Behind the Bastards - Part Two: P. Diddy: A Life in Crimes
Aired: 2024-12-18
Duration: 01:11:57


=== Real Judge in New Mexico (03:41) ===

[00:00:01]  Cold Zone Media.
[00:00:05]  Oh, here ye, hear ye.
[00:00:07]  The Court of Bastards is now in session.
[00:00:11]  The Honorable Judge Robert Evans presiding.
[00:00:15]  And that's not a bit.
[00:00:16]  It's not.
[00:00:17]  I'm making an announcement here.
[00:00:19]  Will, I don't think I told you this yet.
[00:00:21]  I have been sworn in as a judge.
[00:00:24]  I am legally a United States municipal judge for the state of New Mexico.
[00:00:30]  This is not a bit.
[00:00:30]  It's not a bit, actually.
[00:00:32]  It's not a bit.
[00:00:34]  And he's brought it up.
[00:00:35]  I think he's told me this same piece of information 500 times.
[00:00:38]  I have the paperwork.
[00:00:40]  I am now legally the honorable Robert Evans for the rest of my life.
[00:00:44]  I can marry people, not just officiate like some of you folks.
[00:00:48]  I can witness documents.
[00:00:51]  I could hear cases.
[00:00:52]  I don't think anyone's going to give me any, but I am a judge now in New Mexico.
[00:00:57]  And, you know.
[00:00:59]  How does one become a judge in New Mexico?
[00:01:01]  You get sworn in by another judge.
[00:01:03]  It works, actually.
[00:01:03]  I've just...
[00:01:05]  Do you just, you had to like call them and was there an online application?
[00:01:09]  Let's call them a fan.
[00:01:10]  I mean, definitely they are a fan.
[00:01:12]  A wonderful person whose name I'm not going to use in the future.
[00:01:14]  And they were like, hey, bro, did you know that it's no work to become a judge?
[00:01:18]  You know, it's incredibly easy.
[00:01:20]  Well, it's apparently, I didn't know this either.
[00:01:22]  Becoming a judge works exactly like being a vampire and interview with a vampire.
[00:01:26]  You can't come in if somebody invites you.
[00:01:30]  You can get made a judge by like a bigger judge, but you cannot necessarily make other people judges, right?
[00:01:37]  You have to see, you have to drink a certain amount of blood.
[00:01:40]  Yeah.
[00:01:40]  Yeah, you got to keep the pyramid at a, you know, a certain angle or else it gets too wide.
[00:01:45]  Again, if I'm remembering interview with a vampire right, I am now going to live in France and then burn down a theater.
[00:01:52]  Take on an eight-year-old child as yourself.
[00:01:54]  Yes, take on an eight-year-old shit.
[00:01:57]  Do the whole interview.
[00:01:59]  I'm not really sure what that was.
[00:02:00]  I'm very confused still about what she was in that movie.
[00:02:04]  Oh, you got to try the new TV show, Will.
[00:02:06]  It's wonderful.
[00:02:07]  Oh, is it?
[00:02:08]  I kind of, I saw that it existed, but I kind of put it in the same like, you know, when they made the Archie comic into a drama, what's it called?
[00:02:16]  Riverdale.
[00:02:17]  Like, I kind of.
[00:02:18]  So bad.
[00:02:19]  I kind of assumed it was something like that where they just like, or like the fresh prince, they turned that into a fucking drama or whatever.
[00:02:27]  I kind of thought it was like something like that where it was just like real teeny, like Buffy the Vampire type shit.
[00:02:32]  No, I can confidently say as a United States judge.
[00:02:35]  Oh my God.
[00:02:36]  That show is good.
[00:02:37]  I do have power.
[00:02:39]  I'm going to go do a Blood Meridian after this.
[00:02:42]  Jesus.
[00:02:43]  Call me the judge.
[00:02:44]  Use my own urine to make gunpowder.
[00:02:46]  It's going to be incredible, folks.
[00:02:48]  Amazing.
[00:02:49]  But my first act as judge is to sit down with my buddy, the Grammy Award-winning Greasy Will, and judge P. Diddy.
[00:02:58]  And this will be legally binding.
[00:02:59]  Whatever I say, the courts have to do if I understand being a judge right.
[00:03:03]  And I don't think I do.
[00:03:04]  Can I be the middle of the defense and the prosecutor?
[00:03:08]  Like, I don't know.
[00:03:08]  I want to be both.
[00:03:09]  Can I be both?
[00:03:10]  Yeah, you could absolutely be both.
[00:03:11]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:12]  Whatever is fun here in the moment.
[00:03:14]  A guest of Behind the Bastards, like, primary responsibility is to be a bit of both of these things, like cheering you on for your incredible journalistic integrity and also correcting your bad pronunciation.
[00:03:27]  Jordan Ash, I honestly forget what we were saying.
[00:03:30]  Joe to see.
[00:03:30]  I have no idea.
[00:03:31]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:33]  Not my job as a judge to know how to pronounce R ⁇ D duos.
[00:03:37]  Jordan Kay?
[00:03:39]  Jordan?
[00:03:39]  Jorda Co.
[00:03:41]  You know what?

=== Legally Binding Courtroom Chaos (03:14) ===

[00:03:43]  I sentence you to come up with a different fucking name.
[00:03:46]  I'm glad this intro was fun because what we're going to talk about after this cold open, not fun at all.
[00:03:52]  This is an iHeart podcast.
[00:03:55]  Guaranteed human.
[00:03:57]  When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
[00:04:05]  I vowed I will be his last target.
[00:04:08]  He is not gonna get away with this.
[00:04:10]  He's gonna get what he deserves.
[00:04:12]  We always say, trust your girlfriends.
[00:04:16]  Listen to the girlfriends.
[00:04:18]  Trust me, babe.
[00:04:19]  On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:04:24]  I got you, I got you.
[00:04:28]  What's up, everyone?
[00:04:29]  I'm Ago Modern, my next guest.
[00:04:31]  It's Will Farrell.
[00:04:35]  My dad gave me the best advice ever.
[00:04:38]  He goes, just give it a shot.
[00:04:39]  But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
[00:04:46]  If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
[00:04:48]  It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
[00:04:56]  Yeah, it would not be.
[00:04:58]  Right, it wouldn't be that.
[00:04:59]  There's a lot in life.
[00:05:00]  Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:05:08]  In 2023, bachelor star Clayton Eckard was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.
[00:05:15]  You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
[00:05:18]  I doctored the test once.
[00:05:20]  It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern.
[00:05:25]  Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
[00:05:27]  Greg Gillespie and Michael Marancini.
[00:05:29]  My mind was blown.
[00:05:31]  I'm Stephanie Young.
[00:05:32]  This is Love Trapped.
[00:05:34]  Laura, Scottsdale Police.
[00:05:36]  As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
[00:05:40]  Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:05:47]  10-10 shots five, City Hall building.
[00:05:50]  How could this ever happen in City Hall?
[00:05:52]  Somebody tell me that.
[00:05:54]  A shocking public murder.
[00:05:55]  This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics.
[00:06:02]  They screamed, get down, get down.
[00:06:04]  Those are shots.
