Who Shot Ya?

"Who Shot Ya?" is a song by American rapper the Notorious B.I.G., backed by Sean Combs. Bad Boy Entertainment released it on February 21, 1995, on an alternate reissue of Wallace's single "Big Poppa/Warning". Its new B-side "Who Shot Ya", a revision of a track already issued earlier in 1995, was "controversial and hugely influential." Widely interpreted as a taunt at Tupac Shakur, the single provoked a "rap battle" between the two rappers, formerly friends.

Wallace, when interviewed, explained his "Who Shot Ya" lyrics as simply portraying a rivalry between drug dealers. The instrumental is a sample that loops a portion of soul singer David Porter's 1971 song "I'm Afraid the Masquerade Is Over", from the album ''Victim of the Joke? An Opera''. The song supposedly references Shakur's 1994 non-fatal shooting, which Shakur had suspected Wallace of being involved with. Wallace disputed Shakur's portrayal, and called the rumors blaming him "crazy" in the track's lyrics.Fab Five Freddy, interviewer, "Mail: Tupac Shakur: The final chapter", Vibe, 1995 Aug;3(6):25–29, where Vibe publishes the most relevant responses to Tupac's January comments published in Vibe 's April issue: Andre Harrell & Biggie Smalls on p 25, James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond, here called simply "Booker", on pp 25–26, rapper Little Shawn on p 26, Sean "Puffy" Combs on p 27, and Randy "Stretch" Walker on pp 27 & 29. (Andre Harrell meanwhile fell from Tupac's suspicions, and Tupac seemingly never quite accused Little Shawn. Incidentally, Fab Five Freddy was an early ambassador of hip hop.) Puffy and Biggie reportedly resumed print silence until interviewed in June 1996 [Joel Anderson, "The B-side that deepened Biggie and Tupac's rift", Slate.com, 13 Nov 2019], yielding a cover story in Vibe 's September 1996 issue [The Blackspot, "Stakes is high", Vibe, 1996 Sep;4(7):100–104]. Out of prison, Tupac answered in June 1996 by the B side "Hit 'Em Up"—accusing Wallace by name—a "diss track" which inflamed the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry to its peak. Associates of Wallace who witnessed his "Who Shot Ya" recording have unanimously disputed that it targeted Shakur.

Tupac's fatal shooting in September 1996 and Wallace's in March 1997, both officially unresolved, drew speculations partly blaming the "rap battle". The track was reissued in 1999 on the posthumous Biggie album Born Again, in 2001 on a "Big Poppa/Warning" reissue with remixes, in 2004 on a remaster of his 1994 or debut album Ready to Die, and in 2007 on his compilation album Greatest Hits. The rock band Living Colour's music video to a 2016 cover version protests gun violence.

Track selection
In July 1993, Uptown Records' founder Andre Harrell fired his unbridled A&R man and record producer Sean "Puffy" Combs, age 23, whose new label, Bad Boy Entertainment, then found parenting by Clive Davis's Arista Records. By late 1994, Bad Boy prevailed via rapper Craig Mack's hit single "Flava in Ya Ear," yet especially by Bad Boy's first album, Ready to Die, released on September 13, 1994, the debut album of gangsta rapper Notorious B.I.G. The album is mostly grim and hardcore, but Puffy removed "Who Shot Ya" from it.

Biggie wanted the first single to be "Machine Gun Funk." Puffy made the first two A sides instead friendly songs—"Juicy" and then "Big Poppa," songs that Biggie resisted recording —to increase radio appeal and sales, yet placed harder songs as their B sides. The "Big Poppa" B side, "Warning," an album track, thus in practice a "double A side," relies on the instrumental of Isaac Hayes's cover version of "Walk on By," and casts Biggie suspecting that members of his own circle will set up him up for a robbery. Each of the two songs received its own music video.

Mixtape version
An underground "Who Shot Ya" differing—but same instrumental—was released in 1995 before the single. Amid lore of this mixtape version, some speculated that it was a myth. (In 2017, DJ EFN casually ventured that he may have had an underground issue on vinyl in a white sleeve, as used by DJs, before December 1994.) In 2014, when the mixtape "Who Shot Ya" was traced to DJ S&S, a renowned issuer of New York mixtapes in the 1990s, its original audio was publicized. Like a mixtape track, it is only two minutes long—one Biggie verse, 24 bars, then one Keith Murray verse, 23 bars, amid "hype man" Puffy tersely yelling announcements —but the verses are longer than the standard 16 bars.

