-It was the sound no one
was talking about.
-Hip-hop was all underground.
You had to know somebody who
knows somebody to hear hip-hop.
-It didn't really have
a lot of news coverage.
Radio stations were
hesitant to play it.
-But that was about to change.
-MTV opened the doors
a little bit.
-And then "Source" magazine
pops up out of nowhere.
-Back in the day, if you wasn't
in "The Source" Awards,
you was not hip-hop.
-The teenage white kids
out in the suburbs
want to know what's going on.
-I said, "Wow, you know, hip-hop
is gonna be bigger
than rock-and-roll
because it's unifying people
of all races and backgrounds.
-But that power to unify...
-It's gonna cause people
to get k*lled.
It doesn't belong out there.
- Can also tear people apart.
-I'm your big brother.
I will break your big a*s down.
-Y'all don't love us!
-That was the match
that lit the stick of dynamite.
-Rapper Tupac Shakur
has passed away.
-Some spoke of an East Coast/
West Coast rap w*r.
-I just believe that there's
more to the story
with Tupac and Biggie's death
than meets the eye.
♪♪
[ Dial-up modems screeching ]
♪♪
♪♪
-September 7th, 1996.
Tupac Shakur, one of hip-hop's
most iconic figures,
is gunned down
on the Las Vegas Strip.
It's a cold, cold day
in the rap, hip-hop music world.
-Tupac's m*rder
and the subsequent m*rder
of his one-time friend,
then rival Biggie Smalls
will mark a bloody intermission
in the story of hip-hop's
rise in influence in the '90s.
-You had the two most powerful
hip-hop artists that were,
you know, basically carrying
hip-hop on their backs
disappear.
It really created a vacuum
that led to a lot of changes
in the hip-hop culture
and the hip-hop industry.
♪♪
-The music is born in the '70s
at parties in New York.
-You know, hip-hop
was an independent art form
for a long time, you know?
It had a kind of downtown scene
in New York,
I'm Mark Anthony Neal,
James B. Duke Professor
of African and African-American
studies at Duke University.
♪♪
You obviously weren't hearing it
on white radio stations,
and Black radio stations
were really hesitant at the time
to play rap music also.
- So what's it gonna take?
-Their core audience
was African-American
middle-class
and working-class adults.
And what they heard when
they heard hip-hop was noise.
-We've decided to mask
or delete three words
that are heard
in a lot of rap records,
and they are [bleep],
[bleep], and [bleep].
-The major record stores...
They wouldn't even carry rap.
You couldn't get it
at Warehouse or Tower Records
because they refused
to carry it.
They're not...
You know, that's novelty stuff.
My name is Greg Mack,
and I created 1580 KDAY,
best known as the first 24/7
rap radio station.
-Anybody older than 25
in those days
really looked down
upon rap music
and thought it was,
you know, trash
or didn't think it would last,
didn't take any talent
to make rap music.
-But two rap fans in an unlikely
place dedicate themselves
to bringing hip-hop music
and culture to everyone.
-They started
to do this magazine
out of a dorm room in Harvard,
right?
And first, folks are like
"Harvard?" Right?
And then you see, you know,
Dave Mays and Jon Shecter
and it's like,
"Who are these two white boys?"
My name is Dave Mays,
and I am the creator
of "The Source" magazine
and "The Source" Awards.
"The Source" I started between
my sophomore and junior years
with another white Jewish kid
from Philadelphia
named John Shecter.
-You know, you always have
these white folks in the room
who are invested in the culture.
-I was born and raised
in Washington, D.C.
I got exposed to Black people
and Black music and culture
at a very early age
and... and took a real interest
and... and liking in it.
There was absolutely no other
reading material or information
for this music and culture
that was growing and growing.
-So Dave and John
decided to change that.
-It went from one sheet
to six pages to 16 pages.
Very early on,
somebody mentioned to me
that I should read this book
about "Rolling Stone" magazine.
And so that became
my inspiration.
I said, "Wow, you know,
I'm gonna build
the "Rolling Stone"
of the hip-hop generation."
-And it's a "Rolling Stone"
cover in 1986 featuring Run-DMC
that marks the moment
when everything changes
in the music world.
That year, the trio releases
a version
of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way."
♪♪
-And that opens up the portal,
right?
You know,
Run-DMC sells 10 million copies.
-Even the mighty MTV,
bastion of rock and pop music,
takes notice and responds.
-I got a man here that is
currently doing a national show
called "Yo! MTV Raps,"
one of the original people
from hip-hop,
goes by the name of...