[00:06:05]  A tragedy that's now forgotten.
[00:06:08]  And a mystery that may or may not have been political, that may have been about sex.
[00:06:12]  Listen to Rorschach, Murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:06:22]  I'm Laurie Siegel, and this is Mostly Human, a tech podcast through a human lens.
[00:06:26]  This week, an interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
[00:06:30]  I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to the products we put out in the world.
[00:06:37]  An in-depth conversation with a man who's shaping our future.
[00:06:40]  My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI.
[00:06:43]  Listen to Mostly Human on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
[00:06:54]  We're back and things are about to get horrible.

=== Trauma and Victim Levels (15:11) ===

[00:06:57]  So, 1991, the same year that he got all of those fucking people killed, is the year in which Joy Joi Dickerson Neal, one of those hyphenated last names, claims that Sean drugged and raped her.
[00:07:11]  Yes.
[00:07:11]  Yeah, I know.
[00:07:12]  Sorry, there was no way to scream out.
[00:07:14]  Swinging for the fences.
[00:07:17]  That's why I opened something fun.
[00:07:21]  Because it's going to get, I mean, this is going to be horrible, folks.
[00:07:25]  Oh, sorry.
[00:07:25]  What year was this?
[00:07:26]  91.
[00:07:27]  Same year he got nine people killed in a crush.
[00:07:29]  Okay.
[00:07:29]  So this is the earliest.
[00:07:30]  I don't know that this is the first person that Sean drugs and assaults or assaults, period.
[00:07:35]  But this is the earliest allegation so far against Diddy.
[00:07:38]  That may have changed by the time these episodes drop.
[00:07:40]  Shit is coming out rapidly.
[00:07:42]  Every day.
[00:07:42]  It is one of the most serious.
[00:07:44]  She was a college student at the time.
[00:07:47]  Sean was an up-and-coming music producer who hosted legendary parties.
[00:07:51]  He put her in one of his music videos.
[00:07:53]  And then while they were doing that, he asked her out on a date, which is, you know, classic story.
[00:07:58]  Classic story.
[00:07:59]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:08:00]  This is why the prototype exists.
[00:08:04]  This is why people know that this is a thing.
[00:08:06]  Yeah.
[00:08:06]  It's just the classic producer's story.
[00:08:08]  And it's, you know, it's fucked up because, like, obviously, this is the way a lot of people get assaulted.
[00:08:12]  It is also legitimately how a lot of people's careers begin.
[00:08:15]  Yeah.
[00:08:15]  You know, like both of, and honestly, sometimes both happen, right?
[00:08:19]  Like, that's yes.
[00:08:20]  Which is why it's going to keep happening.
[00:08:22]  The principal story is exactly that.
[00:08:23]  It's literally, let me assault you and you get a job.
[00:08:27]  You can get a lot of career.
[00:08:28]  Yeah.
[00:08:28]  You can get in this fucking, you know.
[00:08:30]  I mean, it's, you know, and as this progresses on, we're going to see a lot of that where it's like people who go along with it make it.
[00:08:38]  And when they stop going along with it, they disappear.
[00:08:41]  Right.
[00:08:41]  You know?
[00:08:41]  Right.
[00:08:42]  Yes.
[00:08:42]  Yes.
[00:08:42]  You know?
[00:08:43]  So after dinner, Sean pushes Joy to stay out with him.
[00:08:46]  She wants to go home.
[00:08:47]  And he's like, no, no, no, let's go.
[00:08:48]  And he takes her to a recording studio.
[00:08:50]  She has a drink at some point, I think, on the drive over.
[00:08:53]  And she like can't get out of the car because she's so fucked up by the time they get there.
[00:08:57]  Not from the drink, but from the fact that the drink has been drugged.
[00:09:00]  Obviously, drug.
[00:09:01]  I'm guessing just from her description, it sounds like GHB, but could have been a couple of things.
[00:09:05]  Pretty fast acting.
[00:09:06]  Yes.
[00:09:07]  Yes.
[00:09:07]  In a car drive across the, you know, like, that's not, that's not a long thing.
[00:09:11]  Nope.
[00:09:11]  Nope, nope.
[00:09:12]  Combs takes her to a separate location and he sexually assaults her.
[00:09:16]  He films the rape.
[00:09:18]  Naturally, because why not keep evidence?
[00:09:20]  Why not keep it?
[00:09:20]  Well, he films it to use as revenge porn against her, right?
[00:09:24]  Yeah.
[00:09:24]  So this is like, this is where he starts to get into this the black from the jump.
[00:09:29]  Yeah.
[00:09:30]  The Epstein, if you will.
[00:09:31]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:09:32]  And Dickerson actually finds out that he's videotaped it because a male friend of hers comes to her and is like, hey, man, I was just hanging out with Sean and he showed us a video of himself having sex with you and like, you don't really look like you're conscious.
[00:09:45]  Right.
[00:09:46]  So that's how she finds out about it.
[00:09:48]  Like he shares, he shows this to a number of people.
[00:09:51]  God, that is just fucking awful.
[00:09:53]  It's hideous.
[00:09:54]  And it's one of those things.
[00:09:55]  Wait, so, so, wait, so this is 91, right?
[00:09:58]  91.
[00:09:59]  Yeah.
[00:10:00]  What, what?
[00:10:00]  Did he have, was it a camcorder?
[00:10:02]  He had like a camcorder.
[00:10:03]  It must have been like a camcorder.
[00:10:04]  Yeah.
[00:10:04]  Like that, it was not.
[00:10:05]  Like, was it a hidden situation?
[00:10:08]  You're right.
[00:10:08]  Like, because there's like, there's like an element of like decisions that he had to make.
[00:10:12]  Like he had to set this up and plan this.
[00:10:14]  Like this wasn't, you know.
[00:10:15]  Yeah.
[00:10:15]  Yeah.
[00:10:15]  He had to set this up.
[00:10:16]  He had to plan this.
[00:10:17]  He spent a lot of money.
[00:10:18]  Like it's not cheap to have.
[00:10:19]  Right.
[00:10:19]  Yeah.
[00:10:20]  Yeah.
[00:10:20]  A camera in 91 was very expensive.
[00:10:23]  You weren't just buying one cheap.
[00:10:24]  And that's probably a big part of, in addition to just wanting to do in the first place, why she's drugged, right?
[00:10:28]  Is so that he can set up and do all this, you know?
[00:10:31]  Right.
[00:10:31]  Yeah.
[00:10:31]  It's not an easy process to use.
[00:10:33]  It's not like now where you just push a button or whatever on your phone.
[00:10:36]  You got to set this, get lighting and shit.
[00:10:38]  Like it's like camcorders were not just like just laying around.
[00:10:43]  Yeah.
[00:10:43]  And it's, it's also, I want to note now, if you're very familiar with this case, you're going to know, oh, he's not bringing up everyone.
[00:10:48]  I can't.
[00:10:49]  There's not enough time to talk about every single person who has made allegations.
[00:10:52]  I'm going to go through enough that you understand what he does.
[00:10:56]  Yeah.
[00:10:56]  Yeah.
[00:10:56]  At this point, it's literally like dozens and dozens of people.
