Original subtitles

[Blige] ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

Everybody.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday, Puff Daddy ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

-[crowd cheering] -Thank you.

[Lesane] I always looked at him

as just being this rich Harlem cat who just wanted to dance and make money.

All the ladies look so right.

All the niggas, all the real players in the motherfuckin' house.

♪ Throw your hands in the air… ♪

[Lesane] No violence in him.

But every time I turned around,

there's violence.

[laughs]

-There's violence with his name on it. -[ominous music playing]

[Combs] B-I-G-G-I-E. A-K-A…

[Lesane] At the time, there's this tension that is going on between Pac and Puff.

-When I'm gone… -[crowd cheering]

[Lesane] Puff wanted to work with Pac on a lot of levels, business-wise.

And Pac wasn't having it.

He was more interested in Biggie and his career.

Puff was very threatened by Pac.

He was very threatened, especially if you're an executive

who wanted the guy to make you money, and the guy's saying, "No, fuck you."

[ominous music continues]

[Curry] Around that time,

Tupac was going to do a song with Little Shawn

at Quad Studio.

[Shakur] They wanted me to do this song, so I said, all right.

Stopped off to get some weed… [laughs] …smoked the weed.

Then I was getting a page, "Where you at? Why you ain't coming?"

I was like, "I'm coming. I'm on my way, hold on."

I wasn't thinking, "Why they want me here so bad?"

We walking up to the building.

Somebody screamed from up the top of the studio, and it's Lil' Cease.

He's like Biggie's side man.

[Cease] We was recording with B.I.G. and Puff,

and I'm yelling, like, "Yo, Pac!"

He looked up, "Yo, what's up, little nigga?"

I go back in the room, I tell B.I.G., I'm like, "Yo, B.I.G., Pac downstairs."

He was like, "Oh, all right, go get him."

Get into the elevator, and when I was about to walk out,

two dudes came from both sides.

"Get the fuck back in the elevator."

-Shit. -[dramatic music playing]

[woman on TV] Recording artist Tupac Shakur

was shot five times last night in a robbery attempt.

After surgery, his condition was upgraded to satisfactory,

and he checked out of the hospital against his doctor's advice.

[Shakur] I think they was trying to rub me out, really.

Robbers don't leave behind, uh, $80,000 Rolexes.

You know what I mean? They don't do that. In case nobody know.

Let's look at the facts.

[dramatic pensive music playing]

Puff is there.

Pac has been shot in New York under your watch.

The question would be, who knew that he was pulling up?

[Combs] Biggie, nor myself, had nothing to do whatsoever

of, um, Tupac being robbed.

We… We… That's just a fact.

After everything that has unfolded,

I have to think twice about how that situation went down.

[woman] Do you think Puffy was involved in the shooting?

I believe so. I do believe so. I have proof…

You can see now why someone like a Puff

would want someone like a Pac out the picture.

-[ominous music playing] -[inaudible]

[Lesane] You know, Pac was vilified while he was alive.

And Puff was exalted.

That's the bigger picture.

And that's a story that hasn't been told.

[dramatic music playing]

[crowd chanting ominously] Bad Boy! Bad Boy!

[man on TV] Obviously, Barkley, A.J. Brown, what have you.

It allows them to get a clearer picture,

stretches the defense horizontally faster, right?

And it also, conversely, makes the defense think a tick longer…

This shit is not fucking funny.

There's a whole lot of crazy shit going on.

I went and saw they knocked the Bad Boy building down.

[man] Yeah.

[Combs] That shit was crazy to me that that shit wasn't there,

which is a sign to me, like,

nigga, time to go to the future. Time to go to the future.

"That was a little building,

compared to the building I got ready for you, son."

You know what I'm saying? It was a sign to me.

I'm saying, that shit was there like two months ago, right?

-I'm not tripping. -Yeah, it was there.

[ominous pensive music playing]

[cell phone chimes]

[Lesane] Puff is in this position where he has all this turmoil.

But he's not at the point where he's saying, "Where I went wrong?"

He's saying to himself, "How do I get out of this?"

"Maybe I can convince some witnesses that I'm not the guy who I am."

Eventually, he's going to get to the point where he's going to ask himself,

"How did I get myself in this situation?"

[music fades]

♪ Bad Boy ♪

["Flava In Ya Ear" playing]

♪ Niggas is mad… ♪

[Burrowes] '95, we had two of the hottest acts.

Craig Mack gave us "Flava in Ya Ear"…

♪ Here comes the brand-new Flava in ya ear ♪

♪ Time for new flava in ya ear ♪

…and Biggie.

♪ You got a gun up in your waist Please don't shoot up the place ♪

-♪ Why? ♪ -♪ 'Cause I see some ladies tonight… ♪

[Burrowes] Bad Boy was rising up.

My little lab right here, you know, where I cut my deals and all that.

Got my little headset. Living out a dream…

[Burrowes] One time, Sean was in his office.

I'm in a little cubbyhole around the corner.

He buzzes me.

[imitating intercom buzzing]

So I get up and I go in with my papers and go.

A girl is giving him a blowjob at the desk.

He wanted me to see that. He wanted me to see her face.

And he was able to get her to do that right then and there in the office.

She leaves. I'm… "What did you want me for?"

"Eh, I didn't want you for anything."

[pensive music playing]

That was the beginning for me to see, this is what's going on here.

Can everybody make some noise for B.I.G. for bringing it back to the East?

[crowd cheering]

[Burrowes] So the seeds for all of this was early on.

I would like to thank y'all, Arista Records, BMG…

[Burrowes] And that came from people in the industry

co-signing his activity.

[music turns ominous]

Because it brought money in.

[Combs] I don't know if y'all niggas know this.

-"Juicy" went platinum. -[crowd cheers]

-[Combs] "Big Poppa" went platinum. -[crowd cheers]

[Combs] "Flava in Ya Ear Remix" went platinum.

That whole Bad Boy thing was so big.

Faith Evans.

I wanna be first lady on Puff Daddy's label…

[Sermon] Total.

♪ What you do to me… ♪

[Sermon] Biggie.

♪ For those imitators… ♪

[Sermon] And Craig Mack.

[man on TV] And the Single of the Year is Craig Mack.

