State Champ Radio 2pac
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: L. Busacca / Getty / Tupac Shakur
Drake’s clever attempt at a Kendrick Lamar diss record could land him in legal hot water.
Spotted on HuffPost, the Estate of the late iconic rapper Tupac Shakur is threatening Drake with legal action for using an AI-generated voice of Shakur.
The Estate is giving the Canadian Hip-Hop star 24 hours to take down his latest Kendrick Lamar diss track, “Taylor Made Freestyle.” The track features AI-generated voices of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg urging their West Coast brethren to defend his honor on wax. Drake’s verse uses the 8-mile tactic of taking all the possible insults Lamar can use off the table by pointing them out.
In the song, the fake Tupac tells K.Dot, “You asked for the smoke, now it seems you too busy for the smoke.”
Per Billboard, the cease-and-desist letter that the Shakur estate slapped Drake, real name Aubrey Graham.
The HuffPost Reports:
“The Estate is deeply dismayed and disappointed by your unauthorized use of Tupac’s voice and personality,” attorney Howard King wrote in the letter, according to Billboard. “Not only is the record a flagrant violation of Tupac’s publicity and the Estate’s legal rights, it is also a blatant abuse of the legacy of one of the greatest hip-hop artists of all time. The Estate would never have given its approval for this use.”
Snoop Dogg Also Had Something To Say
Following the Friday release of “Taylor Made Freestyle,” Snoop Dogg took to his Instagram account to drop a hilarious reaction to Drake using an AI version of his voice.
“They did what? When? How? Are you sure? [Sigh] Y’all have a good night,” Snoop said in the Instagram clip. “Why everybody calling my phone, blowing me up? What the fuck— what happened? What’s going on? I’m going back to bed. Good night.”
We are curious to see how this plays out.
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Drake is currently on the offensive after officially dropping the “Push Ups” track, which aims at Kendrick Lamar, Rick Ross, and Future. As the ongoing war of words continues, Drake pulled off what some online are calling a masterful stroke with an AI-rendered diss track aimed at Kendrick Lamar using the voices of Snoop Dogg and the late Tupac “2Pac” Shakur.
The AI-assisted track, titled “Taylor Made,” hit social media over the weekend with Drake posting the full audio across his socials. In the track, Drizzy uses AI to rap from the perspective of 2Pac and Snoop Dogg, using the iconic stars’ voices to coach K-Dot on how to diss the Canadian superstar.
From “Taylor Made”:
(As 2Pac)Kendrick, we need ya, the West Coast saviorEngraving your name in some hip-hop historyIf you deal with this viciouslyYou seem a little nervous about all the publicityFuck this Canadian lightskin, DotWe need a no-debated West Coast victory, manCall him a bitch for meTalk about him liking young girls, that’s a gift from meHeard it on the Budden Podcast, it’s gotta be trueThey told me the spirit of Makaveli is aliveIn the n*gga under 5’5″, so it’s gotta be you
Snoop Dogg’s voice is used for the second portion of the song with some of the bars reading:
Nephew, what the f*ck you really ’bout to do?We passed you the torch at the House of BluesAnd now you got to do some dirty work, you know how to move, right? Right?I know you never been to jail, or wore jumpsuits and shower shoesNever shot nobody, never stabbed nobodyNever did nothing violent to no one, it’s the homies that empower youBut still, you gotta show this f*cking owl who’s boss on the WestNow’s a time to really make a power move
As Drake keeps attempting to goad Kendrick Lamar into responding, it doesn’t appear that he had any more bars for Rick Ross after taking shots at his former friend via the “Push Ups” track.
Breaking the wall here and speaking for myself, I don’t have a strong opinion regarding who is winning this mock meat tussle. I just want to hear some bars from these great rappers and that it all stays on wax without getting weird or personal. Anything else is too toxic for me. There you have it, that’s my view of things so far. – D.L.
Reactions to Drake’s latest salvo have been cropping up since the drop of the “Taylor Made” freestyle. Check out the song and the reactions below. Also, it appears Snoop Dogg also reacted to the news. Check out that video too.
—
Photo: Carmen Mandato / Getty
1. Is he monetizing it? Doesn’t seem so but what do we know?
8. Thoughts?
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Al Pereira / Getty
It seems there is more to learn about 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G.’s story. Busta Rhymes reveals that a popular Biggie Smalls verse was actually going at Pac.
As spotted on Vibe, the Rap legend recently paid a visit to the All The Smoke podcast. While the “Touch It” MC discussed a variety of topics, ranging from his storied career to current events, it was a story he told about a studio session with B.I.G. that has since gone viral. Back in the mid-’90s Busta Rhymes was aiming to secure Biggie, Method Man and Nas as features on one song. While the track didn’t come together like how he originally intended, it birthed a very memorable performance by the King of New York.
