Dark Side of the 90's Season 3 Episode 8
Dark Side of the 90's Season 3 Episode 8
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00:00It was the sound no one was talking about.
00:09Hip-hop was all underground.
00:10You had to know somebody to know somebody to hear hip-hop.
00:12It didn't really have a lot of news coverage,
00:15radio stations were hesitant to play it.
00:18But that was about to change.
00:20MTV opened the doors a little bit.
00:22Then Source Magazine pops up out of nowhere.
00:26Back in the day, if you wasn't in
00:29Source Awards, you was not hip-hop.
00:31The teenage white kids out in the suburbs
00:33want to know what's going on.
00:35I said, wow, you know, hip-hop is going to be bigger
00:37than rock and roll because it's unifying people
00:39of all races and backgrounds.
00:42But that power to unify...
00:44It's going to cause people to get killed.
00:45It doesn't belong out there.
00:47...can also tear people apart.
00:48I'm your big brother.
00:49I will break your big ass neck.
00:51Y'all don't love us!
00:53That was the match that lit the stick of dynamite.
00:56Rapper Tupac Shakur has passed away.
00:58Some spoke of an East Coast-West Coast rap war.
01:02I just believe that there's more to the story
01:04with Tupac and Biggie's death than meets the eye.
01:29September 7th, 1996, Tupac Shakur,
01:33one of hip-hop's most iconic figures,
01:35is gunned down on the Las Vegas Strip.
01:38It's a cold, cold day in the rap, hip-hop music world.
01:42Tupac's murder and the subsequent murder
01:45of his one-time friend, then rival, Biggie Smalls,
01:48will mark a bloody intermission in the story
01:50of hip-hop's rise in influence in the 90s.
01:54You had the two most powerful hip-hop artists
01:58that were, you know, basically carrying hip-hop
02:01on their backs, disappear.
02:04It really created a vacuum that led to a lot of changes
02:08in the hip-hop culture and the hip-hop industry.
02:12The music was born in the 70s at parties in New York.
02:18You know, hip-hop was an independent art form
02:21for a long time, you know?
02:22It had a kind of downtown scene in New York.
02:26I'm Mark Anthony Neal, James B. Duke Professor
02:28of African and African-American Studies,
02:30Education and Humanities at the University of New York.
02:33I'm a professor of African and African-American Studies
02:35at the University of New York.
02:37I'm a professor of African and African-American Studies
02:39I'm a professor of African and African-American Studies
02:41at Duke University.
02:48You obviously weren't hearing it on white radio stations,
02:51and black radio stations were really hesitant
02:53at the time to play rap music also.
02:56Their core audience was African-American,
02:58middle-class and working-class adults.
03:01And what they heard when they heard hip-hop was noise.
03:05We've decided to mask or delete three words
03:09that are heard in a lot of rap records,
03:11and they are n*****, f*****, and f*****.
03:14The major record stores, they wouldn't even carry rap.
03:18You couldn't get it at Warehouse or Tower Records
03:21because they refused to carry it.
03:22They're not, you know, that's novelty stuff.
03:25My name is Greg Mack, and I created 1580 K-Day,
03:30best known as the first 24-7 rap radio station.
03:36Anybody older than 25 in those days
03:38really looked down upon rap music
03:41and thought it was trash or didn't think it would last,
03:44didn't take any talent to make rap music.
03:47But two rap fans in an unlikely place
03:50dedicate themselves to bringing hip-hop music
03:53and culture to everyone.
03:55They started to do this magazine
03:57out of a dorm room in Harvard, right?
03:59And first folks are like, Harvard, right?
04:02And then you see, you know, Dave Mays and John Schecter,
04:05it's like, who are these two white boys?
04:08My name is Dave Mays,
04:10and I am the creator of The Source magazine
04:14and The Source Awards.
04:16The Source, I started between my sophomore and junior years
04:20with another white Jewish kid from Philadelphia
04:23named John Schecter.
04:25You know, you always have these white folks in the room
04:28who are invested in the culture.
04:32I was born and raised in Washington, D.C.
04:34I got exposed to black people and black music
04:38and culture at a very early age
04:40and took a real interest and liking in it.
04:45There was absolutely no other reading material
04:48or information for this music and culture
04:51that was growing and growing.
04:54So Dave and John decide to change that.
04:57It went from one sheet to six pages to 16 pages.
05:01Very early on, somebody mentioned to me
05:05that I should read this book about Rolling Stone magazine.
05:09And so that became my inspiration.
05:13I said, wow, you know, I'm gonna build
05:15the Rolling Stone of the hip hop generation.
05:18And it's a Rolling Stone cover in 1986 featuring Run-D.M.C.
05:23that marks the moment when everything changes
05:25in the music world.
05:27That year, the trio releases a version of Aerosmith's
05:30Walk This Way.
05:35And that opens up the portal, right?
