Ghostface Killah says he had every intention of working with Biggie before The Notorious B.I.G. was killed. The two New York emcees met briefly in Los Angeles prior to Biggie’s untimely death, but their collaboration didn’t come to fruition.
“Before Biggie died I wanted to work with him and shit,” Ghost says in an interview with XXL’s Jake Rohn. “I shook his hand out here [in Los Angeles]. I shook his hand. Me and him, because I had said a little something on Raekwon’s Cuban Link album. Remember, we was 25, buggin’ out. Wild. But as time went on, you know, because it really wasn’t no beef, just something I said or whatever-whatever. But I wanted to hook up with him and tell him, like, ‘Part of me, whatever-whatever-whatever-whatever, B,’ ’cause I liked him. I liked B.I.G. It’s just that we was coming in wild so a lot of things that I say was out there, like, ‘Oh shit you talkin’ about B.I.G.’ I wanted to just be like, ‘Yo, let’s clear the air and let’s go ahead and just do a joint.’”
Many have often speculated that Ghostface Killah was referencing The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready To Die album cover on “Shark Niggas (Biters),” when he says “niggas bit off of Nas’ shit, caught his little album cover, boom, then done did a Nas for that shit.”
Despite speculations surrounding this, Ghostface and B.I.G. met briefly at a Los Angeles concert. Ghost says they would see one another prior to this, but neither side would approach the other. This time, they shook hands. This would be the last time the two would see each other.
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“The next day…They got to him,” Ghost recalls. “They got to him. They got to him. And I was more hurt over his death than Tupac’s death because it just felt like, we’re from the same city and…I don’t know. Maybe because I didn’t see ‘Pac that much or whatever the case may be, or get to hear a lot of his music like that. Don’t get me wrong, I love his music, but I wasn’t hearing it like B.I.G. And Meth did the song with Biggie.”
Ghost, who says he stayed in Los Angeles for about a month following Biggie’s death, says he was hurt and upset about the situation.
The Notorious B.I.G. died on March 9, 1997 after being shot multiple times. He was 24.
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