“So there’s a song in the middle of the Biggie and 2Pac beef and he [Biggie] recorded the verse in my studio session. At the time I thought it would be brilliant to have these three MC’s on a J Dilla beat. I think B.I.G. just got into the car accident with [Lil’] Cease and his leg was messed up and the elevator wasn’t working,” Busta explained. “I got to Soundtracks [on] the third day. Elevators fine,” Busta continues. “Big and [Lil’] Cease come. They pull up. Meth and Nas came two days in a row now. No Biggie. So, they was not coming on the third day.”
The former Leaders of the New School member would go on to detail seeing B.I.G.’s creative process for the first time ever. “One hour, two hours; he just smoking. He ain’t writing nothing. About three hours in I’m like ‘My ni**a you ain’t going to do this verse my ni**a?’ That ni**a said, ‘I’m ready Buss.’”
Busta Rhymes would go on to recite the verse and emphasize the lines directed at 2Pac via his cadence and pitch. “Diamonds on my neck, chrome drop-top / Chillin’ on the scene, smoking pounds of green / Oooh-wee, you see, the ugliest / Money-hungriest, Brooklyn Loch Ness / Nine millimeter cock test, wan fi’ test? / And the winner is, not that thinner kid / Bandanas, tattoos, my fists never bruise / Land still cruise.”
At the time, Bus was good friends with 2Pac thus he told B.I.G. he would not be releasing the song. Years later, the verse would reappear on the posthumous Notorious B.I.G. album Born Again on “Dangerous MC’s.” You can hear the original verse below.
[embedded content]
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Gilbert Flores / Getty
The 2Pac murder investigation rabbit hole continues to get deeper and deeper. The late, great rapper’s brother Mopreme says that Diddy told him he didn’t have anything to do with the infamous murder.
TMZ is reporting that the 2Pac’s stepbrother recently spoke to The Art of Dialogue. During the interview he discussed a variety of topics related to his legendary sibling. As expected the host Art asked the former Thug Life group member about that fateful night of September 7, 1996. He went on to make a reveal that quickly went viral. The “Feels Good” rapper says that Diddy once called him to personally tell him he had nothing to do with 2Pac’s death. “The boy Puffy called me, though,” Mopreme said. “Puffy called me back in the day. He was like, ‘I just want you to know I ain’t have nothing to do with your brother’s [murder]. I know who you are, but we never met. I just want to call you man to man and let you know that I ain’t have nothing to do with your brother’s death.’”
He went on to explain that while he thought it was a noble gesture he still was seeking answers. “I told him I appreciate the call, but the truth has yet to come out, so we gon’ see,” he added. “Back then, I wanted all the information I could get. I heard what he said, but this s**t been so chaotic. Ain’t know which way to go until you found out more information. He could have been trying to cover his a**, or he could have been sincere.”
As spotted at Vibe Magazine 50 Cent has continued his attacks on Diddy. Once again he has pointed the finger of guilt at the Bad Boy Entertainment mogul as per Keffe D’s story that Puffy offered a Crip set money to kill 2Pac. In an Instagram post he shared a clip of a Keffe D interview from The Art Of Dialogue where the Compton native claims that Diddy could have showed him and crew more love. “LMAO 😆Brother Love, show some love. Damn should have just sent this fool a few dollars.” the caption read.
You can view Mopreme’s interview below.
[embedded content]
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Variety / Getty / Jada Pinkett Smith
If you hoped Jada Pinkett Smith was done talking, we are sad to report she is not.
Jada Pinkett Smith is currently on her whirlwind book tour for her memoir, Worthy, coming October 17, and recently stopped by the All The Smoke podcast to speak with hosts and former NBA hoopers Matt Barnes, and she had even more juicy nuggets to share, specifically about 2Pac.
Following the recent revelations that she and her husband, Will Smith, have been separated for years, Pinkett Smith revealed that her late bestie, 2Pac, asked for her hand in marriage during his 1995 prison stint.
Pinkett Smith believes that Pac would have kicked her to the curb the first chance he got out of prison.
Per HipHopDX:
“When I wrote about that in the book and when I had to talk about it, speak my words for the Audible version of the book, that was probably one of the more painful parts,” she said. “Seeing him there, the condition that he was in and having to leave him there. He was in bad shape. And so, when he asked me to get married, he was at Rikers [Island].