05:37You know, Run-D.M.C. sells 10 million copies.
05:41Even the mighty MTV, bastion of rock and pop music,
05:45takes notice and responds.
05:47I got a man here that is currently doing a national show
05:50called Yo MTV Raps.
05:51One of the original people from hip hop.
05:53Goes by the name of Fab.
05:54The big thing that happens is when Yo MTV
05:57gets created in 1988, you know,
05:59first with a weekly show and then a daily show.
06:02That was a game changer.
06:07Yo MTV Raps was very instrumental
06:09for helping some of those underground artists
06:12that were like really good
06:14and doing these little baby shows.
06:15They was getting airtime.
06:17Hey, I'm Bill Bellamy and I was the VJ
06:20of MTV Jams during the nineties.
06:23What a blast.
06:25Interviews with rappers and performances on air
06:28give America's youth of all races
06:30an up close look at this exploding scene.
06:33MTV opened the doors a little bit,
06:35which was bananas for the artists.
06:38All these different artists that was like right there.
06:40Now they are getting airtime.
06:43That changed the game for them.
06:46So when the doors opened up,
06:48MTV was giving a bird's eye view
06:50what hip hop was and what hip hop was not.
06:53A bird's eye view what hip hop was to mainstream America.
06:56I said, wow, you know, hip hop is gonna be bigger
06:58than rock and roll because it's unifying people
07:01of all races and backgrounds in a way that,
07:03you know, no other music has really ever done.
07:06The source starts writing about artists like Eazy-E,
07:10whose rhymes describe a very different existence
07:12from the one many of its white suburban readers are living.
07:17Gangsta rap has arrived and its brashest voice
07:21hails from the streets of South Central LA.
07:25NWA's Straight Outta Compton is the first rap LP
07:28to get a parental advisory sticker.
07:31And its controversial single,
07:33The Police draws the nation's attention.
07:40When NWA came out with F the Police,
07:43at first I was like, damn,
07:45everything that I've dealt with, they're talking about.
07:49Having a Hispanic wife at the time,
07:52we were constantly getting pulled over
07:55because they thought I was a pimp.
07:57So hell yeah, F the Police, you know?
08:00But there are no music videos, there's no radio airplay,
08:04and folks are trying to figure out what is this thing now
08:06that's on the top of the charts?
08:08Word on the street when it comes to, you know, rap music,
08:12it's all word of mouth.
08:14The mom and pop record stores were the place
08:16where folks would go regularly to find out
08:19what was going on, and then all of a sudden,
08:21there's The Source sitting there.
08:22There was absolutely no other information
08:24anywhere about hip hop.
08:27The Source became this important space early on for folks
08:31to be able to find out what was going on in the culture.
08:35NWA proves gangsta rap can cross over
08:37to white teenagers who read The Source.
08:40Straight Outta Compton goes platinum.
08:43People say, you got a lot of black people buying your music.
08:45No, you don't get to be number one in platinum
08:49and all that with just black people.
08:51You got all races, mostly the teenage white kids
08:55out in the suburbs because they wanna know what's going on.
08:58Hip hop was appealing to people of all races,
09:03whatever you were, if you were young,
09:05you were falling in love with hip hop.
09:07It was a youth movement.
09:11But the story of police brutality being reported by NWA
09:14and f*** the police is about to hit
09:17every news outlet in the world.
09:19So when Rodney King happens, and we're just really organic
09:22to be able to connect those kinds of dots.
09:25On March 3rd, 1991, four members
09:28of the Los Angeles Police Department
09:30beat an unarmed black man pulled over
09:32for a traffic violation.
09:35The beating is captured on tape.
09:37Do you have any idea at all how many times
09:39you were hit by a club?
09:42What do you remember about that aspect of it?
09:43Several times, several times.
09:47And then stomped and kicked.
09:50And now police mistreatment of black people
09:52described by NWA's f*** the police
09:55is being told by every news outlet in the world.
09:58It was one of the first times we saw police brutality
10:02against black people on video.
10:04I'm Tanya Hart, I'm an entertainment journalist.
10:09The billowing smoke and flames could be seen for miles,
10:11an unnerving scene for people driving by.
10:14And it rocked the world, and it rocked L.A.,
10:17and a riot broke out.
10:23And largely in part because of what happens in L.A.
10:26with Rodney King, you know, hip-hop matured
10:28from a kind of political force that was on the fringes
10:31in the 1980s into the best on-the-ground news reporting
10:35of what was happening politically at that point in time.
10:39And for The Source, this was a huge issue.
10:42You know, we immediately put together
10:45an incredible special edition of the magazine
10:48that was in stark contrast to the kind of coverage
10:50that you would see in any other
10:52kind of mainstream media outlet.
10:55These brothers and sisters who are rapping
10:56and telling you stories, these aren't stories as in fables.
11:01These are real life, this is reality.
