Hit 'Em Up

Infobox Single
Name = Hit 'Em Up


Artist = 2Pac featuring Outlawz
Album = Greatest Hits
B-side = How Do U Want It
Released = 4 June 1996
Format = 12-inch single
Recorded = 1996
Genre = Rap
Label = Death Row/Interscope
Writer =
Producer = Johnny "J"
Last single =
"How Do You Want It"
(1996)
This single =
"Hit 'Em Up"
(1996)
Next single =
"All Bout U"
(1996)
Misc = Audiosample
Upper caption = Audio sample
Audio file = Hit 'Em Up.ogg"Hit 'Em Up" is a by Tupac Shakur, featuring his rap group the Outlawz. It is the B-Side to the 1996 single "How Do U Want It". The song viciously insults several East Coast rappers, chiefly Tupac Shakur's enemy and former friend, The Notorious B.I.G.. "Hit 'Em Up" was produced by long-time collaborator Johnny J and samples "Don't Look Any Further" by Dennis Edwards.

Background to song

A brutal diatribe, in "Hit 'Em Up" Shakur's venom was aimed at two other hip hop artists, primarily The Notorious B.I.G. and Sean "Puffy" Combs, who he believed had advance knowledge that he would be robbed and shot in a November 30, 1994 incident in New York City, but didn't warn him (and possibly played a role in the incident). By extension, Shakur also took aim at Combs' Bad Boy Records and B.I.G.'s associates Lil' Kim and Junior M.A.F.I.A..

Verses

The first verse is performed by 2Pac, the second by Hussein Fatal, the third by 2Pac, The fourth by Yaki Kadafi & the fifth by E.D.I. Mean

The phrase "take money", which is repeated throughout the song, is a satirical play on Junior M.A.F.I.A.'s then recent hit, "Get Money". Additionally, the "Don't Look Any Further" sample was also used in "Gettin' Money"; a remix of "Get Money". The chorus of "Hit 'Em Up" is a play on the chorus of Junior M.A.F.I.A's "Player's Anthem", which is itself an interpolation of the melody from Yellowman's "Zunguzung". [ [http://wayneandwax.com/?p=137] Wayne Marshall, "Follow Me Now: The Zigzagging Zunguzung Meme"]

Mobb Deep and Chino XL were also targeted. Jay-Z was originally insulted in the song's lengthy outro - right before Shakur says: "Fuck you, die slow motherfucker, my fo-fo make sure all y'all kids don't grow!" - but Hussein Fatal of the Outlawz convinced Shakur that the Brooklyn rapper had been neutral and the insult was erased, leaving several seconds of silence in its absence in certain remade versions of the song. But later versions of the song do contain this insult.

Reception

Some people at the time felt that this song had gone 'too far', with Shakur's claim that he had sexual intercourse with Notorious B.I.G.'s wife, Faith Evans, and his derision of Mobb Deep's Prodigy for having sickle-cell anemia. It was also criticized for intensifying the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry, and in hindsight, cited as the turning point towards the violence that later claimed the lives of both 2Pac and Biggie. Shakur disregarded criticism that he had taken the traditional hip hop rivalry to a dangerous extreme, remarking that the song was a "classic battle record". "XXL" later appointed "Hit 'Em Up" "the #1 diss song ever".

The Notorious B.I.G. humorously responded to Shakur's claims that he had slept with his wife on "Brooklyn's Finest", a duet with Jay-Z from the latter's 1996 debut "Reasonable Doubt", rapping, "if Faith had twins, she'd probably have two Pacs/ Get it? Tu..pacs." The "Carlito's Way-referenced intro ("Okay! I'm reloaded") is followed by other lines: "Think you big-time?/Fuckin' with Jay-Z/You gonna die big time!/Here come the pain!" These lines may be in reference to the fact that Tupac planned to insult Jay on "Hit 'Em Up."

Mobb Deep responded to 2Pac and Death Row with the track "Drop a Gem On 'Em".

Chino XL responded with a nameless diss track which was never released. The song sampled the same beat as Notorious B.I.G.'s Who Shot Ya? and mocked Tupac for his hardships in his life, including a time in which Tupac's mother was a crack addict and his 1995 prison stint.

Trivia

*Rapper Eminem produced a diss track called "Quitter", which was a "diss" at House of Pain rapper Everlast. Half way through the track, the backing changes to that of Hit 'Em Up and Eminem then raps in a similar style to how Tupac Shakur did on the original version. This track was only pressed on white label vinyl and was never commercially released, despite being available through P2P applications.

*The song uses the word "fuck" 46 times.

Total list of targets

* Mobb Deep, who Shakur claims stuck their noses in.
* Biggie Smalls
* Faith Evans
* Puff Daddy
* Chino XL
* Bad Boy, Tupac claims "Fuck Bad Boy; as a staff, record label and as a motherfucking crew"
* Lil' Kim
* Junior M.A.F.I.A.
* Lil Cease
* Jay-Z, originally insulted in the song's lengthy outro. Later versions of the song contain the insult.
* People who are big fans of Bad Boy Records (2pac says in the outro "and if you wanna be down with Bad Boy, then Fuck you too!"

Music Video

In the video, 2Pac raps in a white room with the Outlawz with TV screens in the background showing clips of himself, Puffy, and Biggie Smalls. These clips focused on gestures alluding to Tupac's claim to have stolen money from Bad Boy Records. Gestures included Tupac stealing money with his crew from a safe, Puffy and Biggie dancing as cash appears from their position into the hands of Tupac, and them driving (which possibly alludes to the fact that Faith Evans was Biggie's estranged wife, so Biggie knew nothing about what Shakur claimed to have happened). The video itself has repeated parody characters of Puffy, Biggie, and Lil Kim. There are also clips of 2Pac and his crew in a purple caged room and a black room with bullet holes in the background.

The white background scenes with a tv-screen in the background is showing the Made Niggaz video, which were released in 1997 at the release of Shakur's last movie Gang Related, co-featuring with Jim Belushi from According to Jim.

Compilations

One of Shakur's most popular songs, it would reappear on a number of releases:
* "How Do U Want It" Original Single feature this song on a b-side.
* "Greatest Hits" features the song upon track 12 on disc 1.
* "Nu-Mixx Klazzics" features a remix of the song, with the intro lyrics from the originally explicit version and the main lyrics from the edited radio version.
* "" features Hit Em Up, the concert was Tupac's last live performance, and the song was available on DVD and CD. In addition to the track's harsh levies at Bad Boy, Tupac publicly blasted Biggie on the stage before performing the song, and fans went along with Tupac's flow (as this was at the time in the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry that fans were already taking sides with one set of artists or another. He slandered Faith Evans as well, referring to her as a "bitch" and proceeding to threaten the lives of Biggie and Puffy, and slandering several East Coast MCs, as he called them fakers.
* This song also appears on "Death Row Greatest Hits"
* The second half of the underground Eminem song "Quitter" is a remix of this song, and in itself a diss track aimed towards Everlast.
* Khia uses the beat and part of the hook in her diss "Hit 'Em Up" to female rapper Trina and Jacki-O.
*Mista KiLLa Cali has made a remix with Eazy-E's Real Muthaphuckkin G's, which is a diss at Death Row rappers Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg

References