It was a consistent back-to-back-to-back-to-back.

[ominous music playing]

[Patterson] So let me just give you a day in the life of Puff Daddy.

Gets up from wherever he stayed that night,

heads to the office two hours late.

You might have somebody pulling him over, saying, "Hey, ain't you in that video?"

-"Oh, yo, here go a demo." -[man 1] Puffy's over there.

[man 2] Sure. Oh, what's up, Puff? How you doing, bro?

[Patterson] Had the big baseball bat cell phones,

and the phone might ring.

Such and such is calling from jail. "Yo, I'm coming home."

You might have a group standing in front of the office,

all ready with the microphone, ready to sing…

♪ You love me, I love… ♪

…just to get their shot at Puffy.

Everybody wants to see him. He is now the new gateway into music.

[ominous music continues]

You're gonna take all of this power and money you're getting now,

and play by the rules?

"No, I'm the rule now."

"I am the exception to the rule."

[music fades]

[man 1] Word up! Bad Boy representing. Puff Daddy!

-[Combs] It's called Bad Boy, you know? -[man 3] Yeah, all right.

One day, it seemed like out of the blue, my door opens up.

Sean walks in.

-[ominous music playing] -He had a baseball bat.

And a big attaché case suitcase with the snaps on it.

The stocks were there.

[Combs] We in a fucking hustle, we in a grind. Do your job…

[Burrowes] He wanted me to sign my 25% over.

And then he's over me like this.

He wants the stock back.

He wants it now.

[Combs] I'm not gonna stay fucking lying down.

I'm not. I can't do that, man.

He said, "There's a business deal I need to take care of. I need to do it."

"I need this all on one side, but I'll give it back to you."

"I'm gonna give it back to you."

[Combs] This shit ain't fucking funny. Y'all don't know how to be accountable.

[Burrowes] And he threatened until I did.

[ominous music continues]

People always say to me, "Why would you do that?"

Like, "Why did you do that?"

Like, that was, you know.

I didn't want to give it back.

I wanted to stay in good graces.

I still wanted to be at the company.

It wasn't like he was firing me.

But I was definitely confused by it.

It might sound strange,

but if you've ever built something, and you want it to last,

you think about how to make it last.

[music turns dramatic]

♪ I wanna know who's been naughty or nice With the device turnin' grown men… ♪

[Roxanne] I thought he was kind of cool at first,

and then,

we started seeing some things.

-[pensive music playing] -Craig started becoming disenchanted.

I want to congratulate Craig Mack on his Grammy nomination.

-[Biggie] No question. -[man] Yes, baby.

That's cool…

[Roxanne] Yo, you got nominated for a Grammy,

but we had no money.

[Curry] If you look at Bad Boy,

Bad Boy didn't sell enough records to explain his wealth.

But enough artists were on the label

that sold enough records to explain his wealth. [laughs]

[Burrowes] Sean's trick was, "I'm gonna make you a star."

You're signed, follow the money.

That's what you're gonna try to do as hard as you can.

You're gonna try your best. And we know you're gonna try your best.

So you sign your deal. We gave you your advance.

At Uptown, that's the only money

the artists have ever seen, that first advance.

Andre had them wait. They never saw anything else.

Diddy picked that up.

He made it even tighter.

♪ Don't leave your girl around me True player for real ♪

♪ Ask Puff Daddy… ♪

[Burrowes] It's a shell game.

You hide everything that isn't earning. You confuse the earnings.

"And now I own everything."

You'll go out into the world and the shell game,

you'll be looking for your money for the next 20 years.

Sean did that to every artist.

You're in the studio.

Now you have to recoup for being in the studio.

Puff owns the studio.

"I have four sessions with you, you owe me $400,000."

♪ …with Biggie Smalls… ♪

[Curry] If Puff records a song with his artist, he pays hisself.

If he's in your video, he pays hisself.

[Roxanne] He inserted himself into their videos.

A video come on, you're like, "I fucking hate that guy."

As an artist, you can go number one.

Song is being played all over the nation,

but you don't have the money to go tour

because you're not making the proper money off of your royalties.

[Craig Mack rapping indistinctly]

[Roxanne] Craig and I hit a point where we were fucked up.

No money, nothing.

Hell, I was getting money from my father

to take care of the house.

[rapping indistinctly]

[Roxanne] We were all at, like, somebody's album-release party,

and Craig's gonna tell Puff to give him a few dollars

and he'll hit him back once he went and did this show.

He literally went in his pocket and pulled out

a knot of money this big and gave him one hundred-dollar bill.

-[audience cheering] -[Craig Mack speaks indistinctly]

[Roxanne] You really just don't give a fuck.

[dramatic music playing]

[Burrowes] I think Sean had an envy for his own artists.

He was jealous of their talent and wondering, like,

"This talent is wasted on people who don't even really know what to do."

"And if I had that talent and my know-how, wow!"

That's interesting, because a lot of people Puffy's age

wanna grab this mic and rap, but, Puffy, you wanted to do other things.

And you're doing a lot of them.

[woman] Can you talk about his skills as a rapper?

Sucks.

He has zero talent musically. Nothing. He don't know how to--

He don't know nothing about R&B. None of that stuff.

He used to ask me to always be there in the sessions

because I would tell the truth.

I'd be like, "That's not it."

People would be there like, "Yeah, that was tight."

I'd be like, "Yo, for real, you got a lot of people

who'll just tell you anything."

"That sucked."

"It doesn't sound good and it makes no sense."

[poignant music playing]

But he always wanted to be an artist.

[Combs] We about to drop our R&B stuff.

[Biggie] The Puff Daddy album.

What about the Puff Daddy solo project?

-[Biggie] Don't like to talk about that… -[man] Hey, Puffy…

Sean used other methods and ways to get to where he had to go.

Big on strategy, big on swag,

all of those things became important.

[Sermon] When it boiled down to the music,

"Even if I didn't touch it, I showed you what to do."

So that's what he was.

-[Combs] Damn, you know what I'm saying? -[Biggie] What?

[Combs] Damn, you know what I'm saying?

-Where's the makeup at? Makeup? -[man] Right here.

That whole Bad Boy was built on him.

You cannot take that from him.

But I think that Puffy wanted the light like he always wanted.

From dancing the whole night.

