The East Coast vs. West Coast beef is one of the darkest chapters in hip-hop history, and 2Pac’s infamous diss record “Hit Em Up” remains a brutal highlight. But why did Pac target Mobb Deep so harshly? Havoc, one-half of the Queens duo, recently explained the backstory on Drink Champs.
According to Havoc, Pac misinterpreted some lyrics on Mobb Deep’s Survival of the Fittest. They rapped, “Thug life, we still livin’ it.” Around the same time, Pac told Vibe magazine he wanted to distance himself from the “thug life” persona. To Pac, the line felt like shade.
Havoc broke it down:
“I believe it was a combo of things… He probably thought we were like, ‘Thug life, we still living it, f** what he’s doing.’ Then it piled up on L.A., L.A. and it was like, f*** these n***s.”
That misunderstanding turned into one of the harshest feuds of the ‘90s.
Image Suggestion: 2Pac performing live in the mid-90s, and Mobb Deep’s The Infamous album cover side by side.