[00:11:00]  Like there's so many people that they've started filing class actions against him.
[00:11:04]  It's the kind of thing where I think, and we'll never know how many people it was in total, but I would be shocked if the total number of victims one way or the other aren't in the hundreds.
[00:11:12]  You know, there's different levels of victim.
[00:11:14]  There's some people that it's astonishing.
[00:11:16]  There's Genghis Khan levels of.
[00:11:18]  Yeah, there's some people who are like, he coerced me, but like I did say yes.
[00:11:21]  There's some people who are like, I got drugged, but he didn't rape me or like I got out.
[00:11:25]  So there's like degrees of difference from how this happens because there's so many people he's doing this to.
[00:11:32]  And there's combinations of every single one of those things too as well.
[00:11:35]  It's like it is layers upon layers.
[00:11:38]  You know, you're talking, this is 1991.
[00:11:40]  We're in 2024.
[00:11:41]  Yeah.
[00:11:42]  You know, this is a 30-year legacy of doing this.
[00:11:46]  And this is astonishing.
[00:11:48]  And to only have allegations, really, because like that's the one thing is like outside of like the industry, his image was pretty clean.
[00:11:56]  Yeah.
[00:11:57]  You know, like he had a few little things that was like largely the Tupac stuff.
[00:12:02]  Yeah.
[00:12:02]  Did he kill Tupac or Diddy was involved in like, but it wasn't really like the sexual assault stuff that was like big.
[00:12:10]  It was all like conspiracy, mogul, like, you know, mob type stuff.
[00:12:14]  Yeah, like before this point. in history.
[00:12:18]  Right.
[00:12:18]  Right.
[00:12:19]  Absolutely.
[00:12:20]  Yeah.
[00:12:20]  I mean, we knew about, or the other stuff existed and was out there, but it wasn't like that was what he was known for when it came to that.
[00:12:27]  Yeah.
[00:12:27]  People wouldn't say, oh, that guy's definitely a piece of shit.
[00:12:29]  Right.
[00:12:29]  Yeah.
[00:12:30]  It was almost like he committed a bigger crime.
[00:12:32]  Yeah.
[00:12:33]  In being involved in Biggie and Tupac, Bernard.
[00:12:36]  It's like, look, if you're overshadowing it.
[00:12:38]  If you've got a crime you want to commit, you know, like maybe you're looking to do a big crypto scam or something, just kill Tupac first and you'll get away with it for at least 30 years.
[00:12:47]  Yeah.
[00:12:48]  That's the Diddy story.
[00:12:50]  He might be a judge, but don't take legal advice from Robert.
[00:12:54]  That is not legal advice.
[00:12:55]  Do not kill Tupac if you find Tupac.
[00:12:57]  Let us know.
[00:12:58]  Leave him alone.
[00:12:59]  No, say hello.
[00:13:00]  He deserves to be alive.
[00:13:01]  If he's really alive, he deserves to hide.
[00:13:05]  So in the wake of this horrible sex crime, Sean got his first big opportunity.
[00:13:09]  In 1992, he scouted out and signed a rap artist named Christopher Wallace, better known to posterity as Biggie Smalls or the notorious BIG.
[00:13:20]  And this is, I've just, I'm not super, you know, knowledgeable about pop culture.
[00:13:24]  I love Biggie.
[00:13:25]  Biggie was one of the greatest lyricists of his generation.
[00:13:29]  Honestly, part of why I love him, I think he's like written better about depression and hating yourself than most people in music ever have.
[00:13:37]  I mean, he was great at it.
[00:13:38]  He was Biggie.
[00:13:38]  He was a huge man.
[00:13:40]  He was fat as hell and he knew he was fat as hell and he said it all the time.
[00:13:45]  And then at one point in his career, he acknowledged, not only am I fat as hell, but I'm sexy as hell too, because I'm rich as hell.
[00:13:51]  So like, I don't give a shit about what you guys say.
[00:13:54]  He was so, and he really leaned into it.
[00:13:57]  And it's like, you're talking about a dude whose biggest rival at the time was Tupac, who was an athletic fucking guy.
[00:14:02]  You know, Tupac was ripped, you know, like, and then Biggie's like, yeah, whatever.
[00:14:06]  Yeah.
[00:14:07]  Yeah.
[00:14:07]  I'm 400 pounds.
[00:14:08]  I don't give a shit.
[00:14:09]  And Biggie is.
[00:14:10]  But he was notoriously.
[00:14:12]  He's notorious.
[00:14:13]  Yeah.
[00:14:15]  Legendary.
[00:14:16]  And he is, this is one of those guys.
[00:14:17]  We talk about a lot of guys and especially gangster rap really massage their reputation.
[00:14:22]  Biggie didn't have to do that.
[00:14:24]  He comes from a tough background.
[00:14:26]  His dad abandons the family when he's three, which is interesting that both he and Diddy lose their dads at age three might have been part of why they like got along.
[00:14:34]  Bonded, yeah.
[00:14:35]  He grew up near Bedsty in Brooklyn, which at that point in time was a very different neighborhood than it is today.
[00:14:42]  Sure.
[00:14:42]  Not filled with hipsters.
[00:14:44]  Yeah.
[00:14:44]  Yeah.
[00:14:44]  He was raised a Jehovah's Witness and became a drug dealer, selling weed at age 12 and moved up to crack once that epidemic kicked off.
[00:14:52]  His mother was Jehovah's Witness.
[00:14:53]  Yeah, he's raised a Jehovah's Witness.
[00:14:55]  His mom is very strict.
[00:14:57]  He has to hide what he's doing from her.
[00:14:59]  I don't know that I've ever heard that before.
[00:15:01]  That is really interesting because, I mean, like, I knew that like he was very much, there's a lot of stories.
[00:15:07]  Even his mom told a lot of stories in the biographies they've done with him and everything of like him always having to like hide stuff because she was watching.
[00:15:15]  She was on top of what he was doing.
[00:15:16]  But I never heard that.
[00:15:17]  Well, it also has a big influence on the kind of music he makes because his mom is very strict and the morals that he's raised with conflicts in his new career.
[00:15:26]  So he always does, he has this feeling that is, I think, not super common for a lot of people in the same industry that what he's doing is bad, right?
[00:15:33]  And that influences the kind of music he makes.
[00:15:35]  His debut album is called Ready to Die, which includes the song, the great song, Suicidal Thoughts, which opens with the verse, when I die, fuck it.
[00:15:44]  I want to go to hell because I'm a piece of shit.
[00:15:46]  It ain't hard to fucking tell.
[00:15:48]  Or getting more direct towards his feelings about his mom.
[00:15:51]  All my life I've been considered as the worst, lying to my mother, even stealing out her purse.
[00:15:56]  Crime after crime from drugs to extortion.
[00:15:58]  I know my mom wish she got a fucking abortion.
[00:16:01]  Like, yes.
[00:16:02]  Fuck, I love Biggie.
[00:16:03]  Yeah.
[00:16:04]  Yeah.
[00:16:04]  Biggie definitely was very pressing.
[00:16:06]  He was very like knowledgeable of himself and where he was at.
