Biggie and Tupac | 1. Against the World

Slow Burn

Slate Audio

Politics, Society & Culture, History, News, Documentary

4.6 • 25.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2019

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On the first episode of Slow Burn’s third season: How a violent robbery severed Tupac’s friendship with Biggie Smalls and sparked a bicoastal beef that consumed the world of hip-hop. In November 1994, while on trial for sexual abuse, Tupac Shakur is shot five times in a New York recording studio. In the aftermath, he starts to suspect that his erstwhile friend Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls, might be involved. It was the start of a beef that would consume the world of hip-hop and end with both men dead. Want more Slow Burn? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately access all episodes of Slow Burn (and your other favorite Slate podcasts) completely ad-free. Plus, you’ll unlock subscriber-exclusive bonus episodes that bring you behind-the-scenes on the making of the show. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast has language that some people might find offensive.
0:04.0	It was November 29th, 1994, and Tupac Shakur was in trouble.
0:13.5	He was on trial for sexual abuse, sodomy, and weapons possession.
0:17.6	A woman had accused him of setting her up to be raped in his New York hotel room.
0:21.9	The jury started deliberating that morning
0:24.7	Tupac was facing the possibility of a long prison sentence his career was already
0:29.2	suffering he'd lost a movie role and a guest spot on a TV series.
0:34.4	And his legal bills were piling up.
0:36.4	Tupac needed cash.
0:39.1	During the trial, he would spend his evenings
0:41.2	going from one recording studio to another.
0:44.0	He was trying to wrap his way out of financial ruin.
0:47.6	Eizymo B was a producer from Brooklyn.
0:49.9	He was in the studio with Tupac a lot of those nights. It was 6 p.m. 6 o'clock every day so what he would do is he would through the door. A bundle of energy.
1:09.2	Yo, you know, we gonna do this and he's talking know he's talking real fast he is he was a bundle of energy
1:14.4	right it was just you had to really really keep up with him
1:19.5	on the night of November 29th two po's first session was with Ron G, a local
1:23.8	mixtape DJ. This was for free. Tupac was hoping a hot verse would keep his
1:28.1	music coming out of boomboxes even if he got locked up. The next session was for money. Tupac was cutting a track with
1:35.1	Lil Sean, a rapper whose biggest hit to that point was hickies on your chest.
1:39.2	This collaboration wasn't going to get Tupac back on top of the charts, but it would earn him $7,000.
1:46.5	The session was at Quad Recording Studios in Times Square.
	...

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