In 2004, Brooklyn rapper Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter recollected, about the mixtape, "I've heard songs I like, but the last time I remember being truly, truly inspired was when I heard 'Who Shot Ya.' " One night, Kareem "Biggs" Burke, cofounder of Jay-Z's label, Roc-A-Fella Records, drew him to Harlem's 125 Street, entered his car, inserted the tape, and fled. Jay-Z reflects, "He knew that if I heard 'Who Shot Ya?,' it's going to inspire me to make songs even hotter. But that song, it was so crazy. It just had an effect on everybody. The world stopped when he dropped 'Who Shot Ya?' " On Jay-Z's debut June 1996 album's track "Brooklyn's Finest," guest Biggie includes the phrase who shot ya and the word warning.Michael Eric Dyson, Jay-Z: Made in America (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2019), pp 101–103, discusses Biggie's feature on "Brooklyn's Finest", a track on fellow Brooklyn rapper Jay-Z's June 1996 album [Sound recording, "Brooklyn's Finest", Jay-Z "Official Artist Channel" @ YouTube, 21 Aug 2019]. Dyson writes, "Who Shot Ya?' and 'Warning' are both breakout tracks on Bigge's 1994 classic debut, Ready to Die. But the phrase and word, along with the acerbically ironic reference to Tupac, are also eerily intermingled with the intangible yet volatile exchanges that fueled the so-called bicoastal rap feud" [p 103]. Although mistakenly locating "Who Shot Ya" on the 1994 album instead of on the album's 2004 reissue, Dyson has already located the Tupac reference instead on Jay-Z's 1996 album. Dyson explains, " 'Brooklyn's Finest' isn't Jay and Big's only collaboration, but it is the most telling, because so much of what will happen to B.I.G., and how Jay-Z will eventually align himself as B.I.G.'s heir apparent, is built into these lyrics. Consider the following references in B.I.G.'s verses: 'Frank White,' the character in the 1990 cult flick King of New York; the phrase 'Cristal forever'; the line 'who shot ya?'; the word 'warning'; and the line 'If Fay had twins, she'd probably have two 'Pacs (uh!) / Get it? Tu—Pac's" [p 101]. Frank White is an alias for Biggie's rap persona, whereas Jay-Z, writes Dyson, "led the charge against Cristal for their racism in 2006" [p 101]. More factually, the champagne maker's managing director, Frédéric Rouzaud, when interviewed for the "Intelligent Life" column of The Economist magazine's May 2006 issue, had indicated greeting with "curiosity and serenity" how routinely rappers were brandishing "Cris" or "Crissi" [Alan Tardi, Champagne, Uncorked (New York: PublicAffairs, 2016), p 206 ]. "Asked whether the association might hurt the brand, Rouzaud replied, "That's a good question, but what can we do? We can't forbid people from buying it. I'm sure Dom Pérignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.' When Jay Z learned of these statements, he promptly exorcised the name from all his song lyrics and videos, removed Cristal from his chain of clubs, and, happily taking Rouzaud up on his suggestion, replaced it with Krug and Dom Pérignon" [p 206]. Jay-Z, further, brought a new champagne brand, Armand de Brignac, also called "Ace of Spades" [Dyson, 2019, p 102], and placed it in his "Show Me What You Got" music video, set in Monaco, wherein he arrives with a briefcase that eventually, once he is offered Cristal, opens to reveal Ace of Spades instead [Tardi, 2016, p 206]. In "Kingdom Come", he raps, "I thought dude's remark was rude, okay? / So I moved on to Dom, Krug Rosé / And it's much bigger issues in the world, I know / But first I had to take care of the world I know" [Dyson, 2019, p 102]. As to Tupac, rather, Biggie's two "Brooklyn's Finest" verses include one instance of the phrase who shot ya and, later, one inclusion of the word warning, while Fay is apparently Biggie's moniker for his own wife, in real life, Faith Evans, whom he married within a few weeks of their first meeting in July 1994 and who is rumored to have slept with Tupac between Tupac's release from prison on 13 October 1995 and 2 December 1995 interview for the Death Row Records cover story in Vibe magazine's February 1996 issue.

Single version
Closing the week of February 25, 1995, the "Big Poppa/Warning" single —released December 5, 1994 —had spent six weeks, including five weeks at No. 1, on Billboard 's Hot Rap Singles chart. The single entered the main popular songs chart, the Billboard Hot 100, the week ending January 14 and, enduring 24 weeks, peaked at No. 6 on March 18. Yet on February 21, Bad Boy issued a new "Big Poppa/Warning" with an added B side, "Who Shot Ya," which grew Biggie's menacing persona. The track also includes "hype man" Puffy, previously friendly, yelling in uncharacterisic aggression. The instrumental is basically a repeating portion of soul singer David Porter's 1971 song "I'm Afraid the Masquerade is Over," Sound recording, "[I'm Afraid The Masquerade Is Over" ], David Porter "Official Artist Channel" @ YouTube, 20 Jun 2019, indicates 9 minutes and 41 seconds, Stax Records, January 1, 1971. The song has two halves, first Porter's cover version of a 1939 classic, and then Porter's original extension. The cover's final four bars begin at 04:10, and the fifth bar thereafter, beginning at 04:20, opens the extension, whose early bars lend the "Who Shot Ya" instrumental. Herb Magidson wrote the words while Allie Wrubel wrote the music of the original "I'm Afraid the Masquerade is Over" [Rob DuBoff, ed, 200 of the Best Songs from the Swing Era (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1996)]. They copyrighted it in December 1938 [Library of Congress, Catalog of Copyright Entries: Part 3: Musical Compositions, Volume 33, No. 10 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1939), #34430, p 1447. "The song was a minor hit in early 1939 as recorded by Larry Clinton with vocalist Bea Wain and was later done" "by both Dave Brubeck and Lou Donaldson", who all were artists either jazz or, as jazz's dancehall outgrowth, big band [ Brian Priestley, "Charlie Parker and popular music", in Edward Berger, Henry Martin & Dan Morgenstern, eds, Annual Review of Jazz Studies, Vol. 14 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009), p 87 ]. In 1957, jazz singer Sarah Vaughan offered a rendition, too. In 1962, so did jazz singer Nancy Wilson, whose version crossed over as a popular hit [Steve Graybow, "Jazz notes", Billboard, 2002 Feb 23;114(8):36A]. In 1965, Johnny Hartman offered a version more pop but less successful [Gregg Akkerman, The Last Balladeer: The Johnny Hartman Story (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013), p 141. In December 1965, the original copyright was renewed [Library of Congress, Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series: Music, July–December 1965 (Washington DC: Copyright Office, 1967), p 2175. variously sampled in numerous rap songs. "Who Shot Ya" is among the most influential and historic. In 2020, Vulture.com, owned by New York magazine, ranked it #52 among "100 songs that define New York rap."

