East Coast vs. West coast

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East Coast vs. West Coast ( east coast versus west coast ) is the most common name for the most famous beef  - a feud in hip-hop . The clash that took place in the mid-1990s was a rivalry between the record companies Bad Boy Entertainment from New York City and Death Row Records from Los Angeles, as well as the associated rappers and producers, which escalated violently. As a result, the rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG , among others, were shot, although the perpetrators and the respective connection with the feud remained unclear. The conflict is named after the scenes of East Coast hip-hop and West Coast hip-hop .

History of the conflict

Origin of the conflict

Hip-hop music originated in New York City, on the US east coast. Although there are now other important centers such as Philadelphia and Los Angeles , the city is still the center of the scene. In 1992 the music scene began to change. Hip-hop music continued to be adopted by the mainstream for good , and it promised to become very lucrative commercially. An important label on the east coast at the time was Bad Boy Entertainment by Puff Daddy , where Craig Mack , Mase and The Notorious released BIG

Also hip-hop musicians from the west coast, starting from NWA and then artists like Ice Cube , Dr. Dre with The Chronic and Snoop Doggy Dogg with Doggystyle (1993), have now successfully produced albums in a funk-heavy style called G-Funk . Dr. Dre was one of the founders and owners of the Los Angeles-based label Death Row Records along with Suge Knight , Snoop Doggy Dogg was named after Dr. Dre one of the label's first artists. On the label, they managed to build other stars like Tupac Shakur and Tha Dogg Pound . They entered into intense competition with the New York-based label Bad Boy Entertainment, both commercially and musically. The conflict worsened because both sides had contacts with violent gangs.

Escalation between Bad Boy and Death Row

The conflict between the two companies became public after strangers fired five shots at Tupac Shakur on November 30, 1994. Shakur publicly accused his former friend Notorious BIG and the bad boy community of being responsible for the attack. The conflict escalated when Suge Knight attacked the assembled artists and producers at the The Source Awards, Puff Daddy, who was known for regularly appearing on his artist's records and videos: “Any artist out there, who wanna be an artist and wanna stay a star and don't want the executive of your label all in the video, all over the record, dancin ', come to Death Row. ” (German: “ Every artist who doesn't want the Owner of your record company appears anywhere on the album or video - sign on Death Row. " ) Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg were booed on their performance that same evening. The conflict escalated through numerous other incidents. In September 1995, strangers shot and killed a close friend of Suge Knight at a birthday party in Atlanta , Georgia. Knight publicly accused Bad Boy of masterminding the incident. When Dogg Pound was shooting a video (New York-New York feat. Snoop Dogg) in Manhattan in December 1995, a trailer that Snoop Dogg was living in at the time was shot several times. The video itself showed the giant-sized Death Row artists destroying New York.

In 1996 Tupac recorded his single Hit 'Em Up , in which he announced he had had sexual intercourse with Notorious BIG's wife Faith Evans , and which included the line “this ain't no freestyle battle , y'all niggas getting killed” (Eng. : "This is not a freestyle competition, you niggas will all be killed" ) contained. BIG responded shortly thereafter on Jay-Z's track Brooklyn's Finest , which also pulled Jay-Z into the conflict. At the 1996 Soul Train Awards in Miami, both groups met in the parking lot, and an argument broke out in the course of which both groups drew pistols.

On September 7, 1996, unknown persons (allegedly members of the infamous Crips gang) fired several shots at Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas , he died of the injuries on September 13, 1996. The New York Times later reported that the initial spark for this attack was a brawl in which the alleged gunman Orlando Anderson was involved. On March 9, 1997, strangers shot The Notorious BIG while staying in Los Angeles. In both cases there have been no charges to date. Orlando Anderson was also shot dead in Los Angeles on May 29, 1998.

Other conflicts between the two scenes

In addition to the argument with Bad Boy, Tupac had also clashed with several other rap artists from the east coast. Some of Tupac's friends had a conflict with the group Mobb Deep , and Tupac, who was currently in jail, threatened violence in his battle track Hit 'em up after his release . Mobb Deep responded with the battle rap Drop a Gem On 'Em .

Nas was targeted by Tupac with his track The Message , because it referred to the line "Fake thug, no love, you get the slug, CB4 gusto your luck blow ...", which Nas denied. Another reason for the dispute was the second album of Nas It Was Written on which he in the song Street Dreams Tupac's beat from the song All Eyez On Me coverte . Tupac then countered in his song Against All Odds . The underground rapper Chino XL , who had no connections to Bad Boy and was also not interested in the mainstream market, wrote: "By this industry, I'm trying not to get fucked like 2Pac in jail", ironically in a duet with him proud representative of the West Coast, Ras Kass .

Since these artists all came from the East Coast and were often attacked by Tupac in the same songs in which he attacked Bad Boy, the media in particular saw it as if there was a general conflict between the East and West Coast. However, the conflict had other reasons; the artists mentioned above also had little or no connection with Bad Boy Records. Nas, for example, worked much more often together with Dr. Dre than with any bad boy artist. Other prominent artists such as Redman , Busta Rhymes , E-40 or the Wu-Tang Clan did not take part in the dispute at all. On closer inspection, the conflict turned out to be a pure dispute between two record labels, while the expansion to entire, territorially bound scenes was primarily a product of the media and did not exist in reality.

Attempt at reconciliation

In 1997, Louis Farrakhan , the leader of the Nation of Islam , invited several prominent rappers to try to resolve the conflict. Bizzy Bone , Doug E. Fresh and Snoop Dogg promised at this meeting not to pursue any rivalries and accounts that would still be open after the conflict and the death of the two rappers. This "armistice" still exists.

The end of Death Row Records

After Tupac's death, Death Row Records released four more albums. Tupac's The Seven Days Theory had sold seven million copies by 1998. Snoop's albums The Dogg Father and Death Row Greatest Hits yet received platinum, but Christmas on Death Row received only gold. On February 28, 1997, Suge Knight was jailed for breaking parole. Death Row released a few more albums in the following years, but the success of the earlier albums was denied. After Suge Knight was released from prison on August 7, 2001, he tried a label restart with Tha Row . A number of artists signed with him, such as the hopeful talent Crooked I , Kurupt , who was vice president, and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes ( TLC ). Lisa Lopes died in a car accident in Honduras before she could post anything on Tha Row. Crooked I left the label in 2003/2004 after his four-year contract expired and he hadn't released his long-awaited album Say hi to the bad Guy . Kurupt released his album Against the Grain in 2005 , but it remained without any success. He left the label frustrated. So Petey Pablo , who signed with Tha Row in 2005, was the label's only star. In 2006 Suge Knight was asked by Lydia Harris (wife of Harry-O) to pay 106 million and Knight had to file for bankruptcy.

Other successes from Bad Boy Entertainment

Diddy (actually Sean Combs , formerly known as Puff Daddy or P. Diddy) faced several legal proceedings. These included a shootout in a New York club. Diddy himself was acquitted, but his friend Shyne was not. Bad Boy Records, however, was able to maintain its position in the music business even after the death of Notorious BIG. Both Mase and Diddy achieved impressive chart successes. Only in the last few years has the success of Bad Boy Records waned a bit, primarily due to the success of 50 cents . Nevertheless, the label regularly makes headlines and produces hits at regular intervals.

Ten years after BIG's death, a remake of an old hit by Notorious BIG ( Nasty Girl ) was released with various other artists and the Derrty Entertainment label, which is led by rap star Nelly . In the video, members of the East Coast appear as well as the West Coast.

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