Anybody that boasts and lies like that, they wanna be in the spotlight.

It wasn't no secret. That's what he wanted.

[car horn honking]

[man on TV] Six foot three, 335-pound,

Suge Knight has managed to become

the head of a $100 million record company.

[woman on TV] It's the record label at ground zero

of the whole gangster rap phenomenon,

Death Row Records.

[Roxanne] Suge was about that money,

but he didn't want to be in that limelight like Puff.

He had his own lane.

You're a big guy,

and there are people who are afraid of you.

There's probably people afraid of you.

Back in 1988, the person who did the greatest job of protecting me

was the head of my security at the time, Suge Knight.

I'm on the Heartbreak Tour with Bobby Brown and New Edition,

been out since September…

We're about to get on the tour bus,

and these dudes came over and they was, like, talking crazy.

Y'all niggas this, y'all niggas that, this, this, this.

[tense pensive music playing]

And I seen Suge kind of just turn this way

and gave him one of these… bam! Like that.

And knocked dude down the hill.

It looked like a cartoon.

Dude was rolling down the hill. Boom, boom.

His Timbs came off.

He's a street dude. He's a real street dude.

But Suge knew talent, and he knew business.

[Knight] They took me on tour,

and I learned how every person who's writing songs

was getting beat out their money like their publishing.

He was able to dovetail that into-- He started Death Row Records.

♪ One, two, three and to the four ♪

♪ Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr. Dre Is at the door… ♪

Death Row can be bigger than Motown, or Sony, or Warner Bros.

Death Row's gonna be the biggest record company there is.

The Chronic album is the foundation.

Before Bad Boy, Death Row was the most successful label in the business.

♪ From the depths of the sea Back to the block, Snoop Doggy Dogg… ♪

[Burrowes] Sean had admired Death Row

and wanted us to emulate them.

♪ Laid back… ♪

[Burrowes] And that was my job.

How do I make Bad Boy equal the success of Death Row?

And, of course, my eyes was like this.

Death Row, they had a head start.

They had artists, they picked superstars up from other indie labels.

We're starting off.

[Combs] Me and him were friends.

[man] Who, Suge and you?

[Combs] Yeah, he would pick me up from the airport.

I was just networking with the brother.

He showed me a lot of love.

You know. I really had thought we were cool.

[Knight] Me and Puffy, we used to run around with each other.

He was getting in the business, I was in the business.

♪ Livin' life without fear Puttin' five karats… ♪

[Burrowes] Only a few years later, Bad Boy, Death Row…

[Snoop Dogg] ♪ Death Row Is the label that pays me… ♪

[Burrowes] …the two hottest labels.

But I would look over at Death Row and say,

"They're taking care of their artists better than we are."

[ominous music playing]

[Knight] They're putting in your head, "Fuck the artists."

And my thing was opposite. It's about me and my people.

Fuck you.

[Roxanne] Craig wasn't happy there.

Death Row was courting him

because Suge was opening up a Death Row East.

And it was found out.

-[woman] Sean found out about that? -Yes.

-[beeping] -[studio audience cheering]

[hip-hop music playing over speakers]

[man over PA] It's the Source Hip-Hop Music Awards!

The Source Awards was happening in New York City.

["Murder Was the Case" playing over speakers]

[audience cheering]

Come on, New York!

♪ Yeah ♪

[Burrowes] Behind the scenes, people were running back and forth

to the next dressing room, to the next dressing room,

which were in trailers parked outside of Madison Square Garden.

[man] How important is it to have the Source Award?

-[banging on door] -Let me just wait in front.

You got that?

Come on, who's banging on the door like that?

-[banging continues] -When I-- Dog, what is the deal, man?

Keep the door closed!

And it escalated with words from the podium at the awards show.

[Knight] Any artist out there wanna be an artist,

and wanna stay a star, and don't want to have to worry

about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos,

all on the record, dancing,

come to Death Row!

[audience cheering and applauding]

I'm the executive producer that a comment was made about a bit earlier.

But check this out. Contrary to what other people may feel,

I would like to say that I'm very proud of Dr. Dre,

of Death Row, and Suge Knight for their accomplishments.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm a positive Black man, and I make music

to bring us together, not to separate us.

All this East and West, that needs to stop.

So give it up for everybody from the East and the West that won tonight.

-[audience cheering and applauding] -[Combs] One love.

[Burrowes] Sean wants to present strength.

-He wants to show coolness. -[ominous music playing]

And then there's a side of him that's all-out dark.

He processes things differently.

He remembers every slight.

Once again, y'all, please give it up for all the nominees.

[audience cheering and applauding]

[ominous music continues]

[Curry] Before I signed with Bad Boy,

I was working at the door of the club in Platinum House.

Every Friday, we had a Bad Boy party.

So Puff was there.

Suge Knight came that night with his friend Jake,

and I was working the door.

Suge was looking for Puff.

Sean would try to go after people's side chicks,

like a girl in Atlanta that Suge was dealing with.

Sean wanted me to take $50,000 out of the overhead account

so he could buy her a diamond necklace, wooing her

because she was Suge's side piece in Atlanta when he came there.

[ominous music continues]

[Knight] A real police officer in a real police uniform

came and got on Jake.

I said, "Man, you touch the homies, we gonna tear this mother****** up."

He said, "I gotta throw him out." I said, "For what?"

He said, "He's with Puffy."

Suge and Jake was being escorted out the club

by the off-duty officer we always had there, moonlighting.

[tense music playing]

Jake comes out. Suge come out. Puff come out.

Everybody's outside.

A man appeared with one hand behind his back,

and he was holding a pistol.

He touched Jake with the pistol,

and he looked at Suge like this,

and was shooting Suge's friend like this.

[gunshots echo]

He shot him five times.

Suge grabbed a hold to Puffy in a choke hold

and put him in the front of him like this.

So he was moving Puff around like this.

In case you shoot him, you're gonna shoot Puffy.

"You're not gonna shoot me."

[tense music continues]

Puff was like, "It's gonna be aight, man. It's gonna be aight."

Suge said, "What you mean it's gonna be aight?"

He said, "Tell your mama it's gonna be aight."

"Tell your kids it's gonna be all right."

And then the shooter ran.