- The big thing that happens
is when "Yo! MTV" gets created
in 1988,
you know,
first with a weekly show
and then a daily show...
That was a game changer.
♪♪
- "Yo! MTV Raps"
was very instrumental
for helping some of those
underground artists
that were, like, really good
and doing
these little baby shows...
They was getting air time.
Hey, I'm Bill Bellamy, and I was
the veejay of "MTV Jams"
during the '90s.
What a blast.
[ Laughs ]
-Interviews with rappers
and performances on air
gave America's youth
of all races
an up-close look
at this exploding scene.
-MTV opened the doors
a little bit,
which was bananas
for the artists.
All these different artists
that was like right there,
now they are getting air time.
That changed the game for them.
So when the doors opened up,
MTV was giving a bird's eye view
what hip-hop was
to mainstream America.
"I said," Wow, you know, hip-hop
is gonna be bigger
than rock-and-roll
because it's unifying people
of all races and backgrounds
in a way that, you know,
no other music
has really ever done."
- "The Source" starts writing
about artists like Eazy-E,
whose rhymes describe
a very different existence
from the one many of its white
suburban readers are living.
Gangsta rap has arrived,
and its brashest voice hails
from the streets
of South Central L.A.
-NWA's "Straight Outta Compton"
is the first rap LP
to get
a parental advisory sticker,
and its controversial single,
"the Police,"
draws the nation's attention.
♪♪
-When NWA came out
with "F the Police,"
at first I was like, "Damn,
everything that I've dealt with,
they're talking about.
Having a Hispanic wife
at the time,
we were constantly
getting pulled over
because they thought
I was a pimp.
So, hell yeah, "F" the police,
you know?
-But there are no music videos,
there's no radio airplay.
And folks are trying
to figure out,
"What is this thing now that's
on the top of the charts?"
-Word on the street...
When it comes to, you know,
rap music,
it's all word of mouth.
-The mom and pop record stores
were the place
where folks would go regularly
to find out what was going on.
And then all of a sudden there's
"The Source" sitting there.
There was absolutely
no other information
anywhere about hip-hop.
- "The Source" became this
important space early on
for folks to be able to find out
what was going on
in the culture.
-NWA proves
gangsta rap can cross over
to white teenagers
who read "The Source."
"Straight Outta Compton"
goes platinum.
-People say we got a lot of
Black people buying our music.
No, you don't get to be number
one and platinum and all that
with just Black people.
You got all races...
Mostly the teenage white kids
out in the suburbs
because they want to know
what's going on.
-Hip-hop was appealing
to people of all races.
Whatever you were,
if you were young,
you were falling in love
with hip-hop.
It was a youth movement.
-But the story of police
brutality being reported
by NWA and "...the Police"
is about to hit
every news outlet in the world.
-So when Rodney King happens,
it was just really organic
to be able to connect
those kinds of dots.
-On March 3rd, 1991,
four members of the Los Angeles
Police Department
beat an unarmed Black man pulled
over for a traffic violation.
The beating is captured on tape.
-Do you have any idea at all
how many times
you were hit by a club?
- [ Exhales sharply ]
-What do you remember
about that aspect of it?
-Several times.
Several times.
And then stomped and kicked.
-And now police mistreatment
of Black people
described by NWA's "the Police"
is being told by every
news outlet in the world.
-It was one of the first times
we saw police brutality
against Black people on video.
I'm Tanya Hart.
I'm an entertainment journalist.
[ Siren wails ]
-The billowing smoke and flames
could be seen for miles...
An unnerving scene
for people driving by.
-And it rocked the world,
and it rocked L.A.,
and a riot broke out.
[ Sirens wail,
police radio chatter ]
-And largely in part because
of what happens in L.A.
with Rodney King,
you know, hip-hop matured
from a kind of political force
that was on the fringes
in the 1980s
into the best on-the-ground
news reporting
of what was happening
politically
at that point in time
-And for "The Source,"
this was a huge issue.
You know, we immediately
put together
an incredible special edition
of the magazine
that was in stark contrast
to the kind of coverage
{\an1}that you would see in any other
kind of mainstream media outlet,
-These brothers and sisters
who are rapping
and telling you stories...
These... these aren't stories
as in fables.
These are real life.
This is reality.
-As hip-hop's popularity grows,
so does the influence
of "The Source."
The magazine launches
its own awards show
where the line between the
violence expressed in the music
and the violence playing out
in real life will fade away.
