Charli Baltimore was heavy in the mix during Bad Boy’s beef with Death Row. During a recent interview, she spoke about the time Sean “Puffy” Combs played Tupac’s diss track, “Hit ’em Up” to Biggie Smalls for the first time.
“He was like real somber looking and he was like, ‘Yo! I gotta play you this record.’ And that’s the first time we heard ‘Hit ‘Em Up,'” she recalled, speaking of Puffy approaching the crew. “The whole mood just changed. A video shoot is supposed to be upbeat, happy, whatever and Big is like, ‘Are you f—king serious right now? Serious? This is what we’re doing right now?’ It was just shock. It was just crazy.”
Tupac and Biggie once considered themselves good friends. However, ion November 30, 1994, Tupac arrived at the Quad Recording Studios to meet Biggie and Combs. Instead, Tupac was robbed in the lobby and shot five times. He accused Biggie of setting the whole thing up. An allegation Biggie had always denied.
The beef sparked one of rap’s biggest ever feuds and sadly, the men were unable to ever squash their beef — both murdered within six months of each other.
Charli insists “Who Shot Ya” was never aimed at Pac.
“You got this dude just riding on you and riding on you and you not knowing what’s what,” she continued. “‘Who Shot Ya?’ is not about ‘Pac… It was written before ‘Pac got shot but of course, people are going to hear that and say, ‘OK, yeah that n—ga Big is going at this n-gga now and it’s going to be back and forth.’ But in all actuality, that record was already written. When you listen to it, with all that was going on, it does sound like, ‘Yeah n—ga, I’m on your a—,’ and it wasn’t like that.”