[00:16:10]  You know, like he, anytime.
[00:16:12]  It was actually one of the things that was so fascinating about Biggie's work is that he would often talk about drug dealing as like, as the darkness that it was.
[00:16:21]  Like a lot of times, like people were drug dealing, like, especially now, it's like this glamour position, right?
[00:16:26]  And for him, it was not.
[00:16:28]  It was so much more of like, this is what I had to do to survive.
[00:16:31]  I fucking hate myself because of what I had to do.
[00:16:34]  Yeah.
[00:16:34]  Yeah.
[00:16:35]  I don't like that I had to do these things.
[00:16:37]  I don't like myself because I had to do these things.
[00:16:40]  And this is what it's like to grow up in these situations and have, and it was like, it took so much of the glamour out of it.
[00:16:47]  It was dark.
[00:16:48]  It was twisted and it was dark.
[00:16:49]  And it was like, damn, like he's really speaking about the truth of all this.
[00:16:54]  Yeah.
[00:16:54]  You know, it was not like, look at me.
[00:16:56]  I'm doing this because I'm fucking, you know, wear gold necklaces and shit.
[00:16:59]  Like he was pretty humble, even with like the braggadocious part of it.
[00:17:04]  It was still kind of dark in its humility.
[00:17:06]  Absolutely.
[00:17:07]  I guess what we're getting at is we're both fans of Biggie.
[00:17:10]  Obviously, Biggie's going to be one of the most successful rappers of all time.
[00:17:14]  But initially, when he's getting started, his work is seen as too explicit and too based in his extensive life of crimes from MCA Records, who is Uptown's distributor, and that's where Sean works.
[00:17:25]  And so Sean's boss, Andre Harrell, lets him go, basically fires him.
[00:17:29]  Although he will claim, Andre says, I didn't fire him because he was bad.
[00:17:33]  Basically, I said, like, look, man, you're right.
[00:17:35]  This guy's going to be a hit.
[00:17:36]  The label won't go for it.
[00:17:38]  Fucking bounce.
[00:17:39]  It's time for you to succeed on your own, right?
[00:17:41]  Andre later tells Wall Street Journal, I didn't want to sit there and be the one confining Puff because the corporation was telling me to do that.
[00:17:48]  I'm not built that way.
[00:17:49]  I told Puff he needs to go and create his own opportunity.
[00:17:52]  You're red hot right now.
[00:17:53]  I'm really letting you go so you can get rich.
[00:17:56]  And that's exactly what fucking happened.
[00:17:58]  So I mean, yeah, minutes later.
[00:18:00]  Minutes later.
[00:18:01]  Minutes later.
[00:18:02]  All of the money in the world.
[00:18:04]  Yeah.
[00:18:05]  Yeah, it really did.
[00:18:06]  I mean, it was the perfect time for that.
[00:18:07]  You know, like for the most part, up until Biggie and Pac, you know, a lot of hip-hop was more like happy type shit.
[00:18:16]  It was still like, sometimes it was like had the darkness.
[00:18:18]  NWA existed, obviously.
[00:18:20]  But like Biggie and Pac were like really some of the originators of that like dark upbringing culture of rap where it's like, look, we fucking, we hustle to survive and we're doing what we got to do.
[00:18:32]  And like talking the real truth about what it was like to be a black man in America at the time.
[00:18:37]  Yeah.
[00:18:37]  So it was like, there was something really unique about that moment because it was starting to, you know, we're getting the crack epidemic.
[00:18:45]  We're getting, you know, like crime bill that old Biden decided.
[00:18:49]  Sleepy Joe back when he was much awake.
[00:18:53]  Yeah, when he was not better when he was awake.
[00:18:56]  Right.
[00:18:57]  So it's like, yeah, exactly.
[00:18:59]  Like maybe he should be sleepy because he commits some of the biggest crimes against black America that you can imagine.
[00:19:06]  I have always been firmly of the stance that the water fountains in the Capitol building need to have Xanax in them.
[00:19:12]  We could solve a lot of problems.
[00:19:14]  A lot of problems.
[00:19:16]  Yeah, bring this down a little bit.
[00:19:17]  You know what?
[00:19:18]  Put Xanax in the water everywhere.
[00:19:20]  Yeah, actually, yeah, great point.
[00:19:22]  Xanax lithium.
[00:19:23]  Let's just.
[00:19:24]  This is like when you're in high school and you think you can solve all the world's problems the first time you take mushrooms and you're like, we need to give everyone mushrooms.
[00:19:32]  But actually, maybe that might be.
[00:19:34]  Maybe we really do need to put lithium in the water or something.
[00:19:37]  So Combs started a label of his own, Bad Boy Records.
[00:19:41]  And it bad boy, right?
[00:19:44]  Clink, clink, clink.
[00:19:46]  And this is when you hear about the East Coast, West Coast rap feud, it's Bad Boy and Death Row over on, you know, the other side of the country.
[00:19:52]  Suge Knight and Death Row.
[00:19:54]  Oh, Suge Knight.
[00:19:55]  Yeah.
[00:19:56]  Are we going to Sug Knight?
[00:19:57]  We're going to talk a little bit of Suge Knight.
[00:19:58]  Yeah.
[00:19:58]  Oh, man.
[00:20:00]  Because basically, Biggie becomes a massive star pretty much overnight.
[00:20:03]  And that makes Bad Boy a name.
[00:20:05]  And that causes immediate friction with the West Coast premiere gangster rap enclave, Suge Knight's Death Row Records.
[00:20:10]  If you want to know the kind of man we were talking about Biggie being a fucking real gangster, Suge is a real gangster.
[00:20:17]  Shuge of gangsters.
[00:20:19]  Later in life will be shot at two consecutive VMA after parties.
[00:20:26]  Yes.
[00:20:26]  Oh my God.
[00:20:27]  One of my favorite Suge Knight things is the vanilla ice story.
[00:20:31]  Oh, yeah.
[00:20:32]  Held him off the roof of a building by his ankles.
[00:20:36]  By his ankles.
[00:20:37]  He held because just over some dispute.
[00:20:39]  You know, it's like, it was like, Suge was the real thing.
[00:20:41]  Sugar didn't want to give him the rights or sell the rights to an ice ice baby or something.
[00:20:46]  Right.
[00:20:47]  Yeah.
[00:20:47]  And he held him off the roof of a building.
[00:20:49]  It's like, this is the type of dude he was.
[00:20:51]  There's a little side tangent here.
[00:20:52]  I don't want to go too far into it, but recently there was this TikTok thing that happened where a guy found a bunch of old death row tapes, two-inch tapes in a storage locker, right?
[00:21:02]  And because I'm in the TikTok zone, I saw this happen and I was like, oh, this is cool.
[00:21:07]  Hey, if you need any help with this, hit me up.
[00:21:09]  And it turned out to be a bunch of like MC Hammer death row era stuff, right?
[00:21:14]  And it was like almost immediately once that started coming out, all the comments were like, hey, man, like, just be careful.
[00:21:26]  And it ended up going that I found the guy, the engineer that was responsible for that stuff.
[00:21:30]  And I was like, hey, man, I was like, I, this guy found all this stuff.