Published lyrics may omit Puffy's vocals, repeatedly yelling, in part, "As we proceed— / to give you what you need— / 9-5, motherfuckers— / Get live, motherfuckers— / As we proceed— / to give you what you need— / East Coast, motherfuckers— / Bad Boy, motherfuckers—." Otherwise, one writer estimates, "The story Biggie tells in 'Who Shot Ya?' is simple and brutal. Someone's out to get him, but Biggie gets the drop on his foe." MTV recognizes Biggie's verses for, nonetheless, "using the art of music to make the art of war sound beautiful." "Biggie, menacing as ever," describes a writer in Billboard, "makes use of negative space in his verses that give his threats a biblical intensity." Meanwhile, the instrumental, "deceptively candied," "lends the missive a psychedelic quality." Yet this instrumental was heard briefly by R&B fans since the November 29, 1994, release of Mary J Blige's second album, My Life, first in track one, titled "Intro," and then in track six, "K. Murray Interlude."

Production backstory
In 2014, a publicity piece for New York rap DJ and Hot 97 radio host Funkmaster Flex's new book announced, "The song 'Who Shot Ya' was originally an intro for Mary J Blige's album. Uptown/MCA said it was too hard. The song in its original form had a verse from Big, Keith Murray, and LL Cool J, though LL never did his verse. The song still exists!' "

My Life recording
"Who Shot Ya" traces to the Uptown Records recording of R&B singer Mary J Blige's second or November 1994 album, My Life. Its record producers were Carl "Chucky" Thompson, Prince Charles Alexander, and Sean "Puffy" Combs, while Nashiem Myrick, studio manager, "played a big role." Prince Alexander was a Bad Boy regular, whereas Chucky Thompson and Nashiem Myrick were among "the Hitmen," the inner circle of staff record producers at Bad Boy Entertainment. Chairman Mao, "Money power respect", Vibe, 1998 Aug;6(6):112–118, wherein p 114 notes Chucky Thompson's major role in both Mary J. Blige's My Life album and Biggie Small's Ready to Die album. Among "the Hitmen" record producers at Puffy's Bad Boy record label were Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence, one of Puffy's fellow alumni of Howard University, the historically black college in Washington DC, who "reflects on these school daze, a time in which some major components of Bad Boy's present personnel—him, Combs, Angelettie, Thompson, Myrick, and Bad Boy VP of A&R Harve Pierre—first bumped heads." [p 116. While Ron Lawrence and Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, as a duo, "left school to pursue their ill-fated career as rappers, Combs also left to intern at New York's Uptown Records, and went on to cultivate acts such as Jodeci and Mary J. Blige. After leaving Uptown, Combs remembered his own D.C. crew when the time came to embark on this new enterprise." [p 116]. Around then, Nashiem Myrick and longtime friend Harve Pierre, as the rap duo Stixx en Stonz, were dropped from Payday Records, and Myrick began "his stint as Bad Boy's original studio intern" [p 118. By the time Thompson was shaping Blige's My Life album across six to nine months in 1994, Myrick, who had "come a long way" [p 118], was, as Thompson recalls, "the studio manager" [Chris Williams, interviewer, "Key tracks: Mary J. Blige's My Life", Red Bull Music Academy website, 25 Nov 2014], or officially Bad Boy's "production coordinator" [Ronin Ro, Bad Boy (New York: Pocket Books, 2001), p 53, J. R. Reynolds, "Combs' Bad Boy label makes good", Billboard, 1995 May 20;107(20):18,23, p 23. Amid recording of Biggie's Ready to Die, released on September 13, 1994, and of Blige's My Life, released on November 29, 1994, the "Who Shot Ya" versions resulted by production credit mainly to Myrick [Mao, Vibe, 1998, p 118]. Puffy began Bad Boy in 1992 while A&R director at, and initially in partnership with, Andre Harrell's Uptown Records.

Myrick had joined Bad Boy at its outset in 1993 as "studio intern," but in 1994 was its "production coordinator." Myrick, as the main producer of "Who Shot Ya," recalls Puffy tasking him to make an instrumental for rapper Keith Murray as an interlude on Blige's album. Myrick thus "came up with 'Who Shot Ya' "—or at least its basic instrumental—Myrick recalled in 2013. Despite the "Who Shot Ya" impetus or evolution being retold with some discrepancies across the interviewed witnesses—Biggie himself, Nashiem Myrick, Chucky Thompson, and Biggie's protégé Lil' Cease —agreed is that Puffy declared the result "too hard" for the R&B album.