11:03As hip-hop's popularity grows,
11:05so does the influence of The Source.
11:08The magazine launches its own award show
11:11where the line between the violence expressed in the music
11:14and the violence playing out in real life will fade away.
11:18I'm in the front row.
11:19This is my first Source Awards.
11:21Sticky Fingers pulls out a gun.
11:26Shoots the lights out of the top,
11:28puts the gun back in, slam!
11:31Dun-dun-dun-dun!
11:33I can't slam.
11:34I can't slam.
11:36Because that's real glass.
11:37That means that was a real bullet
11:39and it shot the glass out.
11:41That's too real for me.
11:45In 1990, The Source sets up offices in New York,
11:49filling mailboxes and magazine stands across the country
11:53with its glossy pages.
11:54I worked on weekends, I worked late nights.
11:56I was, you know, often the first person in the office
11:59and the last person to leave.
12:01You know, it wasn't long before folks like Chuck D
12:04from Public Enemy dubbed The Source,
12:06the Bible of hip-hop in the early 1990s.
12:10You know, I give Mays and Schecter a lot of credit,
12:12you know, as the white publishers of a magazine.
12:16They had to bring in black journalists, right?
12:18And they did that consistently.
12:21We began rating albums on a scale of one to five mics
12:26and the five mics being a hip-hop classic.
12:30If you didn't get three mics and up, you should quit.
12:35Those mics, for whatever reason, back in the day,
12:40you needed four or five real talk.
12:43You wanted five, but if you got four mics,
12:47you on to something, right?
12:49It's not 50% of the book, so...
12:51Matty C was the guy who basically ran
12:53that unsigned hype column at The Source.
12:56He's the one that heard Biggie's demo tape
12:58and featured him in the magazine.
13:00The notorious B.I.G.,
13:02an up-and-coming rapper from Brooklyn,
13:04gets the attention of The Source staff
13:06with an impressive demo showing off his easy flow.
13:14You start to look at all of the people
13:18whose careers were basically created by The Source.
13:23Like having Puffy call me and, you know,
13:25when he's starting Bad Boy Records
13:27and say he needed, you know, new artists,
13:28did I have anybody for him?
13:30And, you know, giving Biggie's demo tape to him.
13:34Sean Puffy Combs scouts new talent for Uptown Records
13:38when he's not hosting some of New York's
13:40best hip-hop parties.
13:42But in 1993, he starts his own label
13:45with Biggie as one of his first artists.
13:48Check it out.
13:49This my man, the notorious B.I.G.
13:50What's the deal?
13:51What's going on?
13:52Puffy, he understood how to package an artist
13:56to make them sell.
13:57Hi, my name is Frankie Ross.
13:59In the 90s, I was on the radio as an announcer,
14:03but I was also a program director.
14:05Puffy took Biggie and packaged him and molded him
14:09and turned him into this notorious B.I.G.
14:13that we loved.
14:16The Source helps bring Biggie to the masses,
14:18chronicling his rise from local rapper
14:21to hip-hop heavyweight.
14:23When the notorious B.I.G. lands his first cover,
14:26he's officially deemed the king of New York.
14:30In the early 90s, New York was literally considered
14:33to be like the mecca for hip-hop.
14:36But not to hip-hop artists out West like N.W.A.,
14:40looking to get their music heard.
14:42And so you got all these West Coast rappers making music,
14:46but wasn't getting no airplay.
14:47You know, at first, the rivalry, honestly,
14:50was really just about who had the best beats
14:53and the best sound.
14:56I've heard different versions of how the artists
14:59and how the riff got started.
15:00I do know that New York didn't play West Coast artists.
15:06When N.W.A.'s Dr. Dre releases The Chronic,
15:10his first solo record, it tops the charts,
15:12helped by the video for the single,
15:14Nothing But a G-Thang.
15:20But even The Source is accused of having
15:22an East Coast bias when it gives the album
15:25a less than perfect score.
15:27The Chronic got four and a half mics.
15:29So, I mean, we knew it was an amazing album.
15:31We knew it was incredible
15:32and should've gotten five mics.
15:35And when Dr. Dre's protege, Snoop Dogg,
15:37releases the record Doggystyle,
15:40along with the music video for Who Am I, What's My Name?
15:45It introduces gangsta funk,
15:47hip-hop with a West Coast twist.
15:50The Source gives it high praise,
15:52helping to legitimize this new sound.
15:55So when they broke through
15:58and artists started coming up from the West Coast
16:00and they start saying,
16:01yeah, yeah, we here now, what?
16:04The West Coast ride too.
16:05So now it's like, even money.
16:08We both selling records.
16:09We both putting out hits, right?
16:11And Death Row Records was synonymous
16:15with the West Coast energy,
16:17where we at right now, gangsta rap.
16:19And we telling it like it is.
16:21Behind the G-Funk movement is LA's Death Row Records,
16:25a label that Dr. Dre sets up with Marion, Suge Knight.