“I knew at that time that he needed somebody to do time with him, which I was gonna do anyway. He didn’t have to marry me to do that. I’m here. He needed a rock. Because of our friendship and everything we had been through together, he just wanted to feel that solidified foundation.”
She continued: “I promise you, he would’ve married me and divorced me as soon as his ass got out [of prison]. He would’ve! […] I just think it was the mind state that he was in. He wrote me this long letter, and even before ‘Pac went to jail, he was starting to shift in a certain manner. Good, really good.
“And I think that for him, he just felt like, ‘Okay, if I can tether myself, it’ll keep me on a trajectory.’ But trust me, he would’ve divorced me as soon as he — one thing he wouldn’t want me as is a wife. I know that for a fact! But I think just being at Rikers, it just kinda shook him a little.”
Jada Pinkett Smith Reveals Her & 2Pac Were Not On Speaking Terms
During their conversation, Pinkett Smith told Barnes and Jackson that she and 2Pac, whom she called her “soulmate” in a recent interview with Rolling Out, were not on speaking terms because of a heated argument.
It was only after his murder that she realized that holding onto past disputes was insignificant and that you “don’t hold on to bullsh-t. It’s not worth it.”
Welp.
You can fully expect more details to drop leading up to her memoir’s release.
—
Photo: Variety / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Ethan Miller / Getty
50 Cent is alleging that Diddy is the mastermind behind the killing of 2Pac, causing some rumbling online.
HipHopDX reports that Monday (Oct. 9), 50 Cent shared an Instagram post comprised of the last photo of Tupac “2Pac” Shakur as he and Suge Knight left the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996. “Damn so pac got lined by brother love,” the G-Unit leader wrote in the caption, using the name Diddy goes by for his R&B projects. “LOL Time to Lawyer up, shit might get sticky.” Diddy had not responded to the post.
There’s uncertainty as to why 50 Cent would make that claim, but he has recently trolled the Harlem-born mogul for his parties during one of his concert stops on his Final Lap tour. “That’s why I don’t be going to them Puffy parties,” he said. “Uh-uh. Ni**a hug you from the front and the back at the same time? F**k you talkin’ about? Look, if you into that, you into that, I’m fine with it. To each his own. I’m just sayin’ this ain’t my motherf**kin’ kind of party. It’s uncomfortable. I think I belong in the girls’ bathroom when sh*t like that is going on.”
There’s also been an air of speculation around Diddy since the murder that evening. The rumors have been fueled by comments made by Duane “Keefe D” Davis in a confession he made to police in 2008. At the time, the South Side Compton Crip claimed that he and Diddy discussed a deal to kill 2Pac and Suge Knight since they represented Death Row Records, who were bitterly feuding with Bad Boy Records at the time.
Davis claimed that the conversation took place at Greenblatt’s Deli in Los Angeles and that the mogul offered $1 million to “get rid of them dudes.” The 60-year-old would then tell Los Angeles Police Department officers that the Crips never received the alleged $500,000 payment from Diddy.
Davis is currently in jail in Las Vegas after being arrested for his role in the murder of 2Pac earlier this month after a grand jury indicted him. He now awaits another hearing to set the date for his trial. Diddy has passionately denied being involved in 2Pac’s death in the past.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Jada Pinkett Smith and her connection to the late 2Pac has been well documented over the years dating back to their time as high school students in Baltimore, Md. After a man was arrested in connection to the murder of the popular rapper, Pinkett Smith has since spoken out.
Jada Pinkett Smith, 52, and Tupac Shakur were classmates at the Baltimore School for the Arts and she has shared previous factoids about their early days before their respective careers took off. With the arrest of Duane “Keefe D” Davis, Pinkett Smith shared a message to her followers by way of her Instagram story feed.
“Now I hope we can get some answers and have some closure. R.I.P. Pac, Pinkett Smith wrote along with the image of a dove.
Just prior to the arrest of Keefe D, Pinkett Smith shared an older video of her and 2Pac dancing and lip-synching to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s “Parents Just Don’t Understand” track. Of course, Pinkett Smith would go on to eventually marry the Fresh Prince, better known as Will Smith, and are the parents of children Jaden and Willow Smith.
Davis offered recent testimony that pointed to his role in the shocking drive-by shooting of 2Pac in Las Vegas.
—
Photo: Han Myung-Gu / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: ROBYN BECK / Getty
Director Allen Hughes frankly admits that he predicted 2Pac’s death after hearing the track “Hit Em Up” in an interview.