[00:21:33]  Your name's on the tapes.
[00:21:35]  And he was like, I don't really want to be involved in that because of that era of my life was one of the most I've ever felt like in danger.
[00:21:46]  Yeah.
[00:21:47]  He's like, that was the most I was ever worried about like making it through the day was when I worked as an engineer for Death Row.
[00:21:54]  There's a there's a lot of like things you can say about Suge Knight that are you know bastardy, but also Suge Knight's not really even when he's behind bars, not someone I want to talk too much shit on.
[00:22:06]  No, I'm close enough, man.

=== Death Row Engineer Secrets (07:10) ===

[00:22:08]  I don't know, man.
[00:22:10]  He's a we'll say he's a big guy.
[00:22:12]  He's formidable.
[00:22:13]  He's a formidable large person.
[00:22:16]  He's a large person and I would not want to ever have my tiny skull crushed.
[00:22:21]  We have lots of respect for you, Suge.
[00:22:24]  Yeah.
[00:22:24]  Do your thing.
[00:22:25]  Don't dangle.
[00:22:26]  Don't run me over at a burger stand.
[00:22:28]  You know?
[00:22:29]  Yeah.
[00:22:30]  So this is primarily a story of the evil that Sean is going to do later in his life.
[00:22:33]  And his involvement in the East Coast, West Coast rap rivalry is like, we know, but also it's murky, right?
[00:22:39]  Like there's a degree murk of to like exactly what he was doing.
[00:22:42]  It's unreliable narratives, as you would say.
[00:22:46]  A lot of unreliable narratives.
[00:22:49]  But most of the narrators are like talking through wiretaps that the police have or like interviews the police are conducting.
[00:22:56]  So yes, literally anything you get in all of this stuff is it's unreliable because there's a level of ego that's involved in this stuff.
[00:23:06]  There's a level of self-importance and there's a level of also we were really fucked up doing drugs and alcohol and I don't actually remember what was going on.
[00:23:17]  It's like there's a joke in the audio industry about like literally almost everybody has a I forgot like like the Fleetwood Mac like I forgot I made that song story.
[00:23:28]  Like I don't remember even being there and doing that.
[00:23:31]  I was watching a fucking an old video of them during like the rumors tour and it's just clear like not a one of you you're all playing perfectly but not one of you could walk 10 feet without falling down like you are you are snowblind Walk you onto that stage.
[00:23:49]  And although it has changed in its direction, there is still a large amount of that in the music industry where it's just like, even on the professional side of things, like the engineer side of things, I once cleaned a console that had been like a soundboard that had been in use since like the early 70s, right?
[00:24:06]  It's one of like the, oh, Metallica recorded here.
[00:24:09]  Oh, like, you know, that type of thing.
[00:24:10]  Like every band ever had used this console.
[00:24:13]  And we took off the plates for the faders to clean it.
[00:24:16]  And there was actually cocaine and like, and like weed and like shit under the faders.
[00:24:23]  Like that much had accumulated over time that it was just like under, and it was like, oh my, and like, you're like, still, like, why am I, why are my hands?
[00:24:31]  Like, why do I feel numb right now?
[00:24:34]  Just walking in the middle of the middle.
[00:24:34]  It's that 70s cocaine.
[00:24:36]  Yeah.
[00:24:37]  It's like that 70s combo essence.
[00:24:39]  He licked this himself before putting it on the back of the truck.
[00:24:44]  Yeah.
[00:24:45]  So there's a lot of like unreliable narration that happens in the music industry all the time.
[00:24:51]  It's, there's a lot of drugs, there's a lot of alcohol and there's a lot of like, man, sometimes people tell me my own stories.
[00:24:57]  Yeah.
[00:24:58]  Yeah.
[00:24:58]  Well, a lot of when you're talking about the guys who are also literally fighting each other, a lot of head injuries, you know?
[00:25:05]  Yes, yeah.
[00:25:06]  Absolutely.
[00:25:06]  The gist of it is there's this huge conflict that comes to central around Tupac, who's the big West Coast star, and Biggie, who is the East Coast star.
[00:25:14]  And, you know, Tupac's, you know, with Suge, and Biggie is with Sean, Diddy.
[00:25:19]  So things come to a head on November 30th, 1994, when Tupac Shakur is shot five times in the lobby of Quad Studios in Times Square.
[00:25:27]  This is not when he dies.
[00:25:28]  Tupac was a tough guy.
[00:25:31]  Real quick, just to rewind in this story of what happened.
[00:25:34]  So the East Coast, West Coast thing, one of the big inciting factors were the Source Awards in New York.
[00:25:41]  Probably, I think, a year before Tupac died.
[00:25:44]  Shuge Knight was on stage directly insulting Diddy.
[00:25:49]  Like that was like, that was his thing.
[00:25:50]  He stood up on stage and he said, hey, if any of y'all want to be out there and not have a producer that is singing and dancing all up in your videos and being like all in trying to make himself part of the show, right?
[00:26:03]  Then come over to death row.
[00:26:05]  Right.
[00:26:06]  And this was like a big, this was when Snoop got involved.
[00:26:08]  There was also a moment just before that, maybe it was right after, I forget, where Diddy and Suge were in a strip club in Atlanta and Sug's best friend, that was one of the times you were talking about, Shug's best friend got shot and killed in the parking lot or whatever after that alter.
[00:26:24]  So up until Tupac getting shot, there's multiple deaths that have already happened.
[00:26:28]  Like this is a back and forth thing that's kind of been going on and they've been antagonizing, but it is Tupac and Biggie verbally in the public, right?
[00:26:40]  But this is a Suge Diddy situation.
[00:26:44]  This is their egos that are bleeding down into their artists that are fighting against each other because Biggie and Tupac are best friends at one point in time.
[00:26:54]  Well, not best friends, but they are good friends at one point in time.
[00:26:57]  This is like an important part to understand.
[00:27:00]  Biggie used to sleep on Tupac's couch.
[00:27:02]  Tupac's acting and like starting out his career.
[00:27:05]  He's getting like his first records and everything.
[00:27:07]  He's starting to have success before Biggie.
[00:27:10]  Biggie's sleeping on his couch.
[00:27:11]  Biggie is his friend.
[00:27:13]  So Tupac comes to New York to record at Quad Studios.
[00:27:16]  This is like the big inciting incident before the Source Awards thing.
[00:27:20]  Tupac comes to New York.
[00:27:22]  He's recording in Quad Studios.
[00:27:24]  He comes down to the lobby.
[00:27:25]  Biggie and Diddy are there as well that same night.
[00:27:28]  He comes down to the lobby.
[00:27:29]  He gets shot and robbed in the lobby.
[00:27:31]  Yeah.
[00:27:32]  Right.
[00:27:32]  And this is New York lobby.
[00:27:33]  It's 10 feet.
[00:27:35]  There's a security guy there.
[00:27:36]  It's like, you know, it's a, so he gets shot in that lobby and he immediately blames Biggie for selling him out.
[00:27:45]  And there's, I mean, yeah, and there's also, like, it's worth noting, Biggie and Puffy are in the studio, right?
[00:27:50]  At this, at the top.