[music fades]

Ambulance came and took Jake to the hospital.

-A couple days later, he died. -[sirens wailing]

That's what started the East Coast-West Coast War.

-[man 1] Open up, please. -[man 2] Coming through.

-Coming through. -[man 3] Excuse me.

[woman on TV] Tupac Shakur, out of the hospital

after surgery from bullet wounds,

is convicted on sex charges.

[pensive music playing]

After Pac gets shot in Quad Studio,

he had the rape case.

[woman on TV] A New York jury convicted the rapper

of first-degree sexual abuse

but acquitted him of more serious charges.

[pensive music continues]

[man] Since your period of incarceration at Clinton Correctional Facility,

have you taken the time to reflect on your gangster thug image?

[laughs]

[Lesane] Pac and B.I.G. were friends at one time.

But then once Pac was in jail,

Bad Boy and all of his associations were nemeses.

[ominous music playing]

[Shakur] I'm in jail.

Strangers is telling me.

"Yo, you don't know?"

"Biggie's homeboy shot you."

'Cause they bragging.

They telling their n***** in jail, "Yo, we just got Pac. Woo, woo, woo."

Once the conflict happens, Pac needed someone strong

that was gonna stand with him.

And it just so happened that Suge had his own issue with Puffy.

So, Suge went to jail and visited him.

[Shakur] The whole shit is like some mob shit.

Enter Tupac, a young captain.

I want to join the family, Don.

Get me out.

[man on TV] Suge Knight first signed Tupac to a recording contract

when Tupac was in this New York State prison,

unable to come up with the million dollars needed for bail,

while his lawyers appealed a 1995 conviction for sexual assault.

[ominous music intensifies]

I want everybody to give a big welcome for…

Tupac.

[audience cheering]

[man on TV] Out on bail,

rapper Tupac Shakur's rush-to-market double album, All Eyez on Me,

debuts at number one on the Billboard chart.

With the addition of Tupac, there's no way y'all can stop us now.

[Shakur] Niggas named Bad Boy,

I say fuck them all!

We're coming to the East Coast to prove there is no fear.

Overthrow the government y'all got right now,

which is Bad Boy and all that bullshit.

And we will bring a new government here that will feed every person in New York.

All right, cool. All right, man, peace. Thanks a lot.

[music fades]

[Burrowes] Sean tried everything to get Biggie upset.

He had to go at him with business.

"This guy came at us."

I was more in a mind frame of…

[ominous music playing]

"Keep your mouth shut, B.I.G."

You know what I'm saying? "Just don't feed into it."

"You feed into it, it's gonna do nothing but escalate." You know what I'm saying?

Biggie never wanted to be an enemy to Pac.

As things was coming from the West Coast,

Biggie did not want to give any shots back.

When Pac was producing All Eyez on Me,

he called us and said, "I just fucked Faith Evans,"

B.I.G.'s wife.

We was like, what?

♪ First off, fuck your bitch And the clique you claim ♪

♪ Westside, when we ride Come equipped with game ♪

♪ You claim to be a player But I fucked your wife… ♪

[Evans] But that's not true at all.

B.I.G. is still my husband legally.

I am having his baby.

No, I'm not…

[Burrowes] Sean kept putting pressure on Biggie.

-"You gotta answer back." -[ominous music continues]

[Biggie] Tupac had me pissed off, you know what I'm saying?

And the rumors that's spreading

is on some tip like we set him up.

You know what I'm saying? And that's crazy.

[Sermon] The East Coast, West Coast thing was invented, period.

No matter what, we all went to the East, they came here, went to the West.

They wasn't arguing with each other.

We was able to roam.

♪ Fuck Biggie ♪

♪ Fuck Bad Boy as a staff, record label And as a motherfuckin' crew ♪

[Sermon] It was just Bad Boy and Death Row.

♪ Who shot ya? Separate the weak… ♪

[Sermon] That right there put people in danger

because it made people be like, "F you. F you."

People started doing stuff for no reason

'cause it's… it's just people that want to ride for each other.

And then look what happened, so…

[ominous music playing]

[D1] Doing the street thing,

my affiliation was with the Mansfield Hustlers.

Today, uh…

we go by Mansfield Gangster Crips now.

[man on TV] Police say that drugs and violence

are being spread by two longstanding rivals

in the Los Angeles youth gang scene.

Groups who call themselves Crips and wear blue colors,

and Bloods who wear red.

[woman] Did you guys provide protection?

Sean Combs was a friend.

Christopher Wallace was a friend.

And, you know, when we hanging out with our friends…

we gonna protect our friends.

So they knew.

And they were our associates.

You got beef with them, you got beef with me.

Period.

[Loder] Reports have come out

that Bad Boy Entertainment hired Crips for security work on the West Coast.

Is that true?

Um, we've never hired Crips or any other gang faction

to do security for us.

It would be extremely unintelligent

to hire a gang, um, some gangs to do security for you.

We have never…

[D1] A lot of the New York guys come out to L.A.

Zip is a person that I know

that was Puffy's man.

That was his guy.

[ominous music playing]

[Burrowes] Eric Von Zip is a drug lord from Harlem,

but Sean told me he was his uncle.

He might have known Janice on the fringe.

He might have known Sean's father from those days.

[D1] Zip had a relationship with the Southside Crips,

and then he also had a relationship with us.

Sean said Zip can give us protection going back and forth to L.A.

because he was in with the Crips.

And we had a beef with Suge Knight and the Bloods.

[man on TV] Knight dresses in all red,

the colors of the drug-dealing Bloods street gang.

[ominous music continues]

[Lesane] One of the Death Row people got jumped by someone at a mall,

and that someone was from Southside Crips.

One of the Crips tried to take a Death Row chain.

I think that was an order from Bad Boy, an order from Puff

because it was specific. "We want a Death Row chain."

[announcer over PA] Introducing the one and only Iron Mike Tyson!

-[audience cheering] -[ominous music continues]

[Knight] Everybody got what they wanted that night.

People got to see Tyson knock a motherfucker out.

[commentator] And Tyson with a left hook and Seldon is down.

-It's over in the first round! -[bell rings]

[crowd cheering]

[Knight] That's probably the reason it got us all fucked-up

and in a lot of shit from fight night.