-I'm in the front row.
This is my first
"Source" Awards.
Sticky Fingaz pulls out a g*n...
[ g*nshots,
indistinct shouting ]
sh**t the lights out at the top,
puts the g*n back in...
♪ Slam, da-dun-dun, dun... ♪
I can't slam.
I can't slam
'cause that's real glass.
That means
that was a real b*llet
and he shot the glass out.
That's too real for me.
-In 1990, "The Source" sets up
offices in New York
filling mailboxes and magazine
stands across the country
with its glossy pages.
-I worked on weekends.
I worked late nights.
I was, you know, often
the first person in the office
and the last person to leave.
You know, it wasn't long
before folks like Chuck D
from Public Enemy
dubbed "The Source" the Bible
of hip-hop in the early 1990s.
-You know, I give Mays
and Shecter a lot of credit.
You know, as... as the white
publishers of a magazine,
they had to bring
in Black journalists,
and they did that consistently.
-We began rating albums
on a scale of one to five mikes,
and the five mikes
being a hip-hop classic.
-If you didn't get
three mikes and up,
you should... you should quit.
Those mikes, for whatever
reason, back in the day...
You need four or five,
real talk.
You wanted five,
but if you got four mikes...
you're onto something, right?
-It's not 50 percent
of the books, so...
-Matty C was the guy
who basically ran
that Unsigned Hype column
at "The Source."
He's the one that heard
Biggie's demo tape
and featured him
in the magazine.
-The notorious B.I.G.,
an up-and-coming rapper
from Brooklyn,
gets the attention
of "The Source" staff
with an impressive demo
showing off his easy flow.
♪♪
-You start to look at all
of the people whose careers
were basically created
by "The Source."
Like having Puffy call me,
and, you know,
when he's starting Bad Boy
Records and say he needed,
you know, new artists...
Did I have anybody for him?
And, you know, giving
Biggie's demo tape to him.
-Sean "Puffy" Combs scouts
new talent for Uptown Records
when he's not hosting some of
New York's best hip-hop parties.
But in 1993, he starts
his own label
with Biggie as one
of his first artists.
-Check it out. This is my man,
the Notorious B.I.G.
-What's the deal?
What's going on?
-Puffy... he understood
how to package an artist
to make them sell.
Hi.
My name is Frankie Ross.
In the '90s, I was on the radio
as an announcer,
but I was also
a program director.
Puffy took Biggie and packaged
him, and he molded him
and turned him into this
notorious B.I.G. that we loved.
- "The Source" helps bring Biggie
to the masses,
chronicling his rise from local
rapper to hip-hop heavyweight.
When the notorious B.I.G.
lands his first cover,
he's officially deemed
the king of New York.
-In the early '90s, New York
was literally considered
to be like the... the Mecca
for hip-hop.
-But not to hip-hop artists
out west like NWA,
looking to get their music
heard.
-And so you got
all these West Coast rappers
making music
but wasn't getting no airplay.
-You know, at first, the rivalry
honestly was really
just about who had the best
beats and the best sound.
-I've heard different versions
of how the rift got started.
I do know that New York
didn't play West Coast artists.
[ Record scratches ]
- When NWA's Dr. Dre
releases "The Chronic,"
his first solo record,
it tops the charts,
helped by the video
for the single
"Nuthin' But A G Thang."
♪♪
But even "The Source" is accused
of having an East Coast bias
when it gives the album
a less than perfect score.
- "The Chronic" got four
and a half mikes.
So, I mean, we knew
it was an amazing album.
We knew it was incredible and
should have gotten five mikes.
-And when Dr. Dre's protege,
Snoop Dogg,
releases the record
"Doggystyle,"
along with the music video for
"Who Am I? What's My Name?"...
it introduces gangsta funk...
Hip-hop with a West Coast Twist.
"The Source" gives it
high praise,
helping to legitimize
this new sound.
-So when they broke through
and artists started
coming up from the West Coast
and they started saying,
"Yeah, yeah,
we're here now. What?
The West Coast ride too."
So now it's like even money.
We're both selling records.
We're both putting out hits,
right?
And Death Row Records
was synonymous
with like the West Coast
energy...
Where we at right now,
gangsta rap.
And we're telling it like it is.
-Behind the G Funk movement
is L.A.'s Death Row Records,
a label that Dr. Dre sets up
with Marion Suge Knight.
-Suge Knight was definitely
a big deal in the '90s.