[00:27:51]  Like, and he is the only, it's a quote unquote robbery, but he is the only one who gets shot.
[00:27:56]  Yeah.
[00:27:57]  Yes, he's the only one that gets shot.
[00:27:58]  And like, it's been dramatized in a lot of like, you know, biopics and everything, but it's a nondescript place.
[00:28:04]  Like, I've been to Quad Studios before I recorded there.
[00:28:06]  It's a pretty nondescript place.
[00:28:08]  It's not like a flashy studio.
[00:28:10]  Like in LA, you can see a lot of the studios, you know, a lot of them are kind of like nondescript, but you can, like, they have signs or whatever.
[00:28:18]  Quad Studios has no sign.
[00:28:19]  Quad Studios is not like an accident where you just stumble in and shoot somebody.
[00:28:24]  Yeah.
[00:28:24]  Yeah.
[00:28:24]  No.
[00:28:25]  You do have to know somebody's there.
[00:28:27]  It's on like the 13th floor or some show.
[00:28:29]  Yeah.
[00:28:30]  He wasn't like on the street and it was a crime of opportunity, right?
[00:28:33]  Like that, right?
[00:28:33]  The fact that he's like, well, this had to have been them is not paranoia or whatever ruling.
[00:28:39]  Yes.
[00:28:39]  Yeah.
[00:28:40]  And so that builds up.
[00:28:41]  Tupac actually, right after that shooting, he goes to jail for sexual assault, spends some time in jail.
[00:28:47]  And that's when Biggie's career grows, gets all big.
[00:28:50]  And he comes out of jail to see Biggie now succeeding like fully and also feeling that hatred and that, you know, like they were involved in this somehow of me getting shot, becomes incredibly paranoid.
[00:29:04]  This is when the Tupac switch really goes to the gangster shit.
[00:29:08]  Yeah.
[00:29:09]  You know, and he starts putting out songs insulting Biggie and bad boy wrecking.
[00:29:13]  Exactly.
[00:29:14]  And again, while he's in jail, Biggie puts out who shot you.
[00:29:18]  I think he was in jail anyways.

=== Biggie's Rise and Tupac's Paranoia (06:34) ===

[00:29:19]  I might be missing some of this up because also I am an unreliable narrator.
[00:29:25]  But while he's in jail, Biggie puts out Who Shot You, which seems like a direct attack on Tupac.
[00:29:34]  Who Shotcha is like a pretty thing to do?
[00:29:38]  Yeah.
[00:29:39]  When you're wondering who shot me.
[00:29:41]  And somebody puts out a song.
[00:29:42]  It's the if I did it of gangster rap.
[00:29:45]  Yes, it really is.
[00:29:46]  And like, and so Tupac's like, okay, well then he knows.
[00:29:49]  And this escalates to a massive, massive battle between East Coast and West Coast.
[00:29:54]  And we are going to talk more about that.
[00:29:56]  But you know what never shot Tupac, to the best of my knowledge?
[00:30:00]  I can't really prove this, but it's unlikely.
[00:30:03]  Our products and spons and sponsors, yeah, our products, the guys, the guys that give us the money for doing the stuff.
[00:30:09]  It's very unlikely that they did.
[00:30:11]  Yeah.
[00:30:12]  Yeah.
[00:30:13]  Although.
[00:30:13]  Although, unless it's an ad for fucking Diddy.
[00:30:16]  Yeah.
[00:30:17]  You might get it.
[00:30:18]  Yeah.
[00:30:19]  Starts buying podcast space.
[00:30:25]  There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
[00:30:29]  Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
[00:30:32]  You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
[00:30:35]  And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
[00:30:38]  We always say, trust your girlfriends.
[00:30:42]  I'm Anna Sinfield.
[00:30:44]  And in this new season of the girlfriends...
[00:30:46]  Oh my God, this is the same man.
[00:30:48]  A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
[00:30:53]  I felt like I got hit by a truck.
[00:30:55]  I thought, how could this happen to me?
[00:30:57]  The cops didn't seem to care.
[00:30:59]  So they take matters into their own hands.
[00:31:02]  They said, oh, hell no.
[00:31:03]  I vowed I will be his last target.
[00:31:06]  He's going to get what he deserves.
[00:31:10]  Listen to the girlfriends.
[00:31:12]  Trust me, babe.
[00:31:13]  On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:31:22]  What's up, everyone?
[00:31:23]  I'm Ego Warden.
[00:31:25]  My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
[00:31:32]  It's Will Farrell.
[00:31:36]  My dad gave me the best advice ever.
[00:31:39]  I went and had lunch with him one day and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
[00:31:44]  I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
[00:31:46]  I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
[00:31:50]  He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
[00:31:55]  Yeah.
[00:31:56]  He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
[00:31:59]  And he's like, just give it a shot.
[00:32:00]  He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
[00:32:09]  If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
[00:32:11]  It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
[00:32:18]  Yeah, it would not be.
[00:32:20]  Right, it wouldn't be that.
[00:32:21]  There's a lot of luck.
[00:32:23]  Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:32:31]  In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckard found himself at the center of a paternity scandal.
[00:32:38]  The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story.
[00:32:43]  This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.
[00:32:46]  You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
[00:32:50]  I doctored the test once.
[00:32:51]  It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.
[00:32:55]  I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.
[00:32:59]  Sunlight's the greatest disinfectant.
[00:33:01]  They would uncover a disturbing pattern.
[00:33:03]  Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
[00:33:06]  Greg Gillespie and Michael Marancini.
[00:33:08]  My mind was blown.
[00:33:10]  I'm Stephanie Young.
[00:33:11]  This is Love Trap.
[00:33:13]  Laura, Scottsdale Police.
[00:33:15]  As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
[00:33:19]  Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges.
[00:33:26]  This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona.
[00:33:31]  Listen to the Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:33:41]  10-10 shots fired in the City Hall building.
[00:33:44]  A silver .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.
[00:33:48]  From iHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios, this is Rorschach, murder at City Hall.
[00:33:54]  How did this ever happen in City Hall?
[00:33:56]  Somebody tell me that.
[00:33:57]  Jeffrey Hood did.
[00:33:58]  July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.
[00:34:05]  Both men are carrying concealed weapons.
[00:34:08]  And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.
[00:34:16]  Everybody in the chamber's ducks.
[00:34:19]  A shocking public murder.
[00:34:21]  I screamed, get down, get down.
[00:34:22]  Those are shots.
[00:34:23]  Those are shots.
[00:34:24]  Get down.
[00:34:24]  A charismatic politician.
[00:34:26]  You know, he just bent the rules all the time, man.
[00:34:28]  I still have a weapon.
[00:34:31]  And I could shoot you.
[00:34:34]  And an outsider with a secret.
[00:34:36]  He alleged he was a victim of flat down.
[00:34:38]  That may or may not have been political.
[00:34:40]  That may have been about sex.
[00:34:42]  Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app.
[00:34:46]  Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:34:52]  Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back.
[00:34:58]  I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.
[00:35:03]  Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.
[00:35:08]  Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name.
[00:35:18]  And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more.
[00:35:23]  Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin.
[00:35:26]  He related to the Phantom at that point.