My Life opens with the track titled "Intro," 64 seconds long, which at 22 seconds begins and sustains the "Who Shot Ya" instrumental, without any of its vocals, at low volume under Puffy's speech, soon in dialog with Mary J Blige's. Track six is "K. Murray Interlude," 22 seconds long, which opens with the same instrumental and nearly six bars of Murray's verse, nearly a quarter of his full verse. Midway into Murray's final full line included—My subliminals mix with criminal chemicals—Puffy speaks atop it, "Yo, Big Chuck, put on some of that smooth shit, man." Midway into Murray's next line, all music aborts, whereupon a mechanical noise occurs twice, and the track ends.

Instrumental mix
Puffy, savvy on classic records, often told producers exactly what to sample, but sometimes left the task open. In this case, Nashiem Myrick recalls an open task and the initial instrumental confusing Puffy, because the mixing console showed only one audio source, no isolated drum track. The instrumental was simply one sample on loop, the drums native, explained Myrick. Puffy then tasked Jean-Claude "Poke" Olivier, of the Trackmasters production duo, who both worked for Bad Boy, to simply embellish the drums.

Poke's programming of a synthesized kick drum, heavier and "fluffy," on a drum machine completed the instrumental. Otherwise, it is a sample from "I'm Afraid the Masquerade is Over" by soul singer David Porter, the Isaac Hayes co-producer who shared backing vocalists with Hayes, reinterpreted and extended popular hits. Porter's cover version and extension of this 1939 classic is on his "rock/soul opera" concept album, released in January 1971, that became a cult classic, titled ''Victim of the Joke? An Opera.''

Chucky Thompson
Chucky Thompson, interviewed in 2014, recalled a customary occasion of record shopping with Nasheim Myrick, and this time also entering the studio later while Myrick—inclined to scour records for samples—was playing one of these records in search of a portion to sample, then found one, and played it, looping, for hours. Puffy meanwhile, having eventually entered the studio with Biggie, "got the idea to use it as an interlude for Mary's My Life album," recalls Thompson.

Thompson adds, "Biggie originally rapped the verse on the interlude, and he was later replaced by Keith Murray." "The reason why Keith Murray was brought in was due to B.I.G.'s verse on the interlude. If we kept his original verse, Puff would have been forced to place an Explicit Lyrics sticker on the album, and he didn't want to do that to Mary, so they brought Keith Murray in to replace Biggie." "This sample," says Thomas, "ended up being used for the Notorious B.I.G.'s song 'Who Shot Ya.' "

Nashiem Myrick
Nashiem Myrick, interviewed in 2013, explained, "Actually, that joint was not meant for Big. We was working on the Mary, My Life, album. Puff came to me and said, 'Listen, I need an interlude beat for Keith Murray.' So one day, I got some time. I'm looking through the stuff in the studio, the CDs and records—boom, boom—I come across this record I always wanted to listen to. It's long, it's like 9 minutes long, 11 minutes long, however. Went through the whole record, came up with 'Who Shot Ya.' Keith Murray came through. LL actually came—do the rap on it—but he couldn't finish it. Puff said, 'Go get your man Big, and get him on that record: we have to have it done by Monday.' It was Friday. Found Big. Big came to the studio, blessed me. And that's history." (LL Cool J, around this time managed by Puffy, was a guest—along with Biggie, Busta Rhymes, and Rampage—on a remix of Bad Boy's first single, Craig Mack's "Flava in Ya Ear." )

Junior M.A.F.I.A.
Biggie, when variously interviewed and asked about "Who Shot Ya," explained the lyrics as portraying a young drug dealer's turf war against an older drug dealer, that "I wrote," and that it "was finished," too, "way before" late November 1994. "It was supposed to be the intro to that shit Keith Murray was doing on Mary J. Blige's joint," Biggie asserted. Mainstays at Biggie's recording sessions were members of his rap clique Junior M.A.F.I.A., especially Lil' Cease, who recounts his alliance with Biggie from their Brooklyn neighborhood, whom Biggie brought into the music industry, and who seemingly was one of only two persons within the music industry whom Biggie thoroughly trusted. In 2017, Cease indicated that "Who Shot Ya" recording, too, was "way before" late November 1994, but that "Keith Murray, LL Cool J, and Big" were the original artists on "Who Shot Ya," planned as "the intro to Mary J, My Life, album." Cease added that once this original was rejected as "too hard" for her album, Biggie took it and, adding a verse to replace Keith Murray's verse, made it his own.

Industry rumor mill
The November 1994 attack on Tupac was a turning point in American popular music. Although Biggie never conceded the accusation, "Tupac Shakur and a legion of his fans interpreted the Biggie B-side 'Who Shot Ya?' as a troll job," a barely veiled taunt. In any case, a "rap battle" ensued. Tupac's June 1996 answer song, "Hit 'Em Up," taking lyrical menace to unprecedented extreme, was personal and overt, "arguably the most passionate and unhinged diss record in history." Tupac had been otherwise incarcerated across 1995 into October, but associating menace and homicide began before Tupac's release from prison. The new trend in rap culture promptly figured into pop culture.

Lost friendship
In May 1993, on Bad Boy's first visit to Los Angeles, Biggie, upon his first single, "Party and Bullshit," sought and met Tupac. In August and September, in New York to rap, Tupac visited Biggie in Brooklyn, and they rapped shows together in Manhattan. Biggie joined Tupac and Randy "Stretch" Walker—of the Live Squad rap/production team from Queens, New York—yielding a new trio of running, rapping, and recording mates. Yet in July, Puffy's firing from Uptown Records paused Biggie's album recording, an 18 months total while Biggie struggled financially. Puffy placed Biggie as guest on two more singles, Mary J. Blige's "What's the 411?" remix and Super Cat's "Dolly My Baby."

