When people think about the beef between Tupac Shakur and a prominent rapper from the East Coast, their minds automatically go to The Notorious B.I.G.
However, few people are aware that the “California Love” emcee was also beefing with Nas, the Queens emcee that responsible for the hit song 1996 hit, “If I Ruled The World” featuring Lauryn Hill singing the chorus.
At one point, the Tupac and Nas came face to face— in a confrontation that could have ended in a people losing their lives.
Napoleon, a founding member of the Outlaws (a group that was down with Shakur), sat with The Art of Dialogue and detailed an incident between Pac and Nas around the 1996 MTV Awards, only a few days before the late rapper’s murder.
Apparently, at the after-party, the two entourages circled each other with the intention of getting it popping. Armed with their guns, the crews were waiting for the words to signal that they should set it off.
“Nas was there with his homies and they started walking towards Tupac. They was deep. This is this is an incident that should be more highlighted highlighted in the hip-hop world in general. It shows how two individuals diffuse something that could have been bloodshed,” Napoleon said.
Napoleon described the scene as Nas and Pac approaching each other like generals, having conversations like grown men, and ending their brief discussion with a brotherly hug.
“It was so loud I don’t know what they were saying, it was so loud from the music. We mean mugging they homies they mean mugging us, in the next thing I know we just seen Pac and Nas embrace and hug. They walk their way we walked our way,” Napoleon revealed.
He noted that when the “I Get Around” rapper returned to his homies, he shared that he had a great deal of respect for Nas.
Pac said, “I spoke to that dude. I got respect for him. You know, I thought he was dissing me on some songs. He made it clear wasn’t dissing me.”
He had vowed to remove all of the verses on his songs that came at the QB titan, however, he was murdered before that could happen.
Pac’s exact words was “when I go back to LA and go into the studio I’m going to remove Nas from every song that I diss hin on,'” Napoleon revealed. “Including ‘Against All Odds.’ Pac was going to remove every Nas song, but unfortunately Pac died a week later.”
This is another Hip-Hop story that could possibly show others how to handle beef peacefully.
People think Pac was a troublemaker, but he was also about the community. Much of the work that he did with Queens shero Erica Ford (The Code Club) <_ ileadwithlove.org=”ileadwithlove.org” erica-ford-2017=”erica-ford-2017″>, laid the foundation the “Peace is a Lifestyle” movement and Life Camp, Inc. Battle rapper C3 and the Super Cool Q/ Jakwad/ Urban Yogis came out of this program germinated from the man responsible for the concept of “Thug Life.”