R.I.P. Rappers The Murder Of East Coast Rapper Notorious B.I.G. On A Visit To Los Angeles Suggests Bicoastal ‘Truce’ Is Just A Fiction

The bitter bicoastal war that had divided the hip-hop nation was supposed to have been over.

After all, three weeks ago, rap star Snoop Doggy Dogg and record executive Sean “Puffy” Combs had engaged in a peacemaking handshake on the televised “Steve Harvey Show.” The gesture was supposed to bring a symbolic end to a fierce gangsta-rap rivalry, which had pitted the New York-based Bad Boy Entertainment camp headed by Combs against Snoop’s Los Angeles-based Death Row Records label in a war fought with quotes, songs, videos - and perhaps even bullets.

But after Bad Boy’s star rapper Notorious B.I.G. was killed in a drive-by shooting early last Sunday in Los Angeles, 3,000 miles from his New Jersey home, many hip-hop fans, executives and industry insiders quickly assumed the worst about the bicoastal truce:

That there actually wasn’t one.

“I don’t know what this was about. I thought the East-West stuff was all settled,” record mogul Quincy Jones told USA Today.

Referring to the September shooting death of B.I.G.’s rival Tupac Shakur, Jones said: “I thought Tupac was going to be the end of it. But the psychodrama keeps going.”

There is no evidence to support the suspicion that Death Row had any involvement in the murder of Notorious B.I.G., a hulking 24-year-old whose given name was Christopher Wallace and whose vivid, often fatalistic songs about violent street life made him a rap superstar.

“There’s talk about the East Coast-West Coast, there’s talk about extortion, there’s really any theory that you might want to bring up,” Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Mike Partain said Monday evening. “The department is not dismissing any of those; it’s very early in the investigation at this point and all avenues are going to be explored. We’re not ruling anything out.”

According to Partain, police were searching last Monday for at least one suspect; the investigation into the shooting is ongoing.

Similarly, although Las Vegas police initially speculated that the East-West war may have been related to the shooting death of Death Row star Shakur six months ago, their investigation more recently has focused on a gang dispute that may be related to the slaying. That case remains unsolved.

The roots of the cross-continent war between Bad Boy and Death Row can be traced to a November 1994 incident during which Shakur was shot several times and robbed of $40,000 worth of jewelry outside a Manhattan recording studio.

In a 1995 interview with Vibe magazine, Shakur implied that friend-turned-rival Notorious B.I.G. and Bad Boy chief Combs were somehow involved. Both were in the studio at the time of the attack. Shakur also said that another former friend - rapper Randy “Stretch” Walker - was involved in the robbery and shooting.

In subsequent interviews, all three denied any involvement.

Exactly a year after the attack on Shakur, Walker was murdered, execution-style, in Queens, N.Y.

In September 1995, a close friend of Death Row Records head Marion “Suge” Knight was shot outside a record-industry party in Atlanta. Knight blamed Combs, who was also at the party; again, Combs denied any involvement.

Soon after, Shakur - who signed to Death Row in October 1995 - began to hint in interviews that he’d slept with B.I.G.’s wife. In the vitriolic song “Hit ‘Em Up,” Shakur finally came out and said as much. The song also attacked the New York rap duo Mobb Deep, as well as several other prominent East Coast rap figures.

Shakur also said repeatedly that B.I.G. was successful only because he’d stolen Shakur’s rapping style.

In March 1996, Shakur finally came face-to-face with his arch-rival, outside the Soul Train Music Awards show in Los Angeles.

It marked the rappers’ first meeting since Shakur was shot and robbed in New York.

Words were exchanged and a gun was pulled by somebody from either B.I.G. or Shakur’s entourage, although no shots were fired.

Clearly, this was not the Rolling Stones vs. the Beatles.

Nor was it Kool Moe Dee vs. L.L. Cool J - a heated ‘80s rivalry between two high-profile hip-hop stars that was confined to recorded and, occasionally, freestyled battle raps that never once threatened to dissolve into violence.

But just how serious was it?

Was it simply so much media hype, as Q-Tip of the socially conscious rap trio Tribe Called Quest suggested in an interview with The Sacramento Bee last summer?

Vibe, a hip-hop and R&B magazine founded by Quincy Jones, had printed a series of cover stories that fueled the Bad Boy-Death Row rivalry. So, too, had the Source, a leading national rap journal.

“We have a responsibility as journalists to cover the full spectrum of the music, but overall… we’re all tired of covering tragedies,” Vibe CEO Keith Clinkscales told the Philadelphia Daily News.

Or was there more to the bicoastal battle than just insults, accusations and hollow threats?

“I think it was taken seriously,” says Kendrick Wells.

Wells, who lives in Sacramento, was a friend of Shakur’s and once worked as the rap star’s personal assistant. He was also employed by Death Row for a three-month period, in 1995.

“When I was with Death Row and we went to New York, we were always on our toes,” Wells says. “Because there was a war between the camps (Death Row and Bad Boy). But we weren’t on the offensive. It was more defensive - in both camps.

“The offensive side was more a verbal thing, just to save face or to sell records. I personally think that Puffy (Combs) and Suge (Knight) were laughing at it all, because everything that happened was making them money.

“I really don’t think that either one wanted to approach the other with violence, though.”

Wells pauses for a moment to consider his words.

Then, he adds: “There’s definite tension between East and West, but I really don’t think that people are willing to kill people over records.”

On the newsgroup rec.music.hip-hop last week, the majority of the postings that referred to the East-West rift were highly critical of the rivalry, which actually hasn’t consumed all of the rap world, only that segment occupied by gangsta rappers.

“Why does this madness continue?” one hip-hop fan said. “Wake up y’all and stop claiming where you’re from.”

Mixxula, a record-industry professional who runs the Sacramento-based DJ service Mixx-N-Company, says that even if people do “throw up a W” to signify their allegiance to the West Coast - or “Westside” - it generally doesn’t mean anything in the end.

Likewise those who holler “Eastside” - even though some East Coast artists and fans are apparently still bitter that the national spotlight shifted in the late-80s from rap’s birthplace in New York to the West Coast, where gangsta rappers such as N.W.A., Too $hort and Ice-T were making waves… and big money.

“Do people take the East-West thing seriously? They might say out loud that they do, but they really don’t,” Mixxula says. “You can tell that because Pac’s still selling records back East, and we’re going to buy up the Biggie album out here when it comes out.”

MEMO: J. Freedom du Lac is music critic for the Sacramento Bee in California.