He ruled the world of hip-hop,
certainly on the West Coast.
-I'm gonna give the people
what they want,
and what they want is the real
stuff that they can feel.
-Suge was not a producer.
He was not a writer.
He was a strong arm.
So he was handling business
like a gangster for real.
"And if you're not playing
my records,
we're gonna make you play
them"... that kind of energy.
-Suge's tactics seemed to work.
With hip-hop blaring
from car windows and boom boxes
from New York to L.A.,
"The Source" launches
a grassroots marketing campaign
to bring the magazine
and its music
to the country at large.
- "The Source" van was like
the ice cream truck of hip-hop.
You know, we would basically
send the van around the country
to every city, you know,
large, medium sized cities,
go into the neighborhoods, pull
up outside of record stores,
schools, parks, blasting music.
And it was like
a mobile block party.
You know, we would pass out
lots of promotional items,
you know, C.D.s
or posters, stickers,
different things like that.
-And while "The Source"
will help introduce hip-hop
to Middle America,
one West Coast artist
will emerge
as the voice of a generation.
-Tupac Shakur.
-I think of Tupac as, you know,
the most important
and influential artist
in the history of hip-hop.
He was able to reach
from the bottom of the streets
all the way up
to the top of the suburbs,
and people followed him.
-Everything I ever sang,
whether it's good or bad
is coming from my heart.
- Yes.
-And if it's wrong,
then, you know,
God ain't finished with me yet.
Let him check me.
-He was very smart.
From the time
he was 10 years old,
His mom made him read
all of "The New York Times"
from cover to cover
every single day.
-There was just
something compelling
about his personality, right?
That... That thing that you
can't teach,
that kind of "it" factor...
Tupac had it.
Tupac, wordplay, passion,
purpose,
militant, a little bit of crazy,
but I liked it.
It all worked.
His sauce was right.
-Yeah, I-I like to think
I'm a rebel.
I'm revolutionary.
-Despite hailing from different
coasts,
Biggie hooks up
with L.A.-based Tupac,
who becomes both a friend
and a mentor.
-I remember when we did
Da Brat's video
"Give it to You," he was on set.
Him in B.I.G. at this time
was friends.
I never seen nobody smoke
as many blunts
in 25 minutes in my life,
him and B.I.G together.
I'm sitting there
probably high as...
and I don't smoke, but whatever.
-As his career soars,
Biggie turns to Tupac for advice
in navigating the business.
-You know, he's a leader,
you know,
somebody that people respected
and... and listened to.
I had a vision which I think
was similar to Tupac's
of how the bigger hip-hop
could become,
you can make it
big and successful,
but still keep it authentic
and become a force
to revolutionize
and change the world.
-And one of the most powerful
players in the music industry,
mega producer Quincy Jones,
seems to want to help
Mays realize his vision.
-We get called out to a meeting
at Quincy Jones' home
in... in Beverly Hills.
We're you know, we're whisked
from the airport in limousines
up into this mansion
in... in the Hills.
And he says, you know,
"Thank you guys for coming.
And, you know, really excited,
you know, but I want to let you
know what I've decided.
-And then Mays lives a line
from a Tupac song.
"Perhaps I was blind to the
facts, stabbed in the back."
-In 1993, as Bill Clinton's
inauguration is celebrated
with a pop-music-filled concert
produced by Quincy Jones...
♪♪
America's youth is tuned in
to a very different sound.
Hip-hop is growing fast,
and the 60-year-old Jones
wants in on the action.
-Quincy is an amazing legend,
but at that time,
what I gathered
from listening to him
and other people working for him
was he really didn't understand
hip-hop
and the true kind of DNA
of hip-hop.
-Quincy reaches out
to Dave Mays and his partners
to invest in "The Source"
magazine.
But when they all meet,
it turns out
he was not looking
for a partner.
-And he says, "You know,
I want to let you know
that what I've decided to do
is start my own magazine,
but I'm prepared
to buy you guys out for $600,000
and give you guys all, you know,
jobs working for me."
And I think some of...
Some of my partners
were actually
considering the offer.
I was really angry and upset,
but, you know,
politely turned down the offer.
With the deep pockets
of Time Warner backing him,
Quincy launches a competitor
to "The Source,"
"Vibe" magazine.
[ Cheers and applause ]
The first issue features rapper
Snoop Doggy Dogg on the cover.
-There were a lot of people
that predicted at the time
this was gonna be
the end of "The Source."
How is this, you know,
little independent magazine
gonna be able to survive?
- "Vibe" was like one of
the first commercial magazines,
you know, with advertising
and just looked really slick
and really cool artwork.
And of course,
"Source" was a little grittier
and more street and more heart,
more edgy.
-Hip-hop and become big enough
that you could have both a
"Source" and "Vibe" in the room
and not feel as though one
or the other,
right, had to be
the dominant portrait
of what's happening in hip-hop.
-While "The Source" and "Vibe"
battle it out on newsstands.
East Coast and West Coast
hip-hop artists also go to w*r.
The one-time friendship between
Biggie and Tupac Shakur
is an early casualty when
they turn against each other.
On November 30th, 1994, Tupac
is shot while being robbed
in the lobby of New York's
Quad Recording Studios.
[ Indistinct police radio
chatter ]
He believes it's a set-up
by East Coast rivals
and points to Biggie and Bad Boy
Records' Sean Puffy Combs,
who are in the building
at the time of his sh**ting,
as somehow being involved.
♪♪
-Just keep it tight, that's all.
-Mr. Shakur,
how are you this morning?
-Biggie and Puffy deny
any involvement,
but "Vibe" magazine adds fuel
to the growing controversy.
They send journalist
Kevin Powell to interview Tupac,
now in prison
on sexual as*ault charges,
about the supposed ambush.
Powell would later tell "Vibe"
that Tupac had no love
for his former friend.
- I remember saying to Tupac,
"Why don't you all just come
together and, you know,
Pac said something that made me
so mad, man.
I'll never forget... he said,
yellow M&Ms and green M&Ms
don't come together.
♪♪
-A few months later,
Biggie releases a single
titled "Who Shot Ya?"
imagining himself
in the role of the k*ller.
Though the track
was recorded months
before the Quad Studio sh**ting
and doesn't reference Tupac,
none of that seems to matter.
Tupac takes it
as a direct attack.
-It was very serious.
These guys were very serious.
Well, here's the thing.
When you are talking
about the streets,
if you're living
that hip-hop life,
you're... you're around people
live in that world,
there's gonna be some things.
-With bicoastal
tensions simmering,
"The Source" hopes
to lower the temperature
by bringing
the community together
in a celebration of the music.
The first televised
"Source" Awards is held
at Madison Square Garden's
Paramount Theater.
-'95 is the kind of
most famous "Source" Awards.
Of course, everybody remembers
those tense moments
where Suge Knight got on stage
in front of, you know,
an audience of five thousand
people in New York City
and basically took a shot
at... at Bad Boy and at Puffy.
-Suge mocks Puffy for inserting
himself into the songs
and videos of Bad Boy's artists.
-Any artist out there want to be
an artist
and want to stay a star,
don't want to...
Won't to have to worry
about the executive producer
trying to be all in the videos,
all on the records,
dancing, come to Death Row.
[ Audience boos ]
-It got like personal
right there.
Diddy was synonymous
with New York... like partying,
having a good time,
putting my artists on,
being in the videos,
you know, having fun.
West Coast is like, "Nah,
we don't do all that.
We... We real out here, right?"
-Targeting Diddy in that moment,
I would say,
arguably, has nothing
to do with hip-hop, right,
and just has everything to do
with these two personalities
clashing over who was gonna have
a dominant cultural footprint.
-Dr. Dre!
-Tensions escalate
when Snoop Dogg
calls out
the East Coast audience
for not respecting the West.
-The East Coast ain't got no
love for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg
and Death Row.
Y'all don't love us.
Y'all don't love us.
-Lines got drawn,
and sides kind of were taken,
and... and a rivalry developed
between two camps,
two labels... the Bad Boy camp
and the Death Row camp...
And then the rivalry
between Suge and Puffy.
You know, it caused
a lot of... a lot of tension
and a lot of uproar.
But there was no violence
that night.
There wasn't even, you know,
a punch thrown.
-That was the match that lit
the stick of dynamite to me.
-What we saw was these wars...
Literal wars,
shootouts between the East Coast
and the West Coast.
-As rap music surges to the top
of the charts,
politicians become
its most outspoken critics.
-This is frankly offensive
to me,
and I think to any parent,
it is nothing but filth.
-It's negative.
It's in the wrong direction.
It's gonna cause people
to get k*lled.
It doesn't belong out there.
-It's a type of music
that can pump somebody up
to the point
where they have total hatred.
-And so you think about this
in terms of a political context,
right?
This is the era
of Bill Clinton's infamous
crime bill.
-Let us roll up our sleeves
to roll back
this awful tide of violence
and reduce crime in our country.
-Under the Clinton
administration,
the 1994 Violent Crime Control
and Law Enforcement Act
results in longer
and harsher prison sentences.
-And the crime bill
was a response to perception
to rising crime rates
and this fear of Black youth
that were out of control.
-I know when you're home
and when you're not.
-Suddenly, you're seeing
all these commercials
for home security systems.
- 24 hours a day.
-At the same time
that white Americans
are looking at these images,
they're watching television
shows like "Cops,"
which double down
on Black criminality,
you know, so Black men are seen
as both prey and threat.
-Before blogs and social media,
print magazines
dictate the story.
But while "The Source" preaches
the positive messages in rap,
their competitor,
Quincy Jones' "Vibe" magazine,
wallows in the East versus West
clashes.
-The media fed into it
a little bit.
You know what I mean?
They leaned into it.
And so it fueled the flames.
So people were, you know,
curating this narrative of,
"Is there a division?
Who's better?
Is their hip-hop any less
or more hip-hop,
the New York hip-hop?"
So that... was they created
a movie in a movie.
And unfortunately, some of
the artists got hurt by it,
people have lost
their lives over it.
-The story's been told many
times, you know,
about "Vibe" and the covers
and the stories they printed
that people have felt,
you know, contributed
to sensationalizing
and... and fueling that beef
in a way.
Like it's February, '96 cover,
Live from Death Row."
The way corporations, whether
radio stations or magazines,
invested in... in
the East Coast/West Coast battle
contributed to that moment,
as did a celebrity culture.
-These kinds of problems are
still something that's very much
in the sphere
of the lives that...
that these rappers are...
Are living.
-They were making these guys
believe
that they were like
serious gangsters.
They weren't really
serious gangsters.
Not really.
♪♪
-Sensing things spinning
out of control,
Quincy Jones holds
the "Vibe" Summit in New York.
In attendance are Suge Knight
and Dr. Dre, Puffy and Biggie.
In contrast to his magazine.
Jones preaches taking hip-hop
in a more positive direction,
but the summit proves
to be too little, too late.
♪♪
Tupac releases "Hit 'Em Up,"
a diss track aimed
at Puffy's Bad Boy crew.
In the song,
he claims to have slept
with Biggie's estranged wife,
singer Faith Evans.
In another interview
with "Vibe,"
Tupac continues
to lash out at Biggie
when he talks about
schooling his one-time protegé.
-I'm just mad
at my little brother
when he don't respect me.
Now, when you don't respect me,
I'm gonna spank your a*s.
I don't give a...
how rich you got on the block.
I'm your big brother.
I will break your big a*s down.
-I believe, in that last period
of his life,
he made some very aggressive
and... and violent music.
And again, that's a lot
of what people,
unfortunately, remember him for.
But if you listen
to a lot of his other music
and you listen to
the powerful messages and ideas
that he conveyed for many years
through his... his music
and his lyrics,
he was a revolutionary.
-The East Coast/West Coast
tensions boil over
at the '96 Soul Train Awards,
forcing host Don Cornelius
to get involved.
-My assistant said,
"Tupac and Biggie
are in the parking lot,
and they're riding...
They're circling around
each other brandishing g*ns."
And I went got Don Cornelius,
said, "Don,
you better come out here
and put this out,
'cause I don't know what
these brothers are gonna do."
- "The Source" did a cover
during the middle
of this with Suge Knight.
It ain't no East Coast/
West Coast thing.
I was very cognizant
that a street kind of beef
was coming into the industry,
you know, with g*ng members
and other people involved.
So we went out of our way to get
Suge to talk and to say that
and to put that on the front
cover of the magazine.
-I saw Tupac probably a month
or two before he was k*lled,
and I say, "Hey, man,
what's up?" Blah, blah, blah.
'Cause we knew each other,
but he just had a look...
Everything that he had dealt
with in life.
He just had that look.
It wasn't the same glowing eyes
that I had seen.
♪♪
-On the night of September 7th,
after attending a boxing match
at the MGM Grand
in Las Vegas, Tupac Shakur
is critically wounded
in a drive-by sh**ting.
Six days later,
he dies in the hospital.
-It hurt.
Of course, it hurt.
Any time one of my kids...
'cause that's the way
I look at them...
die for whatever reason,
it hurts.
-I would have loved
to see Tupac's evolution.
I mean, he... only 25,
I mean,
what would he have been at 30?
He'd be 40-something now.
So, you know, I always got,
like, love in there.
You know, I... just, ugh!
It's tough.
-It was an awful feeling
when I heard that he had passed,
You know, of course,
immediately we had
to change the plans
for the magazine
and put together, you know, a
whole tribute package about him.
You know, you wanted to make
sure that you did an amazing job
for him in, you know,
commemorating who he was
and... and what his
contributions were.
-In the months following Tupac's
death, theories abound
on who pulled the trigger.
All eyes land on Bad Boy's
East Coast crew,
but Tupac's m*rder*r
remains at large.
-I think it's really sad, too,
that there is no one out there,
or the claim is, no one
out there saw anything.
I think that somebody
saw something, and they should
most definitely come forth
and say something.
-For Biggie,
it's a sign that it's time
to put the rap beefs behind him.
-So I'm gonna just be
"forgive and forget."
-Right, right.
-But the realization
comes too late.
-In case you haven't heard,
it's been all over the media,
all over the news,
Tupac... rapper Tupac Shakur
has passed away.
-Today, hundreds
line the streets
outside a Nation of Islam school
to pay their respects
to the slain rapper.
-I'm just here to show
my respect for Tupac.
Brother was a good brother.
-His ways is really give us
strength to keep on moving
and look forward to another day.
-It's still a lot
of negativity out here.
And the violence
is gonna take more
than just Tupac's death to stop.
-I still don't think people's
gonna learn from it.
I still think a lot of stuff
is gonna go on,
a lot of k*lling,
a lot of violence still.
They're not gonna learn nothing.
-While the hip-hop world
is still reeling
from the death of Tupac Shakur,
another is soon to follow.
-The night Biggie was shot,
again, it was another
Soul Train party.
I was excited because we were
going to be at the same table
with Sean Combs, with P. Diddy.
But for some reason,
my husband said that night,
"No, I don't think
we should go."
Really strange... that night...
And he was insistent
that we do not go.
[ Siren wailing ]
-Six months after Tupac's death,
is m*rder*d
in a drive-by, gunned down
after a Soul Train party
in Los Angeles.
-The rapper's car was riddled
with b*ll*ts,
leaving him so badly wounded
that he was pronounced dead
at the nearby
Cedars Sinai Hospital.
-I don't know if people
loved B.I.G. everywhere,
but New York took an "L"
on that.
Like, B.I.G. meant
so much to people,
you felt the pain
of a funeral of like Mandela.
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Horns honking ]
-To see people on the ground
crying and stuff,
you're like, Damn!"
It was big to people.
-I would want him
to be remembered
as one of the most talented
and gifted artists of his time.
-To the hip-hop community,
it was a big loss
because he was like
one of the best artists
that, you know, ever rapped
or was ever in hip-hop.
-He was a good man.
He was a generous man.
-It's a sad day.
It's a sad day.
-Another devastating loss,
and the blame game continues.
-There are questions
whether Biggie's m*rder
may have been retaliation
for the drive-by slaying
of his archrival,
California rapper Tupac Shakur.
-Some spoke of an East Coast/
West Coast rapper.
-So this is another...
Another round fired
in this w*r of the rappers?
-Well, we... we hope that we're
not getting to that situation.
This is a very tragic event,
and it has similarities
to another sh**ting.
But there were a lot of people
that were in the area,
and we're hopeful
that someone will come forward
and give us information
so that we can close this case.
-It might not have to do
with Death Row and Bad Boy,
{\an1}but, you know, it got to do with
East Coast/West Coast for sure.
For sure, yeah.
Hopefully, this isn't anything
that has to do
with East Coast, West Coast.
-People looked at Biggie being
shot as retaliation for Tupac.
So, again, everybody's guessing.
I don't know.
-And then again,
we look back at that.
They never found the person
who k*lled him either.
What's that all about?
-We're here with him.
You understand what I'm saying?
We're gonna carry
on his legacy regardless.
You understand what I'm saying?
After the cameras
and everything is gone,
we're carrying it on, 'cause
we live this life after death.
We make that life
after death happen.
-As fans mourn, they turn away
from the headlines
and find another way
to celebrate their heroes.
You could feel the impact
that it had on...
On people here in... in L.A.
Murals started going up for Pac,
and you know, the brothers
on the corner selling T-shirts.
-And immediately, right,
you start to see
these ghetto art depictions
of Biggie and... and Tupac.