When you seen a Tyson fight, you wanna fight.

[all yelling indistinctly]

I told you all! We back!

[Lesane] At the fight,

the guy who was ripped off for the Death Row chain

is with Suge and Pac.

He just whispers to Pac, "That's him."

Hey, hey, hey!

[Lesane] It was Orlando Anderson from Southside Crips

who was connected with Puff.

[Knight] Next thing I know, I see Pac, like… [whooshes]

Took the nigga down.

-[women screaming] -[dramatic music playing]

That was the foundational moment when all this was getting out of control.

[officer over radio] I'm out on one right now.

I got a couple guys shot. I need medical ASAP.

[dramatic music continues]

[woman on TV] Rapper Tupac Shakur was shot in the chest late Saturday night.

[man 1] …shot multiple times in the chest in a drive-by shooting.

[man 2] Death Row record label owner Marion "Suge" Knight

was also in the car, but his injuries were minor.

[Roxanne] Craig called me up. It was late.

He was out there at the fight,

'cause he was supposed to have performed at some club

that Suge owned,

and I guess Tupac was supposed to come through.

He was like, "How come Tupac just got shot?"

Craig was, like, scared.

[woman] Who was he scared of?

Probably Puff.

He ended up not going to Death Row after that.

[dramatic news theme plays]

Hi, I'm Tabitha Soren with MTV News.

Controversial rapper and actor Tupac Shakur

has died in a Las Vegas hospital of complications from several bullets…

[Lesane] I was in jail. I was in jail when he got shot.

There was a lot of niggas in jail that were celebrating Pac's death.

I'm glad that, uh, I didn't kill anybody

or anybody killed me.

But I damn sure came close.

[music fades]

[man on TV] Police in Las Vegas say

they have no motive for this latest shooting,

but the rapper's troubled past

will certainly be part of the investigation.

[sirens wailing]

Do you know who was responsible for the killing of Tupac Shakur?

No, I don't.

I think that Sean, now in my mature mind,

had a lot to do with the death of Tupac.

[dramatic music playing]

In 2006, I was recruited to work a task force

that was going to look at a cold case investigation.

At the time, Tupac's murder was an unsolved case.

Gang crimes oftentimes are difficult to solve

because you don't get cooperating witnesses.

They want to stick to a code

that typically entails not cooperating with law enforcement,

and then taking matters into your own hands.

It ain't my job to snitch on nobody

'cause I would never snitch on nobody.

[Kading] We had built a narcotics case against Keffe D.

Keffe D was kind of the shot caller for the Southside Crips.

He was the most prominent drug dealer. He was very influential in his gang.

His nephew, Orlando Anderson,

was a very well-known, violent gang member.

Tupac Shakur had assaulted Orlando Anderson

just after the Mike Tyson fight.

So Keffe D was potentially looking at a life sentence

for federal drug trafficking.

Uh, we wanted to question him about his potential role

in the murder of Tupac Shakur.

We let him know that he could potentially mitigate

some of the damages if he wanted to come in and talk to us.

And the U.S. attorney agreed that they'd allow Keffe D

to do a proffer session.

[on recording] Keffe, what we'll do,

we're gonna go over with a fine-tooth comb the Las Vegas incident.

We do have to emphasize to you

if it's determined that some of these details are incorrect,

then everything's off the table.

A proffer session is when a person

facing criminal charges can answer questions

wherein self-incriminating information would not be used against him

in a criminal prosecution.

It doesn't mean they have any kind of immunity.

[pensive music playing]

[Keffe D on recording] Hey, I wanna say this, though, too.

I feel like I said that day,

don't bullshit me and I won't bullshit y'all.

You know what I'm saying?

[Kading] In the year prior to the murder of Tupac Shakur,

he has had several conversations with Sean Combs.

[Keffe D on recording] I met him… he gave a party at…

some club down on Santa Monica.

That's where I met-- First day I met Puff.

[Kading] Sean Combs's affiliation with the Southside Crips

came by way of a New York street figure known as Zip.

Zip set up the introduction between Combs and Keffe D,

and then they developed their own relationship.

[detective] Zip introduced you, "This my boy"? What'd he introduce him as?

-"This is my friend, my nephew"? -[Keffe D] "My boy."

"My boy, it's Puff."

And after that, they used my car on the video.

[detective] Which car was that?

[Keffe D] The '64 Chevy I had.

♪ Every time I look at you There's so… ♪

-[detective] What color was it? -[Keffe D] Brown.

It was Usher's video. Puff was driving the car.

Usher's first song ever. He was in a Laker uniform.

He had the little kid dancing on my car.

When he got back, it was fucked-up.

He had to-- He paid to get it repainted.

♪ Don't have no money I can't buy a diamond… ♪

[ominous music playing]

[Keffe D] Puff, he calls Zip's phone. He wanted to speak to me.

They gave that BET tour in Anaheim.

He gave us some tickets, and I brought the crew.

Say, "I wanna hear a new flava in ya ear!"

[audience] I wanna hear a new flava in ya ear!

Check it, check it, yeah.

♪ To all the ladies in the place… ♪

Keffe D says that Sean Combs kind of makes

this general announcement

while they're all inside a hotel room after a musical event.

[Kading on recording] So it's Harrell, Puffy, Zip, you.

[Keffe D] About 40-something Southsiders.

Yeah. That was stupid as hell too, you know?

Shit, he said he'd give us anything for them dudes' heads, you know?

-[Kading] Tupac and Suge, you mean? -[Keffe D] Yeah.

He said it in front of all those people.

I couldn't believe it. You know what I'm saying?

A whole room full of Crips.

-[detective] After Jake got killed. -[Keffe D] Yeah.

[detective] So he was on point. Worried about something happening.

He mouthed off about a bunch of stuff.

-So he was scared. -[Keffe D] He was scared to death.

[Kading] Okay.

Then there's a more specific incident that takes place at a deli

on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, a place called Greenblatt's Deli.

[on recording] What made it a specific, like,

"Hey, I'm serious, I want you guys to kill these guys?"

[Keffe D] When he told me-- The Greenblatt's.

When we got there, we was laughing at him.

He was with this broad that sucked dick, that sucked every dick in there.

He was all up kissing with her. We was laughing like a motherfucker.