16:29Suge Knight was definitely a big deal in the 90s.
16:32He ruled the world of hip-hop,
16:34certainly on the West Coast.
16:36I'm gonna give the people what they want.
16:39And what they want is the real stuff that they can feel.
16:43Suge was not a producer.
16:47He was not a writer.
16:49He was a strong arm.
16:51So he was handling business like a gangster, for real.
16:56And if you not playing my records,
16:57we gonna make you play it.
16:59That kind of energy.
17:01Suge's tactics seem to work.
17:06With hip-hop blaring from car windows
17:08and boom boxes from New York to LA,
17:11The Source launches a grassroots marketing campaign
17:13to bring the magazine and its music to the country at large.
17:19The Source van was like the ice cream truck of hip-hop.
17:23We would basically send a van around the country
17:26to every city, large, medium-sized cities,
17:29go into the neighborhoods,
17:31pull up outside of record stores, schools, parks,
17:35blasting music, and it was like a mobile block party.
17:39We would pass out lots of promotional items,
17:42CDs or posters, stickers, different things like that.
17:47And while The Source will help introduce hip-hop
17:49to Middle America, one West Coast artist
17:52will emerge as the voice of a generation.
17:56I think of Tupac as, you know,
17:59the most important and influential artist
18:03in the history of hip-hop.
18:05He was able to reach from the bottom of the streets
18:08all the way up to the top of the suburbs
18:10and people followed him.
18:12Everything I ever say, whether it's good or bad,
18:14it's coming from my heart.
18:16And if it's wrong, then, you know,
18:17God ain't finished with me yet.
18:19Let him check me.
18:20He was very smart.
18:21From the time he was 10 years old,
18:24his mom made him read all of the New York Times
18:27from cover to cover every single day.
18:29There was just something compelling
18:31about his personality, right?
18:32That thing that you can't teach,
18:35that kind of it factor, Tupac had it.
18:40Tupac, wordplay, passion, purpose,
18:45militant, a little bit of crazy, but I liked it.
18:48It all worked and his sauce was right.
18:51Yeah, I like to think I'm revolutionary.
18:56Despite hailing from different coasts,
18:58Biggie hooks up with LA-based Tupac,
19:01who becomes both a friend and a mentor.
19:04I remember when we did the Bratz video,
19:08Give It To You, he was on set,
19:10him and Big at this time was friends.
19:12I never seen nobody smoke this many blunts
19:15in 25 minutes of my life, him and Big together.
19:18I'm sitting there probably high as fuck,
19:21and I don't smoke, but whatever.
19:24As his career soars, Biggie turns to Tupac
19:27for advice in navigating the business.
19:29You know, he was a leader,
19:31somebody that people respected and listened to.
19:34I had a vision, which I think was similar to Tupac's,
19:37of how the bigger hip hop could become.
19:40You can make it big and successful,
19:42but still keep it authentic
19:44and become a force to revolutionize and change the world.
19:49And one of the most powerful players in the music industry,
19:52mega-producer Quincy Jones,
19:54seems to want to help Mays realize his vision.
19:57We get called out to a meeting
20:00at Quincy Jones' home in Beverly Hills.
20:02We're whisked from the airport in limousines
20:06up into this mansion in the hills,
20:09and he says, you know,
20:10thank you guys for coming, and he's really excited,
20:13but I want to let you know what I've decided.
20:17And then Mays lives a line from a Tupac song.
20:20Perhaps I was blind to the facts, stabbed in the back.
20:27In 1993, as Bill Clinton's inauguration
20:30is celebrated with a pop music-filled concert
20:33produced by Quincy Jones,
20:36America's youth is tuned into a very different sound.
20:41Hip-hop is growing, fast,
20:43and the 60-year-old Jones wants in on the action.
20:47Quincy is an amazing legend,
20:50but at that time, what I gathered from listening to him
20:53and other people working for him
20:55was he really didn't understand hip-hop
20:57and the true kind of DNA of hip-hop.
21:00Quincy reaches out to Dave Mays
21:01and his partners to invest in the Source magazine,
21:05but when they all meet,
21:06it turns out he was not looking for a partner.
21:09And he says, you know,
21:10I want to let you know that what I've decided to do
21:13is start my own magazine,
21:15but I'm prepared to buy you guys out for $600,000
21:22and give you guys all, you know, jobs working for me.
21:27And I think some of my partners
21:32were actually considering the offer.
21:35I was really angry and upset,
21:38but, you know, politely turned down the offer.
21:47With the deep pockets of Time Warner backing him,
21:50Quincy launches a competitor to the Source, Vibe magazine.
21:57The first issue features rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg on the cover.
22:01There were a lot of people that predicted at the time
22:03this was going to be the end of the Source.
22:05How is this, you know, little independent magazine
22:07going to be able to survive?