[00:35:29]  Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
[00:35:31]  That's so funny.
[00:35:32]  Shari, stay with me each night, each morning.
[00:35:41]  Say you love me.
[00:35:44]  You know I so come hang out with us in the studio and listen to playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

=== Gang Associations and Accusations (12:48) ===

[00:35:54]  And we're back.
[00:35:56]  So in September of 1995, there's another chapter in this escalating battle.
[00:36:04]  Witnesses say that they see Diddy's bodyguard get into an argument at an Atlanta club with a guy named Jai Hassan Jamal Robles, a member of Death Rows, who's like a death row guy, right?
[00:36:15]  And then after that argument, Robles is shot and killed.
[00:36:18]  And it's one of those like, well, he was having an argument with Combs' bodyguard, who's a shooter, and then he gets shot, right?
[00:36:25]  Turns out people with guns are willing to use this.
[00:36:28]  And by the way, Combs' bodyguard, who probably shot Robles, gets shot himself years later in Atlanta.
[00:36:34]  You know, not a long life.
[00:36:35]  Like I said, this is a back and forth kind of situation for a long time.
[00:36:40]  It's like it mirrors what is going on because these are people who are also gang related in all these situations.
[00:36:46]  It is a lot of bloods versus crips situation.
[00:36:49]  It's the early 90s.
[00:36:50]  This is actually a thing that's going on in the world.
[00:36:52]  It's tight into the organized crime part of it.
[00:36:55]  And the mob pyrus in California and the and the Crips in Los Angeles and Crenshaw.
[00:37:01]  It's like this is all happening at the same time.
[00:37:04]  Diddy is not a guy who comes out of gang life, but he is now involved in organized crime, right?
[00:37:09]  Right.
[00:37:09]  Because that's just one of the big implications for Diddy being involved in Tupac's death is that he was hiring Keith Steve.
[00:37:16]  Yeah, we'll be talking about that.
[00:37:18]  Right.
[00:37:19]  So it's like we get into this.
[00:37:21]  He is associated heavily with other gang members.
[00:37:23]  It's a bit like the Rolling Stones Hell's Angel shit, where it's like, who do you hire to protect you in your territory?
[00:37:30]  If you don't hire the people who are strong there, you don't have that.
[00:37:35]  And even to this day, you know, I've toured with some big acts.
[00:37:39]  I've toured with, you know, Jay-Z and Pusha T. I've toured with a lot of like mid-level like rappers, Vic Mensa and IDK, like all sorts of stuff like that.
[00:37:47]  Even to this day, when you go to a town, a city, you check in with the guy there on the rap tours, you check in with the Jay Princes.
[00:37:59]  You check in with the people that are the guy in that town out of respect, out of whatever.
[00:38:06]  But like you make sure that you are talking to those people.
[00:38:09]  So this is happening now.
[00:38:12]  Make no mistake, that was there were people that were in charge in those cities that were heavily like involved in the responsibility around protecting those incidences from happening.
[00:38:21]  Well, podcasting works the same way.
[00:38:23]  You know, when the last podcast on the left guys, when they tour in Portland, you know, they give Sophie and I a call check-in.
[00:38:28]  We make sure our shooters stand down.
[00:38:31]  You know, the pod save guys, when I go to DC, you know, fucking, they'll hit on the left guy if you don't call them.
[00:38:38]  Yeah.
[00:38:39]  Absolutely.
[00:38:40]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:38:41]  No, and I understand that.
[00:38:42]  You know, it's like, it's the hard thing.
[00:38:44]  It's very similar.
[00:38:45]  Yeah, the knitting circles are actually very similar as well.
[00:38:48]  Yeah.
[00:38:49]  Sophie just put out a hit on, and I'm really bad at actually knowing other people in the podcast business.
[00:38:54]  I was going to say Sarah Marshall, but y'all are real life friends.
[00:38:56]  Oh, my God.
[00:38:57]  I don't know how many times.
[00:38:59]  No, absolutely not.
[00:39:01]  I'm going to Chicago.
[00:39:03]  I got to call the knowledge fight, guys.
[00:39:04]  Make sure they don't fucking put one in me at the airport.
[00:39:10]  Oh, man.
[00:39:13]  So, and it's also worth noting as we say people are dying.
[00:39:16]  Combs is ordering hits, right?
[00:39:18]  I can't say that to a point of legal certainty.
[00:39:21]  There's no legal.
[00:39:21]  But he's ordering hits.
[00:39:24]  The implication is strong that people are being directed to execute other people on this, you know, by Sean.
[00:39:34]  I might not have said that a few months ago, but now that he's in jail, I feel confident he's not going to sue me for defamation.
[00:39:40]  Yeah, he definitely had people killed.
[00:39:42]  Yeah.
[00:39:43]  Yeah.
[00:39:44]  So it is also, and I should, you know, we're talking about this feud and we will get back to this East Coast, West Coast feud.
[00:39:51]  I should note here, it is around this time in 1993 or 1994.
[00:39:55]  I think the timeline's a little bit murky.
[00:39:57]  The person may not remember precisely because that's the way trauma works that Sean Combs is accused of committing his second rape that we know of.
[00:40:05]  Lisa Gardner, who was 16 years old at the time, he is in his 20s.
[00:40:11]  She is a child, says that she met Combs and Aaron Hall at an album release in New York.
[00:40:18]  She alleges that Combs coerced her into having sex and then Hall assaulted her.
[00:40:23]  And then Diddy rapes her.
[00:40:24]  And then Diddy and Hall rape her 15-year-old friend, Monica Chase.
[00:40:29]  So he and his friend, Aaron Hall, coerce and rape two underage people, one of whom is 15, one of whom is 16.
[00:40:38]  The day after the assault, Combs comes to her house, she says, and chokes her until she passes out and then sexually assaults her again.
[00:40:48]  This is bad stuff.
[00:40:50]  This is bad.
[00:40:51]  Very bad stuff.
[00:40:52]  Yeah.
[00:40:54]  And it's one of those like, yeah, ordering hits is bad too, but to an extent, everyone who's in this East Coast, West Coast thing is agreeing we're going to do some dangerous shit, right?
[00:41:05]  Yes.
[00:41:05]  Oh, yeah.
[00:41:06]  Like, so outside of the, because the sex assault stuff.
[00:41:09]  That's just.
[00:41:12]  Oh, no.
[00:41:13]  I'm just like, I can't.
[00:41:15]  Oh, my God.
[00:41:16]  You've got to, you've got to use this.
[00:41:18]  It's the only thing that you can do after talking about something that horrible.
[00:41:22]  It's necessary.
[00:41:25]  Oh, God.
[00:41:26]  No, but it's like, like, that's willing participant stuff, not the sex assault.
[00:41:30]  The gang stuff, this is willing participant stuff.
[00:41:32]  So it's like, it's a lot easier to sit back and, but like, the sex assault stuff happening cocurrently, it's like, it's that, what we were talking about, it's like, it's covering up almost or being covered up by the gang stuff.
[00:41:46]  It's like, we're over here thinking about East Coast, West Coast war, and he's raping girls.
[00:41:50]  Right.
