Snoop Dogg has been carrying 2Pac‘s legacy quite well — but a member of the Outlawz has a different take on their legendary relationship.
Napoleon, who left the music industry after he converted to Islam in 2001, sat down with The Art of Dialogue and claimed that despite their close relationship, the Doggfather was actually quite jealous of Pac.
AD LOADING...
“Maybe some of the things he couldn’t tell Pac face-to-face, you know, he can do it in these interviews,” he said. “It’s sad. And one of the reasons why I always try to correct this is because him and Pac were friends. … I already know why he doin’ that, bro.
“Imagine if you’re the biggest star on Death Row, and Pac come and take all your shine, you understand?” he continued. “And 25 years later, Pac died, and every time you do an interview, that name is brought up. So maybe he’s just trying to take that shine from Pac. You know what I mean?”
Take a listen to the full interview below.
Napoleon also took the “Gin and Juice” rapper to task for slamming “Hit ‘Em Up” after Tupac had passed away, suggesting that the now-grandfather should remember his late friend in a positive way, “rather than focus on the negativity.”
On April 12, Snoop sat down with Big Boy for an Untold Stories interview, which is where he first told the story of his dislike for the infamous diss track against The Notorious B.I.G.
“Man, I’d say a week before he died, we was best of friends. Two days before he died, I don’t think he liked me,” he explained. “Because we was in New York and shit had happened. New York n-ggas had shot at me and did all kinds of shit to me, just the worst shit you could think of, and I forgave ’em.
“Then I went and did an interview and was asked how did I feel about Puffy and Biggie. I was like, ‘I like them n-ggas, I wanna do some music with ’em.’
AD LOADING...
“And that just rubbed cuz the wrong way, like, ‘N-gga, fuck them n-ggas, them n-ggas tried to kill me. N-ggas shot at you, and you talking about you wanna do a song with them n-ggas?’”
For that reason, Snoop Dogg wasn’t a fan of “Hit ‘Em Up,” 2Pac’s vicious 1996 diss track aimed at Biggie that heightened the East Coast–West Coast rivalry.
AD LOADING...
“Even when he played the video for me to ‘Hit ‘Em Up,’ even when he played ‘Hit ‘Em Up,’ the song, I didn’t like the song,” he said. “I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the shit. It wasn’t the shit to me. Like, you buying more problems, cuh. You buying problems. Gangstas is everywhere. They make ’em everywhere.”