Like, "What you laughing at, dog?"

Man, don't just come out here and get in any broad, dog.

I took him downstairs. He's like, "Man, I would get rid of them dudes."

"It's gonna be a problem."

♪ Fuck your bitch And the clique you claim ♪

-[Keffe D] After the record. -[Kading] "Hit 'Em Up" came out?

[Keffe D] Yeah. That pissed him off.

-[ominous music playing] -[rapping indistinctly]

[Keffe D] Yeah, we wanted a million.

-[Kading] Okay. -[Keffe D] Uh-huh.

[Kading] He tells you seriously, "I need to get rid of these guys."

He's looking at you in the eyes and he's like scared.

[Keffe D] Yeah.

[Kading] You tell him, "We'll do it for a million."

And he's like, "Okay."

-"For a million"? He agrees? -[Keffe D] Yeah.

[Kading] You shake on it or something like that?

[Keffe D] Yeah.

-[Kading] What happened? -[Keffe D] Gentlemen's-- He…

Like, man, shit, "We'll wipe their ass out. Quick."

You know? It's nothing.

[ominous music continues]

[commentator on TV] Here we go, round one. Scheduled for 12.

And Tyson comes right out, right into…

[Kading] He says that when Las Vegas happens,

and they're all out there,

and his nephew gets assaulted by Tupac,

they're like, "This is the perfect occasion."

[Keffe D on recording] We was eating, then my head of the gang said,

"They just beat up Lane!"

We was in a hotel. Yeah. At the MGM, at a restaurant.

There was a few New Yorkers, though, with Zip.

Like, "Man, y'all need some help?" "No, we got this."

"This is your perfect opportunity, baby."

-[detective] Zip? -[Keffe D] Yeah.

[Kading] Because of what happened with Lane?

[Keffe D] Yeah.

We ain't got no pistols down there and…

Z told me in the lobby that he had some Jimmies.

-[Kading] Some what? -[Keffe D] He had a Jimmy.

In the Benz.

He had a little secret compartment.

The thing popped out. [imitates compartment opening]

[Kading] The vehicle that Zip was driving that night

reportedly had what we call a trap in it.

Which is a concealed compartment where you can place a gun.

It's a difficult thing to find.

-Zip had driven that car to Las Vegas. -[ominous pensive music playing]

[Burrowes] A few days before Tupac was murdered,

Sean requested that we rent cars

and have multiple drivers

drive clear across the country to this fight.

But I arranged, through my budget,

to make that trip happen for those drivers.

And to this day, it stands out in my mind.

Why did we rent multiple cars?

Why did we hire people from Harlem and other locations

to drive?

[ominous pensive music continues]

[Kading] Did you tell Zip, "We're gonna go handle this shit," or whatever?

[Keffe D] Yeah, they asked, "Y'all want us to come?"

"We know where them motherfuckers at."

They was telling us they gonna be at the 662 Club.

[Kading] Two cars go to 662?

[Keffe D] Yeah, the Benz and the Cadillac.

They didn't show up.

We waited about 15, 20 minutes. They didn't show up.

So it's like, "Let's go get some liquor."

Then we came up, uh, Harmon,

at the Las Vegas Boulevard.

And, ah, shit.

Here they come in that BMW with a gang of cars.

[Kading] On their way to the club, Suge is blaring his music too loud.

He gets pulled over by some police officers.

They essentially say, "Just turn down your music," no big deal.

And it's at this point in time that Suge and Tupac see these girls.

[woman on recording] Like, "There's Suge!"

Police were going through his car or something or another.

And then, the traffic was stopped and then they got in the car.

[officer] Could you see who was with Suge?

[woman] Um, I saw it was Tupac.

And he was like, "Come on, come go with me."

"Come go with us. We're going to 662."

[Keffe D] Them broads.

"Tupac, Tupac!"

We like, "There they go."

Just swung a U-turn.

We just pulled up on the side, checked every car to see where they was.

[Kading] So, what directed your attention to them was some girls shouting at Tupac?

[Keffe D] "Tupac!" He gave himself away. Otherwise, they would have got away.

And Lane, he leaned over,

the window rolled down, and popped them.

-[Kading] Suge looks over, he sees you? -[Keffe D] Yeah.

-Yeah, he looks at me. -[Kading] Okay.

[Keffe D] Fucking known each other since we were seven or eight years old.

I seen a bullet go in Suge's head. I thought he was dead.

I thought he was dead.

If you knew who killed Tupac, would you tell the police?

Absolutely not.

[music fades]

[Keffe D] I went and parked the car.

Put the gun on the tire and left.

[Kading] Where did you guys go?

[Keffe D] We smoked weed and drank.

-[detective] Wait, at the hotel? -[Keffe D] At the hotel.

-We partied. -[detective] In the room?

[Keffe D] They pulled up in an ambulance while we was standing right there.

-Think I'm bullshitting you? -[detective] You guys on the street?

[Keffe D] We're on Las Vegas Boulevard at the crosswalk.

They pull up in the ambulance right next to us.

[Kading] With him in the car already?

-[Keffe D] With Tupac and Suge in the car. -[detective] Y'all was walking?

-[Keffe D] This close. -[Kading] Did they see you?

[Keffe D] They could see. We didn't give a fuck.

They were right in front.

The ambulance was parked right here.

Right next to us. That shit was funny as a motherfucker.

[ominous music playing]

And I ain't ever told nobody that story.

[Kading] You get back to L.A. The next day Zip calls you.

Says, "Meet me at the hot wing place we're at"?

[Keffe D] On Melrose. By Pink's.

[Kading] You guys go there. Zip shows up. What happens after?

[Keffe D] Puff give him a call, "Was that us? That us?"

He told him, "Yeah."

-[Kading] On Zip's phone or yours? -[Keffe D] On Zip's.

[Kading] And Zip gives you the phone?

[Keffe D] Yeah.

Kept on saying, "Was that us?"

He was happy as hell, shit.

[detective] Did you ask then about money? When you gonna get paid?

[Keffe D] Nah. I didn't say that on the phone with Zip.

With Zip, go get our cash.

[Kading] Okay, so you tell Zip, "We need to get paid."

What does Zip say? "I'll go back home and…"

[Keffe D] Yeah. "I'll get back with y'all." Yeah.