Tupac, star of the films Juice and Poetic Justice had his second album Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... (1993) yield his first Top 10 hits on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, "I Get Around" and "Keep Ya Head Up". In November, while in New York shooting the film Above the Rim, he frequently socialized with underworld boss Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant. Brooklyn boxer Mike Tyson advised Tupac, "I think you're out of your league." Tupac's first Rolex purchase was to enter Agnant's circle. Biggie recalled being present at the purchase, but Tupac reportedly favored company wealthier than Biggie, who warned him to avoid Agnant. Tupac, regarding Agnant as a friend, reportedly told him of the advice, causing Biggie to receive backlash from Agnant's circle.

In June 1996, Biggie reflected, "There's shit that motherfuckers don't know. I saw the situation and how shit was going, and I tried to school the nigga." "He knows when all that shit was going down, I was schooling a nigga to certain things, me and Stretch—God bless the grave." Stretch died in an unsolved shooting on November 30, 1995. "But he," Biggie said of Tupac, "chose to do the things he wanted to do. There wasn't nothing I could do. But it wasn't like he wasn't my man." By the time of the nonfatal shooting of Tupac on November 30, 1994, he and Biggie, as varying retrospective sources allege, were either simply still "friends," had sustained "smaller kerfuffles," or, per street rumors, "had a war brewing."

1994 shooting
Tupac recalled Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant introducing him to James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond, who recalled instead introducing Tupac to Agnant. Both fearsome in New York City's criminal underworld, Agnant and Rosemond were managers and promoters reputed to extort and rob disfavored music artists. Born in Haiti, Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant had been a stickup kid in New York City, and, reputedly fearless, specialized in robbing drug dealers [Derrick Parker w/ Matt Diehl, Notorious C.O.P. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2006), indexing "Haitian Jack", esp. pp 96–97 & 110–111]. Later a manager and promoter on New York's music scene, he was a magnetic persona [Lesley Goldberg, "Haitian Jack hip-hop miniseries in the works (exclusive)", The Hollywood Reporter, 23 Jan 2017]. Among his associates straddling the music business and the criminal underworld was James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond [Jason Rodriquez & XXL staff, "Pit of snakes: Tupac's Quad studios shooting", XXL.com, 16 Sep 2011]. "According to Bill Courtney, a retired NYPD officer who worked with the infamous 'hip-hop task force,' Agnant and Henchman were known in the music industry for robbery and extortion." [Ibid.] Agnant would later admit to it [Justin Tinsley, " 'Hip Hop Uncovered' tells the story of the feared 'Haitian Jack' ", TheUndefeated.com, ESPN, 12 Feb 2021]. Rosemond would suggest that despite his own appearance, unassuming, his own criminal background exceeded Agnant's [Ethan Brown, Queens Reigns Supreme (New York: Anchor Books, 2005), pp 123–126]. On November 29, 1994, Rosemond hired Tupac to record at Quad Recording Studios with his client Little Shawn, rapper, Uptown Records, and record producer Bryce Wilson. Tupac, amid "major beef" with Agnant, and confronted by Rosemond for it on November 25, was leery. Present was Uptown's boss Andre Harrell, summoned by Rosemond. Rosemond recalled "plenty of people." Tupac recalled "about 40." Little Shawn, as if "everybody must have known this cat was coming," recalled it "like a fucking party." Puffy, hanging out, recalled nearby filming for the "Warning" music video, then going to visit Biggie on a higher of Quad's five floors, but getting sidetracked on this floor, Quad's required reception stop.Accounts of Biggie's whereabouts when Tupac arrived upstairs vary. For instance, a 2005 account writes, "The final humiliation, Shakur said, was taking the elevator upstairs only to find Rosemond, Sean 'Puffy' Combs, and Biggie waiting for him. 'All of them had jewels on,' Shakur explained to Vibe, 'more jewels than mine.' " [ Ethan Brown, Queens Reigns Supreme (New York: Anchor Books/Random House, 2005), p 126 ]. In Vibe 's transcript of the January 1995 interview, Tupac more exactly said, "When we got upstairs, I looked around, and it scared the shit out of me"; the interviewer then asked, "Why?"; Tupac replied, "Because Andre Harrell was there, Puffy was there, Biggie... there was about 40 niggas there" [Kevin Powell, interviewer, "Vibe Q: Tupac Shakur", Vibe, 1995 Apr;3(3):50–55, republished as "Revisit Tupac's April 1995 cover story: 'Ready to live' ", Vibe.com, 14 Feb 2021]. The ellipses, immediately after Biggie, are both in the 2021 republication online and in the original print article [Powell, Vibe 3(3):53. Discrepantly, a 2006 account writes, "Quad Studios occupies five floors of the Midtown office building, so at any given time there can be a number of artists working on different projects. That night was no different. Little Shawn was recording on one floor, Biggie Smalls's group Junior M.A.F.I.A. was recording on another floor, while Biggie and Sean 'Puffy' Combs were working on a video on a third" [Candace Sandy & Dawn Marie Daniels, How Long Will They Mourn Me? (New York: One World Books/Random House, 2006), p 53. By contrast, Puffy himself recalled shooting Biggie's "Warning" music video elsewhere, merely near Quad studios, and without Biggie, but learning of Biggie's proximity through "one of the Bad Boy staff members on his way to Biggie's session. I knew that Biggie had a session with Junior Mafia, but I didn't know it was right around the corner. So I'm going to check B.I.G., you know what I'm saying? When I get off the elevator at Quad, you have to stop in a reception area, and there's this Little Shawn session with Andre. So I stopped to say 'What's up?' to them. I'm about to go up to Biggie's session when Pac comes out the elevator and he's shot up" [ Fab Five Freddy, interviewer, "Mail: Tupac Shakur", Vibe, 1995 Aug;3(6):25–29, p 27 ]. Biggie recalled, "I had a session with the Junior Mafia at Quad Studios." "Next thing you know, everybody was like, 'Yo, 'Pac just got shot.' So I'm on my way downstairs, no gat, to see what's up with my man." "I get downstairs and everything's on some lockdown shit." "Immediately, police thought everybody in the studio was on the same floor where everything was supposed to have happened at. I saw 'Pac get out on a stretcher, but when he actually came out from the elevator, I wasn't even there." [p 25

