Record executive Lance Rivera doubled down on his claim that The Notorious B.I.G. cried real tears when he heard Tupac Shakur’s famous diss track “Hit ‘Em Up.”
The iconic musical feud between the immortal 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. reportedly brought actual tears. In a recent interview with DJ Vlad, longtime record executive Lance “Un” Rivera says Biggie “cried like a baby” when he heard 2Pac’s “Hit ‘Em Up” – the track on which the iconic rapper proclaimed to have slept with Biggie’s then-wife Faith Evans.
On the backdrop of 2Pac being released from jail in the ’90s, Rivera says the rapper’s return shook things up a bit. “So we had this hit record called ‘Get Money’ and we had a remix to it and all of a sudden, ‘Pac comes home and we’re at a video shoot and somebody plays ‘Hit ‘Em Up’ for us and we all looked at each other like, ‘What the f**k just happened?'” he said.
Lance explained that he wanted to return the shots 2Pac sent, even suggesting making a track taking a hit at Death Row and Suge Knight immediately. However, Notorious B.I.G. declined. According to Rivera, “Big was like, ‘Nah we’re not gonna do anything. We’re not gonna even respond.'”
When Vlad brought up Rivera’s 2017 interview with DJ Self, where he revealed that Biggie Smalls cried listening to “Hit ‘Em Up,” and Pac’s claim that he had slept with the late rapper’s wife at the time, Faith Evans, the record executive confirmed that it was a true story. “I was in the room when he heard Faith and 2Pac,” Rivera said in the 2017 interview. “He cried like a baby!” Lance confirmed to Vlad that that was a true story.
Elsewhere in the interview, Lance Rivera gave his take on what started the infamous feud that we’ve all come to know about, whether we were around to see it or not. In response to Vlad’s query about what started the feud, Rivera said, “The real reason was the fact that Biggie was huge. Nas, Biggie and Pac, those were the top. Pac went to jail, so now Biggie has staked claim to the king of hip-hop. [He] is the target now, [he] is the king. So now everybody else is like ‘ok, I gotta get back.'”
He went on to explain that rap has always been about artists battling for the top spot. To that end, 2Pac did cross what may have crossed the proverbial line with that slight, but in today’s hip-hop culture, it is the norm for artists to talk about family members and close friends in their diss tracks.
The Notorious B.I.G. and his former wife Faith Evans reportedly separated in 2005 – ten years after the acclaimed diss track was born.
