11/10/2023 0 Comments Orvilles dis trackDre had defected from Death Row in March-shortly after that infamous VIBE cover hit shelves-to launch his own Aftermath Entertainment, sans label head Suge Knight.Īnd in the midst of all that instability, there was the incendiary Tupac Shakur.ĭeath Row was clearly in a state of flux, with Dre’s unexpected departure, the sudden arrival of 2Pac, and the way that Suge clearly centered Pac as the label’s biggest star-a title that had been held by Snoop Doggy Dogg for three years running. Perhaps most notably, label mainstay and co-founder Dr. Also, Snoop was just resuming his hip-hop career following a lengthy murder trial that contributed to his notoriety but stalled his momentum following the multi-platinum success of Doggystyle and Murder Was the Case. Tha Dogg Pound’s debut was the last in a series of albums and incidents that had drawn contempt for gangsta rap and the artists who produced it, and Time Warner sold its 50 percent interest in Interscope back to the label after public outcry had reached a fever pitch. Time Warner had severed ties with Interscope following the controversy surrounding Dogg Food. As it pertained to hip-hop, at this particular juncture, Death Row ruled the roost. Most of Bad Boy’s success throughout 19 would come via R&B hits by acts like Faith, Total, and 112. Future Bad Boy hip-hop artists like Ma$e and the LOX wouldn’t release albums until 1997. Craig Mack had been the label’s first success but it had been two years since he hit big with “Flava In Ya Ear” and Mack was looking more like a one-hit wonder by then. And 2Pac released his smash double-disc All Eyez On Me in February 1996.įor some perspective, their rival Bad Boy Entertainment had only one bona fide rap star in the Notorious B.I.G. Since The Chronic dropped in late 1992, Death Row had been in the midst of a strong run: Snoop’s Doggystyle arrived in fall 1993, the Above the Rim soundtrack in spring 1994, the Murder Was the Case soundtrack/film later that year, and Tha Dogg Pound’s Dogg Food in fall 1995. When the Death Row roster posed on the cover of Vibe that February, the implication was clear: this was the superpower in hip-hop. But Death Row’s gangster reputation had been cemented via court cases and assault charges-and 2Pac knew both all too well, having faced numerous legal troubles since he’d burst onto the scene as a troubled-but-talented artist in late ’91. The Death Row/Bad Boy feud had been callously hyped as an all-out war between East Coast and West Coast rappers even though there had been very little actual violence surrounding any of it at the time. There was a palpable sense of dread hanging over hip-hop in mid-’96. It’s been 20 years since the release of 2Pac’s scathingly brutal diss track “Hit ’Em Up,” a song that came to embody the venom behind the Death Row/Bad Boy beef of the mid-’90s and an easy reference for the antagonistic figure many saw 2Pac as in his final months on this earth. That opening line-that egregious, confrontational, hate-filled opening line-was one of the most unforgettable utterances ever committed to wax by the late Tupac Shakur. “ First off, fuck your bitch and the clique you claim…”
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