Biggie, although sometimes reportedly with Puffy, Harrell, and Rosemond when Tupac arrived upstairs, was instead on a higher floor recording with his own rap group, Junior M.A.F.I.A. Near 12:30 AM, Tupac, Stretch, and two other men entered the building lobby, where Tupac was shot resisting successful robbery of $40 000 of jewelry. Stretch's manager, Freddie "Nickels" Moore, was nonfatally shot in the abdomen, "but that," Tupac later said, "was the bullet that went through my leg." Once upstairs, Tupac instantly blamed Rosemond, and later grew convinced of his guilt. Tupac would ultimately question lobby events as to Stretch, others' reactions upstairs, and "Who Shot Ya" release. In response, Tupac would eventually record "Hit 'Em Up," assailing Biggie and Puffy, whereas "Against All Odds," released posthumously, assails Agnant and Rosemond for setting him up. By then or eventually, each complained about Tupac's airing names and gripes in the media and allegedly fostering cinematic drama in his own life. Vibe 's August 1995 edition quotes Biggie saying, in part, "When I read the interview, I felt like he was just shitting on everybody. I always said that he was the realest nigga in the game. I don't know what he was trying to hide, or if he was scared. I figured that with the shit he was talking in Vibe, he was just confused more than anything. You get shot and then you go to jail for something you ain't even do—that could twist a nigga's mind up" [3(6):25. Biggie continues, "And then the story just completely got switched around: niggas saying I set him up and I'm the one that got him shot. They're saying that my record 'Who Shot Ya?' is about him. That shit is crazy. That song was finished way before Tupac got shot. Niggas was taking little pieces of the song and trying to add it to the story, and that shit is crazy" [3(6):25. The publication withholds other of Biggie's comments that the interviewer, Fab Five Freddy, shared about 22 years later in a third-party documentary, Who Shot Biggie & Tupac? (USA: Critical Content, 2017). This is excerpted as "Ice-T & Soledad listen to the Biggie interview about the Quad shooting", Fox "Verified" channel @ YouTube, Fox Entertainment, 22 Sep 2017, a video clip whose audio apparently itself stitches snippets of Biggie talking: "It went like this, you know what I'm saying. I was upstairs at Quad. We in the back, chilling. Next thing, we hearing, 'Yo, Tupac got shot.' He said that I set him up. Man, that is shit is crazy. I don't know what he was trying to hide, or if he was scared. I don't know what was going on in that nigga's head. But I want an apology, especially when I found out what really went down: that he shot himself, that he ain't really get shot in his head: he got pistol-whipped. You know what I'm saying? And I'm hearing all this, and I'm like, 'Damn.' I think the nigga was just getting a little bit too happy with this situation, trying to make movies. Everything was a movie to him."

Key accusations
For a November 1993 incident in his Midtown Manhattan hotel suite, Tupac Shakur's November 1994 trial led to December 1 conviction of sexual abuse, first degree, for groping. On February 7, 1995, denied probation, he received prison—four years and six months—parole eligibility in 18 months. A January 1995 jailhouse interview of Tupac—disavowing his own "Thug Life" ethos, vowing only directly positive acts, and leery at conduct by Stretch during and by others upstairs after the November 1994 shooting —appeared in Vibe's April issue. It, allegedly, "accused" Biggie and "blamed" Puffy,Sue Bradford Edwards, ch 4 "Friends and enemies", pp 34–43, The Murders of Tupac and Biggie (Minneapolis, MN: Abdo Publishing, 2020), writes, in part, "Vibe editors would later admit that their April 1995 issue was the first inkling that Smalls had that Shakur blamed him and Combs for the Quad shooting. Shakur accused Smalls in the magazine, and reporters did not ask for a comment from Smalls to allow him to defend himself in the same issue. Some journalism experts blame Vibe for the split between the rappers" [ p 39 ]. (Edwards provides no source for Vibe 's admission.) In any case, Vibe 's August issue, addressing the topic without specifying Biggie per se, prefaced, "Several of the people mentioned in the interview were contacted before the story was published but declined to comment at the time. After the interview appeared, they contacted Vibe, wanting to respond to what they felt were misconceptions that arose from some of Tupac's statements and descriptions. Here are some excerpts from their replies, as told to Fab 5 Freddy." [ "Mail: Tupac Shakur", Vibe, 1995 Aug;3(6):25–29]. Biggie's reply, alleged, in part, "When I read the interview, I felt like he was just shitting on everybody", but "then the story just got completely switched around" via "niggas saying I set him up and I'm the one that got him shot. They're saying that my record 'Who Shot Ya?' is about him" [ p 25 ]. Puffy meanwhile replied, in part, "He got a lot of people in a lot of bullshit with that interview. The way it was written, it was open-ended, like me and B.I.G. and Andre had something to do with it" [ p 27 ]. or "implicates" them and Andre Harrell. Puffy called it, instead, "open-ended, like me and Big and Andre had something to do with" the attack, a main topic via "Who Shot Ya" when New York radio station Hot 97 interviewed Biggie. Replying in Vibe 's August issue, rather, each party but Stretch and Biggie recalled the injured Tupac acting like a movie role.