HipHopDX reports veteran filmmaker revealed the prediction during his time as a guest on Michael Rapaport’s podcast last week. During their conversation, the focus fell on Tupac Shakur and Hughes remembered the first time he heard the infamous track aimed at East Coast rappers. According to him, he saw the short and long-term implications of it immediately. “I remember [Interscope Records co-founder] Jimmy Iovine playing me the track before it came out and I’d go, ‘Him and 2Pac and/or Suge (Knight) would be dead in less than six months,’” the Dear Mama director stated. “And it wasn’t the words; it was the energy. It’s the power of how he did it — particularly the outro.”
[embedded content]
“Hit Em Up” was released in June 1996, and the song explicitly targets The Notorious B.I.G., Diddy, and Bad Boy Records, cementing its status as one of the most vicious diss tracks ever recorded in rap. Shakur would die just three months later after being shot multiple times after an altercation at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hughes also spoke about how the murder of 2Pac – and then The Notorious B.I.G. six months later – left a void in the rap game that would be filled by others who didn’t necessarily meet their skill level. “I’m not gonna name names, I’ll get in trouble with other iconic, legendary, gazillionaire rappers right now,” he said, “but when you shoot the two A+ students in the class, the C– student starts to rise to the top.” The comment led others online to speculate that he was referring to Jay-Z.
For the Menace II Society director, his friendship and subsequent work on the five-part FX documentary about the late rapper and his mother, former Black Panther Party member and revolutionary activist Afeni Shakur has given him more insight into who Tupac Shakur was. It also reinforced some thoughts he had concerning his murder, which he conveyed in an earlier interview with Linsey Davis of ABCNews. “In the community, as we know, and in the streets, there was never a mystery to who killed 2Pac,” he said at the time. “It was always about Las Vegas law enforcement closing the case on this.”
Check out the interview in full above.
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…
HipHopWired Featured Video
Tony Hawk is as much a pop culture icon as any, so it goes without saying that he’s crossed paths with plenty of others with the level of fame that he has, if not more. The skating legend recently shared a rare photo alongside the late Tupac “2Pac” Shakur that Hawk had digitally restored.
Tony Hawk, 55, shared the image of him and 2Pac, telling a story of how he attended an American Music Awards ceremony because his sister was performing with singer Michael Bolton. While he initially stated that the year of the photo in question was 1991, he corrected it and said that it could be from 1994.
From Tony Hawk’s IG:
I attended the American Music Awards in 1991 because my sister was there performing with Michael Bolton. While backstage, I saw Tupac standing alone and I recognized him from Digital Underground (go listen to “Same Song” for context). His first album had not dropped yet, and nobody else seemed to notice him. I took a picture of him and [Riley’s mom] Cindy, and I thought she took one of him and me. This was in the era of point-and-shoot film cameras so results were unreliable. Unfortunately I never found the photo once the roll was developed. But thanks to modern technology and maestro digital artist @_vemix_ , the image has materialized.
Hawk went on to say that 2Pac was “effusive and gracious” after meeting briefly, adding that he was the most gracious with his time out of the celebrities he met at the time. Later in the caption of the post, Hawk corrected the timeline to say the photo might be from the 1994 AMAs. If the photo was taken in 1991, 2Pac made his debut in the fall of that year with the album, 2Pacalypse Now.
—
Photo: Getty
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Al Pereira / Getty
Get ready to go further down the 2Pac rabbit hole. Keefe D alleges Diddy’s hands also have blood on them.
As spotted on HipHopDX the Compton, Los Angeles native recently did an interview with The Art Of Dialogue. While he has discussing his story and involvement in the fateful night in Las Vegas that took the life of Tupac Shakur he went into more detail on how made his initial connection with the Bad Boy Entertainment mogul through an Usher music video shoot. “I met him back in ’91. He was doing an Usher video [‘Can U Get Wit It.’] They called my hydraulics place and asked to use some low-riders. So I let them use my four and we took the car up there,” he recalled.
The man born Duane Keith Davis went on to say how he regrets ever dealing with Diddy. “If I wouldn’t have ever met him, I wouldn’t have ever been involved in this bullsh*t,” he revealed. “I would’ve never met the brother. I never would’ve been involved in this bullsh*t. Me and Suge, we played on the same pop warner team and everything. My home boys helped put Suge in the game.”
He then placed some of the blame for his empire and the downfall of Deathrow Records on Diddy. “It really crashed two people’s empire in one night. Mine’s for sure — Suge’s too. [Diddy] the only one still balling. He made our sh*t go down, man… He won’t even look out or nothing. Because he pitted us against each other, which was kind of smart. We’re Crips and Suge was Bloods.”
You can view the video clip below.
[embedded content]
Photo:
HipHopWired Radio
Our staff has picked their favorite stations, take a listen…