[ominous music playing]

[Kading] According to Keffe D, he was never compensated for the murder.

But he said that a partial amount of the money

was intended to be forwarded to him through Zip

to the tune of about $500,000.

The million-dollar solicitation amount, only half of it was fulfilled

because only Tupac and not Suge was killed.

Keffe D has a conversation with Darrius Rogers, with D-Mac.

[Combs] He don't like to be introduced.

D-Mac right there. You know…

And D-Mac says there had been a payment from Combs to Keffe D,

but it had gone through Zip,

and then that money was never forwarded.

[ominous music continues]

We're just hoping and waiting to see what kind of progress Las Vegas would make

with Keffe D's cooperation.

[thunder rumbling]

Nothing really happens.

Ultimately, Zip dies from cancer.

Thank you for coming out to Zip's. I want everybody to know that

when you come here, we want to keep the peace…

[Kading] And Orlando Anderson is shot and killed in 1998.

So it's really Keffe D and Puffy Combs are the last men standing.

They can be held accountable for Tupac Shakur's murder.

[ominous music continues]

-[Combs] Go this way. -[man 1] I'll go this way.

[man 2] I want to talk to you, man.

I'm waiting patiently and looking to see if actually…

[indistinct chatter]

[man 1] All right to put this on you?

[Combs] ♪ Living in the past ♪

[ominous music playing]

I don't need this third chain shit.

Take that off.

All right. Let's move and groove.

♪ Move and groove ♪

What goes up…

Must come down.

And what goes down, must come up.

Fuck me.

[man 3] He ain't gonna miss this.

[Curry] I remember '99,

we were working in the studio on a song called "Muscle Game."

[Combs] ♪ This is our game right here ♪

[chorus] ♪ Then you gotta have hustle ♪

[Combs] ♪ We ain't playing With you weak niggas ♪

♪ Come on now ♪

[Curry] The song comes on and Puff is talking in the beginning.

[Combs] ♪ It's 1999 ♪

[chorus] ♪ If you don't have the muscle ♪

[Combs] ♪ No more Mr. Nice Guy ♪

I'm like, "What is he talking about?"

[Combs] ♪ Fuck with me I'll drop a million dollars on your head ♪

♪ Erase you and your whole family ♪

♪ Gonna start making Y'all niggas disappear, now ♪

Everything that's done in the dark must come to light.

Everything that goes up must come down.

[man 4] You'll be aight. You'll be aight.

[ominous music playing]

[man 5] You all jumping in this?

[Combs] Let's roll.

Yeah, I'm headed to 113th and Lenox, King. I gotta catch my man up there.

I'll see you up there.

-[man 6] Are y'all rolling? -[Combs] Yeah, we rolling.

[ominous music continues]

[Burrowes] With the backdrop of East Coast-West Coast beef,

Sean took Biggie to Los Angeles

to record what would be the finishing touches

on Biggie's Life After Death album,

which wasn't titled that yet.

[telephone line ringing]

-[Biggie] Yo. -[Combs] Yo, B.I.G. Wake up, baby.

[Biggie] Diddy, what the fuck? What's up?

[Combs] Come on, it's a quarter to six. We got the 7:30 flight.

We're going to LAX.

[Biggie] Oh. Cali?

[Combs] No doubt, baby.

[Burrowes] We had been warned to not come to L.A.

There were warnings all along for the last few months

that we are not to set foot on the West Coast.

It was awards show season,

and Sean wanted him to start promoting the album.

[Combs] Come on, Soul Train, get up out your seats, come on!

Get up out your seats!

[Burrowes] Biggie did not want to go,

but Sean talked him into doing all of those things.

[Combs] Down low, get up out your seats, come on!

♪ …I, Poppa Freaks all the honeys ♪

[Burrowes] They were, like, catcalling and booing.

[audience jeering and booing]

What's up, Cali?

[Burrowes] We were not welcome.

After the awards show, Saturday morning,

Biggie and I were to go to London,

and we were going to have a two-, three-day press junket

to have Biggie be one of the first artists

from Bad Boy to meet the European press.

I had worked on that for months and weeks leading up.

[pensive music playing]

We were supposed to go to the airport that morning.

I'm calling Biggie like crazy, "What's going on? Wake up."

He's like, "Yo, Puff is bugging."

"He just called me and told me, 'I want you to stay here in L.A.'"

"I don't wanna stay, I wanna go."

But Sean was adamant.

Cancel the flight. Biggie's not going to the U.K.

"What do you mean he's not going?" Click, he hangs up.

This was his M.O.

Ego, power-tripping.

All of it because Sean wanted to do a party on enemy turf.

[ominous music playing]

[Biggie] Scared to death.

That's how real it is. I think somebody's trying to kill me.

I be waking up paranoid. I be really scared.

I'm just in peril.

[D1] That night, B.I.G. and Puffy

was with us.

They were having a party.

-[hip-hop music playing over speakers] -[crowd whooping]

[ominous music continues]

[D1] I spoke to B.I.G. and I was like, "Yo, man, you know, what are you doing?"

Cats in L.A., man, they get down in these circumstances, man,

and you just can't be walking around here freely.

[MCs rapping indistinctly]

[D1] Everybody's mingling.

I look around, I say,

"Where's B.I.G.?"

-[woman1 ] I want to get out. -[woman 2] Get out.

[man 1] Hey, what'd he say? Wait. Hold up.

[woman 1] …across the street.

-Zoom in. I see him. -[man 1] Oh, I didn't see him.

-[man 2] That sure is. -[woman 1] Just had a feeling.

[gunshots echoing]

-[man 2] That's B.I.G. and them! -[man 1] Somebody got shot!

-Get down! -[woman1 ] Somebody got shot.

[man 1] Gotta keep down.

-[tense music playing] -[dispatch] 911. What are you reporting?

[man 3] Yeah, we need an ambulance on Fairfax and Wilshire.

Please, in Los Angeles.

We have a man shot. We have a man shot.

-[dispatch] Okay, hold on. I'll get that-- -[man 3] Corner of Wilshire and Fairfax.

[man 4] Get on Fairfax!

-Let's go! -[dispatch] Sir. Hold on.

Listen, sir, I can't hear what you're saying.