James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond further called Tupac a "coward" who tried "street" ways but failed "the test" and was, "hysterically, talking about,  'Call the police.' " Puffy spoke of empathy and hope his "Thug Life" ethos "is really over," but added, "if you gonna be a motherfuckin' thug, you gots to live and die a thug." Tupac was, Biggie estimated, "the realest nigga in the game," but, recently assailed severely, "was just confused," maybe seeking cover or shelter by the interview, "just shitting on everybody." "And then," Biggie added, "the story just completely got switched around: niggas saying I set him up and I'm the one that got him shot. They're saying that my record 'Who Shot Ya?' is about him." "Niggas was taking little pieces of the song and trying to add it to the story, and that shit is crazy." Stretch called Tupac "my man," but demanded he "recognize what the fuck he's doing"—"telling niggas' names and all that shit" in "the media"—breaking a "street" "rule that's never to be broken."

On November 6, 1994, at a nightclub with a recent movie costar, Tupac met gossip columnist A J Benza, whereby New York's Daily News reported Tupac's viewing his own former codefendant Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant as a "hanger-on," maybe a government informant, who caused the rape and gun case. On April 11, 1992, a Texas youth, Ronald Ray Howard, shot dead a state trooper and would claim influence by Tupac's debut album, November 1991's 2Pacalypse Now. And on October 31, 1993, in Atlanta, Tupac Shakur himself shot two off-duty police officers, but the charges would be dropped. On November 18, 1993, Shakur, his road manager Charles Fuller, 23, of California, and one Ricardo Brown, 30, of Florida, were arrested at Tupac's suite in Le Parker Meridien hotel, in Midtown, Manhattan, whereas another alleged assailant escaped [C. Wolff, "Rap performer is charged in Midtown sex attack", New York Times, 20 Nov 1993, § 1, p 25]. The "Ricardo Brown", called "Nigel" amid the case, was Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant [R. Perez-Pena, "Wounded rapper gets mixed verdict in sex-abuse case", NYT, 2 Dec 1994, § A, p 1]. Just before the November 1994 trial, codefendant Agnant's motion for separate prosecution was granted via his attorney, known for alliance with the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York [Ethan Brown, "The score", Vibe, 2005 Dec;12(14):220. "On November 6, 1994, the night before the trial was set to begin, Tupac went to Club Expo in the heart of Times Square. There, he met Rourke and a friend of his, a reporter for the Daily News, by the name of A. J. Benza. Over drinks, Tupac told Benza that he thought the rape case was a setup by Nigel, a.k.a. Jacques Agnant" [Candace Sandy & Dawn Marie Daniels, How Long Will They Mourn Me? (New York: Random House, 2006), p 52. Also see John Potash, "Tupac's Panther shadow: The political targeting of Tupac Shakur", CovertAction Quarterly, 1999;67:11–15, p 13. Street gossip then foresaw attack on Tupac. Rosemond, angered, would call the November 30 attack "discipline," but reassert innocence. In June 2011, murder convict Dexter Isaac confessed, directly to the media, as one of the November 1994 robbery's gunmen and alleged that James "Jimmy Henchman" Rosemond had hired him for the job [Kevin Dolak & Sheila Marikar, "Inmate confesses to 1994 robbery of Tupac Shakur", ABCNews.Go.com, 16 Jun 2011]. In December 2018, promoting a new book, Isaac casually mentioned that Tupac's friend Randy "Stretch" Walker was in cahoots with Rosemond [Aaron Mendel, "2Pac shooter Dexter Issac claims Pac's friend 'Stretch' set up Quad Shooting", VladTV.com, 18 Dec 2018]. Tupac's brother-in-law Zayd, present during the robbery, then alleged that Isaac was lying and certainly not one of the gunmen [Staff writer, "2Pac's brother-in-law says Dexter Isaac lied about Quad studio shooting", VladTV.com, 1 Jan 2019]. Zayd alleged, in part, "Neither one of them could never be mistaken for light-skinned or fair-skinned at no time of the year. They was both dark-skinned" [Ibid., ~11:46 into embedded YouTube video]. (Zayd asserts other discrepancies, including height, build, and accent [Ibid.], but Tupac, in fact, had recalled, "The light-skinned dude, the one that was standing outside, was on me" [Kevin Powell, interviewer, "Revisit Tupac's April 1995 cover story: 'Ready to live' ", Vibe.com, Vibe Media, LLC, 14 Feb 2021].) Meanwhile, in June 2012, media reported that to barter for concessions in a current case, Rosemond admitted his own guilt behind the November 1994 attack [Chuck Philips, "James 'Jimmy Henchman' Rosemond implicated himself. . .", Village Voice, 12 Jun 2012; D Greenwald/Billboard, [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tupac-shakur-shooting-james-rosemond-341643 "James Rosemond admits. . ."], The Hollywood Reporter, 25 June 2012]. But Rosemond soon reasserted innocence [Staff, [https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jimmy-henchmans-denies-role-in-1994-tupac-shakur-shooting-252131 "Jimmy Henchman's denies. . ."], RollingStone.com, 29 Jun 2012]. Rosemond's alleged admission was a prosecutor's misstatement that, going uncontested at the time, had been entered into court record [Staff, "Drug kingpin did not admit assault on Tupac Shakur", TheSmokingGun.com, TSG Industries, Inc., 3 Jul 2012]. Rosemond would assert that he and Tupac had been "friends" and that he had "nothing against him" and "liked him" [Vlad Lyubovny, interviewer, "2Pac & Dexter Isaac blaming him for shooting", VladTV / DJVlad @ YouTube, 19 Jun 2017]. Agnant eventually recounted issuing order to not attack Tupac, but a then close ally, angered by the newspaper story, "especially in New York City," setting up this attack, anyway. Widely viewed as its mastermind, Rosemond alleged that Tupac, being theatrical, "makes a situation to sell records," and recalled ordering Tupac to stop blaming Biggie and Puffy, who "ain't got nothing to do with this." Puffy, citing Tupac's deeming the gunmen's identifies open knowledge on the street, called himself and Biggie "scapegoats."

