Dame Dash has claimed that The Notorious B.I.G. and Diddy “copied” him and JAY-Z, leading to early friction between the two camps.
Speaking on political commentator Patrick Bet-David’s PBD Podcast, the Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder reflected on the label’s rise to fame in the mid 1990s and their relationship with Bad Boy Records.
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“Big was the only person I used to smoke with. I didn’t smoke before at all; we used to drink. Supposedly, Jay and Big went to school together but Jay didn’t know him,” he said.
“Because we were getting the money and popping the bottles and all that, in that moment, we had always felt that Biggie and Puffy were copying us. They’d see us in the club and it seemed like the next day, a record would be made.”
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He continued: “We was really getting money. No disrespect to Biggie but it was a different hustle. We weren’t on the streets pitching work. We were [about] connects, connects, connects.
“But that lifestyle of [a] hustler, that was us. That was them copying us, for sure. So we kinda had problems. I was run up [on] sometimes. I was confrontational with Biggie and them at first, but we finally got cool.”
Of course, JAY-Z himself has been accused many times of biting Biggie — most notably by Nas, who famously rapped on his 2001 diss song “Ether”: “How much of Biggie’s rhymes is gon’ come out your fat lips?”
The Brooklyn rap legend previously explained why he often quotes his late friend and collaborator in his music.
Referencing his line on “The City Is Mine,” “A world with amnesia won’t forget your name,” he said: “There was a vow in that song about Big. So doing that was my way of always keeping him fresh and keeping his music fresh on everyone’s mind.
“I’m inspired by music and I’m a fan and a historian. I study music and different emotions and things like that. So if I’m inspired by it, I just use it. It’s not a crutch for me. I can write a song without using anyone’s lyric at all.”
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Hov, who worked with Biggie on “Brooklyn’s Finest” and “I Love the Dough,” also explained the importance of the former Bad Boy star to his work.
“I take him everywhere I go. I’ve taken him on every step, every accomplishment. He’ll be there in some sort of way, whether that be live in concert or on record, or some acknowledgement,” he said in a 2013 interview with The Breakfast Club.