22:10Vibe was like one of the first commercial magazines,
22:14you know, with advertising
22:16and just looked really slick and really cool artwork.
22:19And, of course, Source was a little grittier
22:22and more street and more hard, more edgy.
22:26Hip-hop had become big enough
22:29that you could have both a Source and Vibe in the room
22:34and not feel as though one or the other, right,
22:36had to be the dominant portrait
22:38of what's happening in hip-hop.
22:41While the Source and Vibe battle it out on newsstands,
22:44East Coast and West Coast hip-hop artists also go to war.
22:49The one-time friendship between Biggie and Tupac Shakur
22:53is an early casualty when they turn against each other.
22:57On November 30th, 1994, Tupac is shot
23:01while being robbed in the lobby
23:02of New York's Quad Recording Studios.
23:08He believes it's a set-up by East Coast rivals
23:10and points to Biggie and Bad Boy Records'
23:12Sean Puffy Combs, who were in the building
23:15at the time of his shooting, as somehow being involved.
23:20Biggie and Puffy deny any involvement,
23:22but Vibe magazine adds fuel to the growing controversy.
23:27They send journalist Kevin Powell to interview Tupac,
23:30now in prison on sexual assault charges,
23:33about the supposed ambush.
23:35Powell would later tell Vibe that Tupac had no love
23:38for his former friend.
23:41Tupac's friend, Kevin,
23:42was arrested on the eve of the shooting.
23:44He was charged with first-degree murder
23:46and had no love for his former friend.
23:49I remember saying to Tupac,
23:50why don't you all just come together?
23:52And, you know, Pac said something that made me so mad, man.
23:54I'll never forget, he said,
23:55yellow M&M's and green M&M's don't come together.
24:03A few months later, Biggie releases a single
24:05titled, Who Shot Ya?,
24:07imagining himself in the role of a killer.
24:10Though the track was recorded months
24:12before the Quad Studios shooting
24:14and doesn't reference Tupac,
24:16none of that seems to matter.
24:18Tupac takes it as a direct attack.
24:21It was very serious.
24:23These guys were very serious.
24:25Well, here's the thing,
24:26when you are talking about the streets,
24:27if you're living that hip hop life,
24:29you're around people living that world,
24:31there's gonna be some things.
24:34With bi-coastal tensions simmering,
24:36the source hopes to lower the temperature
24:38by bringing the community together
24:40in a celebration of the music.
24:43The first televised Source Awards
24:45is held at Madison Square Garden's Paramount Theater.
24:4895 is the kind of most famous Source Awards.
24:52Of course, everybody remembers those tense moments
24:56where Suge Knight got on stage in front of,
24:58you know, an audience of 5,000 people in New York City
25:01and basically took a shot at Bad Boy and at Puffy.
25:07Suge mocks Puffy for inserting himself
25:09into the songs and videos of Bad Boy's artists.
25:13Any artist out there wanna be an artist
25:15and wanna stay a star,
25:17don't wanna,
25:18don't wanna have to worry about the executive producer
25:19trying to be all in the videos,
25:23all on the record, dancing.
25:25Come to Death Row.
25:32It got, like, personal right there.
25:35Diddy was synonymous with New York,
25:37like partying, having a good time.
25:39I put my artists on, being in the videos,
25:42you know, having fun.
25:44West Coast was like, nah, we don't do all that.
25:47We real out here, right?
25:49Targeting Diddy in that moment,
25:51I would say arguably has nothing to do with hip hop, right?
25:55It just has everything to do
25:57with these two personalities clashing
26:00over who was gonna have a dominant cultural footprint.
26:03Dr. Dre.
26:05Tensions escalate when Snoop Dogg
26:07and the West Coast audience were not respecting the West.
26:10The East Coast ain't got no love for Dr. Dre
26:12and Snoop Dogg and Death Row.
26:15Y'all don't love us?
26:17Y'all don't love us?
26:19Lines got drawn and sides kind of were taken
26:22and a rivalry developed between two camps,
26:27two labels, the Bad Boy camp and the Death Row camp.
26:31And then the rivalry between Suge and Puffy,
26:34you know, it caused a lot of tension
26:37and a lot of uproar,
26:38but there was no violence that night.
26:41There wasn't even, you know, a punch thrown.
26:44That was the match that lit the stick of dynamite to me.
26:47What we saw was these wars, literal wars,
26:50shootouts between the East Coast and the West Coast.
26:59As rap music surges to the top of the charts,
27:02politicians become its most outspoken critics.
27:05This is frankly offensive to me
27:08and I think to any parent, it is nothing but filth.
27:12It's negative.
27:13It's in the wrong direction.
27:14It's gonna cause people to get killed.
27:15It doesn't belong out there.
27:17It's a type of music that can bump somebody up
27:20to the point where they have total hatred.
27:24And so you think about this
27:25in terms of a political context, right?
27:27This is the era of Bill Clinton's infamous crime bill.
27:32Let us roll up our sleeves
27:34to roll back this awful tide of violence
27:37and reduce crime in our country.
27:41Under the Clinton administration,
27:43the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act
27:47results in longer and harsher prison sentences.
27:51And the crime bill was a response
27:54to perception to rising crime rates
27:58and this fear of black youth that were out of control.
28:01I know when you're home and when you're not.
28:04Suddenly you're seeing all these commercials
28:06for home security systems.
28:10At the same time that white Americans
28:11are looking at these images,
28:13they're watching television shows like cops,
28:16which double down on black criminality.
28:19You know, so black men are seen as both prey and threat.
28:23Before blogs and social media,
28:25print magazines dictate the story.
28:28But while the source preaches
28:29the positive messages in rap,
28:31their competitor, Quincy Jones's Vibe magazine,
28:35wallows in the East versus West clashes.
28:39The media fed into it a little bit.
28:41You know what I mean?
28:42They leaned into it.
28:43And so it fueled the flames.
28:45So people were curating this narrative of,
28:48is there a division?
28:50Who's better?
28:52Is there hip hop?
28:53Any less or more hip hop than New York hip hop?
28:56So that was, they created a movie in a movie.
29:00And unfortunately, some of the artists got hurt by it.
29:05People have lost their lives over it.
29:08The story has been told many times with, you know,
29:10about Vibe and the covers and the stories they printed
29:13that people have felt, you know,
29:15contributed to sensationalizing
29:18and fueling that beef in a way.
29:21Like it's February 96 cover, Live from Death Row.
29:25The way corporations, whether radio stations or magazines,
29:30invested in the East Coast, West Coast battle,
29:33contributed to that moment.
29:35As did a celebrity culture.
29:37These kinds of problems are still something
29:39that's very much in the sphere of the lives
29:43that these rappers are living.
29:45They were making these guys believe
29:47that they were like serious gangsters.
29:49They weren't really serious gangsters.
29:52Not really.
29:56Sensing things spinning out of control,
29:58Quincy Jones holds the Vibe Summit in New York.
30:02In attendance are Suge Knight and Dr. Dre, Puffy and Biggie.
30:06In contrast to his magazine,
30:08Jones preaches taking hip hop in a more positive direction.
30:12But the summit proves to be too little, too late.
30:21Tupac releases Hit Em Up,
30:23a diss track aimed at Puffy's Bad Boy crew.
30:26In the song, he claims to have slept
30:28with Biggie's estranged wife, singer Faith Evans.
30:32In another interview with Vibe,
30:34Tupac continues to lash out at Biggie
30:36when he talks about schooling his one-time protege.
30:39I'm just mad at my little brother when he don't respect me.
30:42Now, when you don't respect me, I'm gonna spank your ass.
30:44I don't give a f*** how rich you got.
30:46On the block, I'm your big brother.
30:47I will break your big ass neck.
30:49I believe in that last period of his life,
30:52he made some very aggressive and violent music.
30:55And again, that's a lot of what people
30:57unfortunately remember him for.
31:00But if you listen to a lot of his other music
31:03and you listen to the powerful messages
31:06and ideas that he conveyed for many years
31:10through his music and his lyrics,
31:12he was a revolutionary.
31:15The East Coast-West Coast tensions boil over
31:17at the 96 Soul Train Awards,
31:19forcing host Don Cornelius to get involved.
31:23My assistant said,
31:25Tupac and Biggie are in the parking lot
31:29and they're riding,
31:30they're circling around each other, brandishing guns.
31:33And I went and got Don Cornelius and said,
31:34Don, you better come out here and put this out
31:37because I don't know what these brothers are gonna do.
31:40The source did a cover during the middle of this
31:42with Suge Knight,
31:44It Ain't No East Coast-West Coast Thing.
31:46I was very cognizant that a street kind of beef
31:50was coming into the industry,
31:52with gang members and other people involved.
31:55So we went out of our way to get Suge to talk
32:00and to say that,
32:01and to put that on the front cover of the magazine.
32:06I saw Tupac probably a month or two before he was killed.
32:11And I said, hey man, what's up, blah, blah, blah,
32:12because we knew each other.
32:14But he just had a look.
32:16Everything that he had dealt with in life,
32:18he just had that look.
32:21It wasn't the same glowing eyes that I had seen.
32:27On the night of September 7th, 1996,
32:30after attending a boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas,
32:34Tupac Shakur is critically wounded in a drive-by shooting.
32:38Six days later, he dies in the hospital.
32:43It hurt, of course it hurt.
32:44Anytime one of my kids,
32:46because that's the way I look at him, die,
32:48for whatever reason, it hurts.
32:52I would have loved to see Tupac's evolution.
32:56I mean, he's only 25, 26 years old.
32:59I mean, what would he have been at, 30?
33:01He'd be 40-something now.
33:03So, you know, I always got like love in there.
33:06You know, I just, ah, it's tough.
33:10It was an awful feeling when I heard that he had passed.
33:14You know, of course, immediately we had to change
33:16the plans for the magazine
33:18and put together a whole tribute package about him.
33:22You know, you wanted to make sure that
33:24you did an amazing job for him
33:26in commemorating who he was
33:30and what his contributions were.
33:32In the months following Tupac's death,
33:35theories abound on who pulled the trigger.
33:38All eyes land on Bad Boy's East Coast crew,
33:41but Tupac's murderer remains at large.
33:44I think it's really sad, too,
33:45that there's no one out there,
33:47or the claim is no one out there saw anything.
33:50I think that somebody saw something
33:52and they should most definitely come forth and say something.
33:55For Biggie, it's a sign that it's time
33:57to put the rap beefs behind him.
33:59It's time for us to be forgiven.
34:01Right, right.
34:02But the realization comes too late.
34:06In case you haven't heard, it's been all over the media,
34:09all over the news, Tupac, rapper Tupac Shakur,
34:12has passed away.
34:14Today, hundreds line the streets
34:16outside a Nation of Islam school
34:18to pay their respects to the slain rapper.
34:21I'm just here to show my respect for Tupac.
34:24My brother was a good brother.
34:25His words really give us strength
34:26to keep on moving and look forward to another day.
34:28There's still a lot of negativity out here,
34:31and the violence is going to take more
34:34than just Tupac's death to stop.
34:36I still don't think people's going to learn from it.
34:37I still think a lot of stuff is going to go on,
34:39a lot of killing, a lot of violence still.
34:41They're not going to learn nothing.
34:44While the hip-hop world is still reeling
34:46from the death of Tupac Shakur,
34:48another is soon to follow.
34:51The night Biggie was shot,
34:53again, it was another Soul Train party.
34:57Soul Train party.
34:59I was excited because we were going to be
35:03at the same table with Sean Combs, with P Diddy.
35:10But for some reason, my husband said that night,
35:13no, I don't think we should go.
35:15Really strange, that night,
35:16and he was insistent that we do not go.
35:23Six months after Tupac's death,
35:2524-year-old Notorious B.I.G. is murdered in a drive-by,
35:29gunned down after a Soul Train party in Los Angeles.
35:33The rapper's car was riddled with bullets,
35:35leaving him so badly wounded that he was pronounced dead
35:38at the nearby Cedars-Sinai Hospital.
35:44I don't know if people love Big everywhere,
35:45but New York took a L on that.
35:48Big meant so much to people,
35:50you felt the pain of a funeral of, like, Mandela.
35:56Big.
36:03To see people on the ground crying and stuff,
36:06you like, damn, it was big to people.
36:11I would want him to be remembered as one of the most talented
36:15and gifted artists of his time.
36:20To the hip-hop community, it was a big loss
36:21because he was, like, one of the best artists
36:24that, you know, ever rapped or was ever in hip-hop.
36:26He was a good man, he was a generous man.
36:29It's a sad day, it's a sad day.
36:34Another devastating loss, and the blame game continues.
36:38There are questions whether Biggie's murder
36:40may have been retaliation for the drive-by slaying
36:44of his arch-rival, California rapper, Tupac Shakur.
36:48Some spoke of an East Coast-West Coast rap war.
36:52So this is another round fired in this war of the rappers?
36:56Well, we hope that we're not getting into that situation.
36:59This is a very tragic event,
37:01and it has similarities to another shooting.
37:04But there were a lot of people that were in the area,
37:06and we're hopeful that someone would come forward
37:09and give us information so that we can close this case.
37:13It might not have to do with Def Roe and Bad Boy,
37:15but, you know, it got to do with East Coast-West Coast,
37:17for sure, for sure, yeah.
37:19Hopefully, this isn't anything
37:21that has to do with East Coast-West Coast.
37:24People looked at Biggie being shot.
37:25It was retaliation for Tupac.
37:30So, again, everybody was guessing.
37:32I don't know.
37:32And then again, we look back at that.
37:35They never found the person who killed him, either.
37:39What's that all about?
37:40We're here with him, you understand what I'm saying?
37:42We're going to carry on his legacy regardless.
37:45You understand what I'm saying?
37:46After the cameras and everything is gone,
37:48we carrying it on because we live this life after death.
37:51We make that life after death happen.
37:54As fans mourn, they turn away from the headlines
37:57and find another way to celebrate their heroes.
38:01You could feel the impact that it had on people here in L.A.
38:05Murals started going up with Pac and, you know,
38:08the brothers on the corner selling T-shirts.
38:12And immediately, right, you start to see
38:14these ghetto art depictions of Biggie and Tupac.
38:19And the way that we romanticize about them in death
38:22has a lot to do with the role that they played
38:25in the lives of young people at that time.
