting a public truce going on BET. At the time, ‘Rap City’ was still on the air, Big Tigger was still doing that sh*t, I was actually trying to coordinate that. I was communicating to [Q-Tip] via Pac and Pac via Tip and the vibe was amazing — and it never happened.” (This Is 50)
Last year, former Source co-owner Benzino reflected on Pac bum-rushing the stage.
“I got an ill Pac story,” Zino said in an interview. “When we was doing the first Source Awards, and Q-Tip was on stage, about to perform or he was about to receive an award or something, and I think Pac had already kind of had his dude — snatch up the sound man and they threw their sh*t in and he went up on there and did, ‘Out On Bail’ with like eight, nine n*ggas. [What did Q-Tip do?] Them n*ggas ain’t do nothing. I just remember that someone came back stage — and one of them n*ggas was crying and it was like, ‘Yo, it was f*cked up.’ — He did the whole sh*t. It wasn’t planned or nothing. Them n*ggas went up there, grab the sh*t, did ‘Out On Bail’ and bounced.” (Caesar Ceelo)
In summer 2011, a previously unreleased 2Pac diss song titled “Watch Yo Mouth” surfaced and took aim at various New York artists.
“We untouchable now that we shook Doc Dre,” Pac raps. “He ain’t made a beat in six years, swear he the sh*t/Don’t get no record sales suckin’ Nas d*ck — I heard Nas got beef ’cause I’m dissing his clique/Cool, come bring your a** n*gga you can get dissed — De La got a problem with this hard sh*t, ever since ‘Me, Myself & I’ y’all been garbage/I’ma keep this real, show y’all how it feels to ride/y’all went three feet high and stopped rising/ Wendy Williams is a fat b*tch, that’s the truth/I got a job full of n*ggas nuts, that’s for you/Let the West Side, East Side drama cease, I’ll come alone to your own streets, Outlaw — Cream Puff never had no heart to start, so how the h*ll Biggie Smalls get the part? Watch yo mouth!” (“Watch Yo Mouth”)
Check out Busta Rhymes’ interview below:
