Sean “Diddy” Combs once said he did not like feuding with Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight. The rivalry between his label, Bad Boy Records, and theirs, Death Row Records, kicked off in 1994, after Tupac’s shooting. In the aftermath came viciously barbed songs and alleged acts of violence. While Diddy said he didn’t think it was fair that he became a part of the feud, he never thought his safety was actually at risk.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs didn’t think Tupac or Suge Knight put his life in danger
In the song “Hit ‘Em Up,” Tupac directly called out Diddy, the Notorious B.I.G., and Bad Boy Records. The song is brutal and direct, but Diddy said it didn’t frighten him. He thought that if anyone actually intended to harm him, they wouldn’t be making threats through song.
“I never knew of my life being in danger,” he told Vibe Magazine in 1996. “I’m not saying that I’m ignorant to the rumors. But if you got a problem and somebody wants to get your a**, they don’t talk about it. What it’s been right now is a lot of moviemaking and a lot of entertainment drama. Bad boys move in silence.”
He added that if the threat was genuine, he wouldn’t be able to prepare for an attack.
“If somebody wants to get your a** you’re gonna wake up in heaven,” he said. “There ain’t no record gonna be made about it. It ain’t gonna be no interviews; it’s gonna be straight-up ‘Oh s***, where am I? What are these wings on my back? Your name is Jesus Christ?’ When you’re involved in some real s***, it’s gonna be some real s***.”
He still didn’t like being in the feud
While Diddy said he didn’t feel his life was at risk, he still considered the feud with Death Row a war.
“[W]hen it came to a situation when you in a war with somebody and you don’t want to fight the war? Then [Tupac] was the worst,” Diddy told Rolling Stone in 1997. “I was like, ‘Why do I got to be in a war with this motherf***er right here? This motherf***er is crazy,’ There was too many followers to be in a war with him, and we had no time to be in a war. We came in this to make music.”
He didn’t think the situation was fair to him.
“Then you find yourself in the middle of a battlefield, and you ain’t got no helmet, no gun, and you don’t even want to be there,” he said. “You think, ‘S***, I hope when the smoke clears I’m still ahead.’ It was unfair. We ain’t doing s***, and we getting accused of all this s***. We got motherf***ers making records about us, dissing us.”
Tupac believed Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs struck out against him
While Diddy didn’t think the threats of violence would amount to anything, Tupac believed Bad Boy had already struck out against him. Following his 1994 shooting, he began to believe Diddy and Biggie were behind it somehow.
Tupac died in a drive-by shooting in 1996. His accused killer, Duane “Keefe D” Davis, claimed Diddy offered him $1 million to kill the rapper. Diddy has repeatedly denied this, and police have never charged him in relation to Tupac’s death.
