Former Murder Inc. rapper Charli Baltimore recently spoke with The Art of Dialogue and discussed the first time The Notorious B.I.G. heard the track “Hit Em Up.”
The 1996 diss track by Tupac and The Outlawz was aimed directly at Biggie, Diddy and Bad Boy Records during the height of the East Coast and West Coast beef. Charli Baltimore and the Brooklyn hip-hop king were romantically involved prior to his death and she explained that Puff was the first one to play the record for their crew.
“It was somebody’s video shoot. I don’t remember whose. Puff was there, and I just remember Puff coming out. I think we pulled up, Puff came out. He was like real somber looking and he was like, ‘Yo! I gotta play you this record.’ And that’s the first time we heard ‘Hit Em Up.’ The whole mood just changed. A video shoot is supposed to be upbeat, happy, whatever and Big is like, ‘Are you f——g serious right now? Serious? This is what we’re doing right now?’ It was just shock. It was just crazy,” explained the Philly rapper.
Charli Baltimore also shed more light on Biggie’s song “Who Shot Ya” which was released while Tupac was in prison and many believed was aimed at the soon-to-be Death Row rapper.
“You got this dude just riding on you and riding on you and you not knowing what’s what. If I’m not mistaken, Pac mistakenly thought that ‘Who Shot Ya?’ was directed at him when ‘Who Shot Ya?’ was actually written before ‘Pac had even gotten shot. ‘Who Shot Ya? is not about ‘Pac. It was written before ‘Pac got shot but of course, people are going to hear that and say, ‘OK, yeah that n—-a Big is going at this n—-a now and it’s going to be back and forth.’ But in all actuality, that record was already written. When you listen to it, with all that was going on, it does sound like, ‘Yeah I’m on your a–,’ and it wasn’t like that,” she further stated.
During the interview, Charli Baltimore said that the timing of the release of The Notorious’ B.I.G.’s record was bad but added that it wasn’t his call when records were released.
“Big didn’t have anything to do with when records got released. He’s on a label. If Puff made that decision to put that record out or whatever, the timing was what it was. Big had already written the record,” she further explained.
Check out the interview below as Charli Baltimore revisits one of hip-hop’s most trying times.
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