38:27This artist says his crew is trying
38:29to convey a serious message.
38:31The message behind it is one coast, one culture.
38:34Stop the violence.
38:36Two of hip-hop's biggest stars dead,
38:38the music eclipsed by a sensational story.
38:42In the aftermath of the two rappers' deaths,
38:45hip-hop insiders point the finger at Vibe magazine
38:48for fueling the ongoing war between Tupac and Biggie.
38:52That East-West crap, Vibe has to take a lot of,
38:54they should have got a bullet.
38:56Wow.
38:56They should have got a bullet.
38:58In a tribute to Biggie,
38:59the source asked the question on everyone's mind,
39:03how can hip-hop move past the violence?
39:05I don't understand this.
39:06You know, I just don't understand it.
39:08I mean, this is a beautiful guy
39:09that got killed over nothing, really.
39:11I don't think either the death of Tupac or Biggie
39:13was the result of street violence and street rivalries.
39:18That's, again, another myth
39:19that I believe has been painted for people
39:23to try to make people think about rap music
39:26in a very negative way.
39:29Dave Mays has his own ideas
39:31about who was really behind the killings
39:33of hip-hop's two biggest stars.
39:36In my opinion, there was other forces at play
39:40that became evident, you know, over time, years later.
39:46As a founder of The Source magazine,
39:48Dave Mays was an eyewitness to the rise of hip-hop
39:52and the fall of two of its brightest lights.
39:55He has his own theories on who killed Tupac and Biggie.
39:58You know, hip-hop was a very powerful force
40:02in mobilizing and empowering, you know,
40:04the black community and unifying a lot of other people.
40:07And, you know, I believe that, you know, very early on,
40:10it became a threat,
40:11similar to the way black power movements in the 60s
40:16were viewed by the government.
40:18So I just believe there also was an element
40:21of government and law enforcement,
40:23you know, infiltration and involvement.
40:26The same thing we've all learned over the years
40:29about what happened in the 60s with COINTELPRO.
40:33The Source still tracks what's happening
40:35in the world of hip-hop,
40:36including the closing of West Coast-based
40:39Death Row Records after Suge Knight
40:41is sent to prison on assault charges.
40:44The magazine also documented the many hits released
40:47by East Coast-based Bad Boy Records,
40:53including the song and video for I'll Be Missing You,
40:56a tribute to Biggie.
40:58And while Mays left The Source in 2006,
41:01the magazine continues its mission
41:03and remains the longest-running voice
41:06in hip-hop journalism.
41:07I don't think hip-hop has ever died.
41:09I mean, I think that's the beauty of it,
41:10is that hip-hop will never die.
41:13Rap music is getting to a point
41:14where everybody has beefs with each other,
41:17and it's just getting to a point
41:18where it's getting out of hand.
41:21I think that hip-hop learned a valuable lesson
41:25after Big and Tupac's death.
41:29We're all doing the same thing,
41:31trying to, you know, feed our families.
41:33We're trying to make hit records.
41:36We're trying to blow up.
41:38You never had a problem.
41:39You're just speaking about it now
41:40because enough is enough.
41:42If the East-West thing would have kept going,
41:45it would have just got worse and worse.
41:47So I think that just said,
41:50wait, stop, reset,
41:54woosah, let's go forward.
41:57After Biggie and Pac died,
41:59what did happen was you started seeing
42:01women get into hip-hop.
42:03You'd see the Mary J. Bliges,
42:06and you'd see all the Lil' Kims,
42:08and women were finally invited to the party.
42:12And it was really time,
42:13because, of course, women always have a lot to say
42:16and were usually good at it.
42:19The beef that we saw with Tupac and Biggie,
42:24which was a centerpiece of so much of the culture
42:27in the 1990s,
42:28would be a passing Twitter beef today.
42:36But many of the systemic issues
42:38that 90s hip-hop gave voice to in its lyrics
42:42continue to plague American society today.
42:48I was telling Ice Cube recently
42:50how proud I was of him,
42:51you know, writing that song.
42:53If you really go back and listen
42:54to the stuff he was writing back then,
42:56and it's like, oh, wow, this is still going on.
42:59There's nothing wrong with a party record here and there,
43:01but hopefully somebody will get off of the bling
43:05and talk about something that's going on in the world,
43:08but it makes it interesting.
43:11Hip-hop can be that force
43:15that finally rids this country
43:18and this world of racism and systemic racism
43:23and unifies people, levels the playing field.
43:27Hip-hop still has the power to do that.
43:32I think what the 90s did
43:34was bring the power of television and social justice
43:39in a way that was in your face
43:42and in your living room.
43:45We can look back at that
43:46and learn many, many lessons
43:48about where and how we should move forward.
43:51I do have hope that somehow
43:55we will be able to all get along
43:57just like Rodney King said,
43:59we will get along.