And the way that we romanticize
about them to death
has a lot to do with the role
that they played
in the lives of young people
at that time.
-This artist says his crew
is trying
to convey a serious message.
-The message behind it is,
"One coast, one culture.
Stop the violence."
-Two of hip-hop's
biggest stars dead,
the music eclipsed
by a sensational story.
In the aftermath
of the two rappers' deaths,
hip-hop insiders point
the finger at "Vibe" magazine
for fueling the ongoing w*r
between Tupac and Biggie.
-That East West crap,
"Vibe" has to take a lot of...
they should have got a b*llet.
- Wow.
-They should have got a b*llet.
-In a tribute to Biggie,
"The Source" asked the question
on everyone's mind...
How can hip-hop move
past the violence?
-I don't understand this.
You know,
I just don't understand it.
I mean, this is a beautiful guy
that got k*lled
over nothing, really.
-I don't think either the death
of Tupac or Biggie
was the result of street
violence and street rivalries.
That's, again, another myth
that I believe has been painted
for people to try to make
people think
about rap music
in a very negative way.
-Dave Mays has his own ideas
about who was really behind
the killings
of hip-hop's two biggest stars.
-In my opinion, there was
other forces at play
that became evident, you know,
over time, years later.
-As a founder
of "The Source" magazine,
Dave Mays was an eyewitness
to the rise of hip-hop
and the fall of two
of its brightest lights.
He has his own theories
on who k*lled Tupac and Biggie.
-You know, hip-hop was a very
powerful force in mobilizing
and empowering, you know,
the Black community
and... and unifying a lot
of other people.
And, you know, I believe that,
you know, very early on
it became a threat similar
to the way Black Power movements
in the '60s were viewed by...
By the government.
So I just believe there also
was an element of government
and law enforcement, you know,
infiltration and involvement -
The same thing we've all learned
over the years
about what happened
in the '60s with COINTELPRO.
- "The Source" still tracks
what's happening
in the world of hip-hop,
including the closing
of West Coast-based
Death Row Records
after Suge Knight is sent
to prison on as*ault charges.
The magazine also documented
the many hits released
by East Coast-based
Bad Boy Records...
including the song and video
for "I'll Be Missing You,"
a tribute to Biggie.
And while Mays left "The Source"
in 2006,
the magazine
continues its mission
and remains the longest running
voice in hip-hop journalism.
-I don't think hip-hop
has ever died.
I mean, I think that's
the beauty of it,
is that hip-hop will never die.
-Rap music is getting to a point
where everybody
has beefs with each other,
{\an1}and it's just getting to a point
where it's getting out of hand.
-I think that hip-hop learned
a valuable lesson after B.I.G.
and Tupac's death.
We're all doing the same thing,
trying to, you know,
feed our families.
We're trying to make
hit records.
We're trying to blow up.
-We never had a problem.
We're just speaking about it now
because enough is enough.
-If the East/West thing
would have kept going,
it would have
just got worse and worse.
So I think that just said,
"Wait, stop.
Reset. Woosah.
Let's go forward."
-After Biggie and Pac died,
what did happen was you started
seeing women get into hip-hop,
You'd see the Mary J Bliges,
and... and you'd see
all the Lil' Kims,
and women were finally invited
to the party.
And it was really time
because, of course,
women always have a lot to say,
and we're usually good at it.
-The beef that we saw
with Tupac and Biggie
which was a centerpiece
of so much of the culture
in the 1990s,
would be a passing
Twitter beef today.
♪♪
-But many of the systemic issues
that '90s hip-hop gave voice to
in its lyrics
continue to plague
American society today.
-[Chanting] Black lives matter!
Black lives matter!
-I was telling Ice Cube recently
how proud I was of him,
you know, writing that song.
-If you really go back
and listen
to the stuff he was writing
back then,
and it's like, "Oh, wow,
this is still going on."
There's nothing wrong with
a party record here and there,
but hopefully somebody
will get off of the bling
and talk about something
that's going on in the world.
But it makes it interesting.
-Hip-hop can be that force
that finally rids this country
and this world of... of racism
and systemic racism
and... and unifies people,
levels the playing field.
Hip-hop still has the power
to do that.
[ Siren wails ]
-I think what the '90s did
was bring the power
of television and social justice
in a way that was in your face
and in your living room.
We can look back at that
and learn many, many lessons
about where and how
we should move forward.
I do have hope that somehow
we will be able
to all get along,
just like Rodney King said.
We will get along.
♪♪
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