Reportedly, New York police had within the Bad Boy or Uptown label a confidential informant who named Biggie as the attack's contractor, but government misinformation is possible. Tupac heard street word that Biggie simply withheld warning of it. Rosemond, disputing the storied five gunshot wounds, asserted Stretch's recount of only one gunshot, when a robber's grabbing Tupac's hand, trying to draw the gun, discharged it. Lil' Cease recalls this a consensus —whereby Bryce Wilson cites gunpowder on Tupac's boxers —a variant question of who shot him. Biggie called him, in Vibe 's August 1995 issue, "just confused more than anything. You get shot and then you go to jail for something you ain't even do. That could twist a nigga's mind up." But as Vibe 's excerpt omitted, Biggie also expressed appall at, he said, "what really went down": pistol-whipping and self-inflicted gunshot but, then, "just getting a little bit too happy with the situation, trying to make movies. Everything was a movie to him."

Enduring debate
Biggie consistently disputed that "Who Shot Ya" targeted Tupac. Still, some call it a diss track, if "subliminal." Biggie recorded his lyrics "months" before Tupac was shot in November 1994, but Puffy removed the song from Biggie's album, released in September 1994. On both the mixtape track and the B side, however, Puffy shouts, "9-5." Naima Cochrane, who "went on to work at Bad Boy" after working at a law firm that "represented the full roster of producers" at Bad Boy, judges, " 'Who Shot Ya' sounds exactly like a track that accidentally launched rap's biggest feud between Biggie and Tupac."

In 2009, the biographical film Notorious was released, and Rahman Dukes, who with coworkers had done research for it, announced, "Biggie himself clears up 'Who Shot Ya' misunderstanding." Dukes prefaces that Lil' Cease, who was Biggie's main rap buddy, as well as DJ Mister Cee, who had discovered Biggie,  denied it as a Tupac taunt. Dukes adds, "Hell, even Diddy"—formerly Puffy—"shot down those claims." Dukes asserts, "Only the late, great B.I.G. could clear matters up, but we all know that's not possible." Dukes reports a "long-lost freestyle" with "a few bars," "a bit of hard-core evidence," but leaves it for listeners to judge.

On the other hand, in 2010, rap magazine XXL assessed "8 subliminal diss records" and appraised, " 'Who Shot Ya?' remains highly contested, but the lyrics to 'Long Kiss Good Night' were even more direct." "In the April 2003 issue of XXL, Lil' Cease confirms the record was aimed at 'Pac, while Puff contends that 'If Biggie was going to do a song about 2Pac, he would have just come out with it and said his name.' " Released posthumously, "Long Kiss Goodnight" itself features Puffy's ad lib disclaimer—And we ain't talking about no other rap niggas —but this song, nonetheless, "was definitely about 'Pac, no 2 ways about it," concludes XXL by citing other lyrics.

XXL meanwhile estimated about "Who Shot Ya?" that "the timing of its release and the perceived subliminal shots"—including allegedly "telling lyrics" in Biggie's second verse, new in the single —"lead us to believe that this was most likely a diss record." In 2014, however, Bad Boy staff producer Chucky Thompson, key in Ready to Die production, and witness to "Who Shot Ya" production, asserted, "I still have that recording with me today, and him saying that phrase had absolutely nothing to do with Tupac." Nashiem Myrick, the song's main producer, asserted, "We have no reason, no motive, at all, to have set 'Pac up. What's the motive? What's the issue? It's no issue. So, nah." In August 2022, former Bad Boy Records president Kirk Burrowes stated that while Biggie may not have intended "Who Shot Ya?" as a diss towards Tupac, in hopes of gaining more success, Combs marketed the song so that it would be interpreted as one.

Releases

 * Ready to Die (Remaster edition)
 * Born Again
 * Greatest Hits
 * "Big Poppa" 12" single