Lil Cease recently sat down with Shawn Prez for VLAD TV where the former Junior Mafia artist denied setting up Tupac to be shot at Quad Studios.
Fresh off their newly signed contract, Lil cease and Junior Mafia were set to hit the studio for their very first session. Before getting to work, Lil Cease and Nino went to the terrace to smoke and took a moment to soak in their new success. This is when Lil Cease spotted Tupac walking down the block. “I see the bandana. He’s always wearing the bandana and of course we been hanging with him a few times, so I know when I see him,” Lil Cease explained. After making getting Tupac’s attention, Lil Cease told Shakur to come around the corner and “ima come downstairs and get you.”
Moments later as Lil Cease and Nino were in the elevator, two gunman pressed them as the elevator hit the lobby. “I was so paranoid and nervous, I’m hitting door open,” Lil Cease recalled. “I go upstairs and I go, ‘B.I., Pac downstairs getting robbed.” As Told by Lil Cease on VLAD TV, Biggie quickly made his way downstairs to see Tupac, only to then be approached and apprehended by the police.
Despite Biggie Smalls publicly stating he had nothing to do with the 1994 Tupac shooting, Shakur felt otherwise. Tupac felt Biggie Smalls should have warned him before hand. Affording to reports Jimmy Henchman who managed Lil Shawn, offered Shakur $7,000 to record with his artist. For this reason Tupac was heading to Quad Studios. The November 30th shooting forever changed the friendship between Tupac and Biggie, leaving a mark in hip hop history.
Tupac would tell his side of the story on the April 1995 edition of VIBE magazine. “So I stood up and I went to the door and—the shit that fucked me up—as soon as I got to the door, I saw a police car sitting there. I was, like, “Uh-oh, the police are coming, and I didn’t even go upstairs yet.” So we jumped in the elevator and went upstairs. I’m limping and everything, but I don’t feel nothing. It’s numb. When we got upstairs, I looked around, and it scared the shit out of me,” Tupac told VIBE.
“Because Andre Harrell was there, Puffy [Bad Boy Entertainment CEO Sean “Puffy” Combs] was there, Biggie… there was about 40 niggas there. All of them had jewels on. More jewels than me. I saw Booker, and he had this look on his face like he was surprised to see me. Why? I had just beeped the buzzer and said I was coming upstairs,” Tupac continued. “Nobody approached me. I noticed that nobody would look at me. Andre Harrell wouldn’t look at me. I had been going to dinner with him the last few days. He had invited me to the set of New York Undercover, telling me he was going to get me a job. Puffy was standing back too. I knew Puffy. He knew how much stuff I had done for Biggie before he came out.”
Biggie and Puff Daddy had their chance to publicly explain their side of the story on a televised interview. “As soon as he comes out shot, me and man try to sit him down. He calls his mom. He asked my man if he can roll him a blunt. We asked him if he’s alright. He’s like, ‘Yeah I’m aight. I don’t know what’s going on,'” Puff said.
Speaking with MTV‘s VJ Tabitha Soren after his release from prison, Tupac had no interest in Biggie and Puff Daddy’s side of the story. “I was there for the whole thing. No one else was there for the whole thing. It’s not important that other people know what happened to me. I just said. Now that I said it, it’s dead. You can believe me or not believe me, I did what I had to do,” Tupac said.