[man 4] We have a man shot in our car right now.

Right now, we're trying to roll him to the hospital.

I know the way.

[people clamoring]

[man 4] You gotta go back. Gotta turn around, Kenny.

You're going the wrong way.

[man 5] What the fuck is wrong with y'all, man? What's going on?

-[man 4] B.I.G. You hear me? -[man 6 in Spanish] Is he responding?

-Is the man responding? -[man 4] B.I.G.!

[women crying]

I was following B.I.G.'s lead on, like, we're going to do this peace tour.

And, um…

you know, it didn't work out.

Sean said it on "Can't Stop, Won't Stop." "Biggie wanted to go."

-[man 4] Make a left, man. -[man 5] B.I.G., you hear me, baby?

-[dramatic music playing] -[Burrowes] He's lying about that.

Sean wanted that trip and was pushing it for weeks and weeks.

He lied about it.

It let me know that's a weak spot for him

and he's nervous about that information.

[man 7] It's a SS Impala…

Aqua blue. Shit.

-[dispatch] What color was it? -[man 7] Aqua blue.

He ushered Biggie to his death.

[dramatic music continues]

[woman 1] Who do you think killed Biggie?

Next question. [sniffles]

[Voletta Wallace] All it was is a Puffy and Suge Knight war.

You're messing with lives here, and that's exactly what happened.

Two lives were lost as a result of what?

Stupidity?

When I sat down with Voletta, we briefly brought up Sean Combs.

It was clear to me that she had no real respect or appreciation for him.

Sean clearly didn't do all that he could have done

to help out in the investigation.

In fact, he was a hindrance in the investigation.

Puffy was kind of stonewalling people from talking

because he knows if you make inroads on Biggie's murder,

you're gonna make inroads on Tupac's murder.

And that potentially can lead right back to him.

[ominous music playing]

[Loder] How are Biggie's mom and Faith and the kids taking all this?

Um, Biggie's mom, and Faith, and the children are extremely strong.

Matter of fact, they've been strong for me and helping to hold me up.

[Burrowes] Sean assumed the position of his best friend

in every article and publication.

And that wasn't necessarily true.

I'm gonna be there for them just like he would be for them,

to make sure that they're all right.

[Burrowes] Sean said,

"We're gonna do the biggest funeral for Biggie that New York has ever seen."

[unsettling music playing]

We start to put that together, he starts to see the price,

and he says, "We're gonna do the biggest funeral,

but Biggie's gonna to have to pay for this funeral."

He was gonna make the funeral be a recoupable charge to Biggie in death.

This is one of my closest friends, and is still one of my closest friends.

I just… I feel his loss. I just miss him so much.

[Burrowes] Sean doing a big show looks good on him,

but he's not gonna tell the world that Biggie was gonna pay for it.

[crowd cheering and yelling]

[Babs] In Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, the whole hood was outside.

If you could make it there, you was there.

It was a big loss for the city.

I loved Biggie. Biggie inspired me.

He gave me hope.

Made us feel like you was from the town, you could make it.

We loved Biggie, so it was like losing a family member.

[Combs] Biggie just wanted to be a rap superstar.

He didn't want to hurt nobody.

He's probably one of the only people I really trusted, like, for a long time.

It's not a feeling that I really felt a lot, like, in my life.

I don't have a lot of friends.

I think people think I have a lot of friends, you know.

I don't think I really make a good friend.

[Burrowes] Before he was assassinated,

Biggie had an opportunity to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.

We were delivering the elements so that could happen,

and Sean called me and said,

"Pull that cover. I need to be on the cover."

[music fades]

"My solo album is coming in July, No Way Out, and I need to amp that up."

He took the cover from Biggie.

["I'll Be Missing You" playing over speakers]

[audience applauding]

[Burrowes] Another thing at the time, Biggie was negotiating his contract.

[Combs] Every day I wake up…

[Burrowes] We acquiesced and gave him everything he wanted, and then he died.

[Combs] …can't believe you ain't here.

[choir vocalizing]

[Burrowes] Sean wanted me to change the agreement

to more favorable terms for Bad Boy,

and his family and mother would not know.

And since he had signed the agreement,

he wanted those changes to come from out of the center of the agreement

and have those pages replaced with the other terms.

I said, "That's not right. I'm not doing it."

Ninety days later, I'm fired.

[Combs] It's like I feel empty inside without you being here.

["I'll Be Missing You" playing over speakers]

[audience cheering and applauding]

[woman] Yeah!

[Harrell] I remember Michael Jackson, the Motown 25 special.

MTV, Madonna, "Like a Virgin."

And I remember Puff with Sting.

-♪ Every breath you take ♪ -[Combs] Check it out.

♪ Every move you make ♪

[Harrell] To have a TV moment in music is very rare.

It elevates you to such another level of superstardom.

It made him rock-star big.

♪ It's kinda hard with you not around Know you in heaven smiling down ♪

♪ Watching us while we pray for you… ♪

He became humongous, but now it's him.

"Now I'm the man."

[Combs] It was like a dream come true

to see the lines, like, in front of the stores, like,

people going there to get my record.

It's crazy.

It all happened pretty quickly for you, from being an intern to being…

♪ On the cover of the Rolling Stone ♪

Thanks for Biggie's mother who's sitting right there for having Notorious B.I.G.

[dramatic music playing]

[Burrowes] You've abused everyone and used most everyone.

Put your lighters in the air for B.I.G.! Everybody, put your lighters in the air.

There are horror stories like this all throughout.

[man on TV] Cleared of gun possession and bribery charges,

Sean "Puffy" Combs walked out a free man.

[Burrowes] Some people speak up about it. Most do not.

The first member is…

-Aubrey. -[audience cheering]

[O'Day] It's a pattern with him.

Come to Daddy, baby.

Violence was a very normalized part of living in that world.

[Combs] Ah, yo. You a Bad Boy, now. Your life has changed.

[woman 1 on TV] Allegations of sexual misconduct…

[woman 2] Puffy called them "freak offs."

[man] …witnessed Diddy abusing Cassie,

and that they encouraged Cassie to get away from him.

[dramatic music continues]

[Combs] Everything in life, you're gonna have people that are bad

and people that are good, you know?

You have to choose your side.