[00:41:51]  It's like, that's, that's the thing that's like emphasis on girl about it.
[00:41:55]  Yeah.
[00:41:56]  Yeah.
[00:41:56]  It's like, it's like, there's one side where it's like, well, this is like a willing participant situation.
[00:42:00]  I mean, obviously, I'm not trying to say everybody that's hurt by gang violence is a willing participant.
[00:42:04]  But the rap thing.
[00:42:06]  Yeah.
[00:42:06]  Yes.
[00:42:06]  It's like between these two guys, they are fighting each other.
[00:42:09]  They are fighting each other.
[00:42:10]  They're causing the country to fight each other.
[00:42:12]  Like they're, this is a thing that's like escalating violence amongst people in gangs, you know, it's like, but willing participants, again, it's like, there's obviously collateral damage is obviously bad shit, but but the other side of this where it's like sexual assault stuff, it's like, damn, dude, like, and you don't even get that shit to the surface because there's people dying already.
[00:42:34]  And everyone's paying attention to the glamorous gang fight stuff, right?
[00:42:38]  And this is happening the whole time that's going down.
[00:42:40]  Also in 1994, the same year, probably, Combs allegedly met and raped a woman named April Lampros.
[00:42:47]  She claims that he started it by telling her he wanted to be her mentor.
[00:42:51]  He love bombed her.
[00:42:52]  And once they were dating, he ordered her to keep the relationship secret and started beating her.
[00:42:56]  Lampros later alleged that Combs forced her and his partner at the time, his romantic partner, Kim Porter, to take MDMA and then force them to have sex while he watched.
[00:43:07]  She attempted to cut off contact with him, but he threatened her, including with revenge porn.
[00:43:11]  So she keeps going for a while.
[00:43:13]  This would have been a thing that would have looked like they were dating from the outside.
[00:43:18]  But a big part of it is that he is violent.
[00:43:20]  And if she leaves, he's going to post videos of them having, you know, of, yeah, you know?
[00:43:25]  So.
[00:43:25]  And this is all a recurring theme in all of the Diddy stuff.
[00:43:28]  It's like he took that one playbook and just ran with it.
[00:43:32]  Play the hits every single time.
[00:43:34]  He just kept going with it because he knew that there is and there is a very truthful element to the power of influence like that you can have by just being who you are and being a big deal.
[00:43:46]  And it's scary because you think, especially with people like Diddy, where they actively know that they are untouchable.
[00:43:52]  Yeah.
[00:43:52]  They actively know that they're untouchable and that they can do whatever they want.
[00:43:55]  And these are, you know, like these are the two cases we have from the fucking the war years, right?
[00:44:01]  These aren't the only two.
[00:44:02]  Like again, what I'm saying is that's not a singular event type shit.
[00:44:05]  This is a pattern that he has, and he is engaging in this pattern regularly for basically like most of the time you and I have been alive.
[00:44:13]  That's the kind of bastard we're talking about.
[00:44:16]  I was five when he started.
[00:44:17]  Yeah.
[00:44:19]  Great.
[00:44:20]  I was three.
[00:44:21]  Yeah.
[00:44:22]  In September of 1996, Tupac was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.
[00:44:28]  Six months after that, Biggie is killed in a drive-by in Los Angeles.
[00:44:32]  No one was officially convicted of either murder, but we at this point also pretty much know who did both.
[00:44:37]  Biggie was very likely gunned down by a guy named Poochie.
[00:44:42]  Who you can imagine is the character from The Simpsons, if you like.
[00:44:46]  And he's gonna, at the end of it, he is going to his own.
[00:44:49]  He is going to here's the toughest part again.
[00:44:52]  Again, unreliable narrators.
[00:44:54]  Right.
[00:44:54]  Also, every single one of these people die.
[00:44:56]  Every single one of them gets shot in an early death.
[00:44:59]  Orlando Anderson, who was the likely killer of Tupac, also ended early.
[00:45:04]  Keefe D is the only one that stuck around for a while.
[00:45:07]  Amazing that Keefy D makes it.
[00:45:10]  Keefey D. You never think it's going to be Keefy, but it is.
[00:45:14]  Keefy D sticks around.
[00:45:15]  And he is as unreliable as they come just because of who he is as a person.
[00:45:19]  It is all, it's braggadocious shit.
[00:45:22]  It's all about like talking about, I was involved in this thing.
[00:45:26]  It is definitely, he was involved and he was in the right places.
[00:45:30]  But there's a lot of like, you know, it's even that way with Suge Knight, where it's like Suge Knight is bragging about a lot of this stuff and trying to like elevate.
[00:45:37]  And you don't get a complete narrative because nobody is ever going to tell the truth.
[00:45:43]  Right.
[00:45:43]  Right.
[00:45:43]  But as far as the evidence points, yeah, Poochie.
[00:45:47]  And I can also clarify here, you will find other theories.
[00:45:52]  There are people who say, no, it wasn't Poochie.
[00:45:53]  It was this other person that killed Biggie.
[00:45:55]  And the same is true with Tupac.
[00:45:56]  I'm going with like the likeliest version of the story.
[00:45:58]  This is not a litigate who killed Tupac podcast.
[00:46:03]  Right.
[00:46:04]  There's literally podcasts about nine different biographies.
[00:46:10]  There's biopics.
[00:46:12]  There's so many.
[00:46:13]  I've got a working theory that it was, in fact, Bernie Sanders who dropped Tupac.
[00:46:17]  Oh, damn it.
[00:46:18]  I was going to make that joke.
[00:46:19]  I was going to say it was Bernard Santa Bernie Sanders.
[00:46:22]  Sanders.
[00:46:23]  I was ready for this.
[00:46:26]  Damn it.
[00:46:27]  I was going to make that joke because I knew it was going to be a deep cut that like the real lovers of the pod would be like, oh, shit, he's one of us.
[00:46:36]  So as you noted, Tupac was almost certainly killed by Dwayne Keefe D. Davis, who was finally arrested last year for the murder.
[00:46:45]  He had been made a police informant in 2009 after an arrest for drug trafficking.
[00:46:50]  This is like a lot of people, he is not super well informed about how the legal system works.
[00:46:56]  And he believed himself immune to prosecution and admitted to killing Tupac in a drive-by in 1996.
[00:47:02]  All right, so heavily believed.
[00:47:03]  So the breakdown of this story, I'll try and get through really quick, but basically it was a Tyson fight in Las Vegas.
[00:47:09]  Tupac is there with his girlfriend and Suge Knight, he goes because he actually wrote a song for Mike Tyson's walk-in.
[00:47:17]  He wrote like a rap song for Mike Tyson.
[00:47:20]  And it's like, it's funny.
[00:47:20]  You should listen to it.
[00:47:22]  But it's, you know, it's a Tupac.
[00:47:23]  So he's there and he's watching the fight.
[00:47:26]  And then after the fight, he sees a guy, Orlando Anderson, who just weeks prior had taken somebody down and stolen their chain.
[00:47:35]  This is a big deal at this time.
[00:47:36]  You have a chain that says death row on it.
[00:47:39]  Suge Knight only gives those to the closest of associates and everything.
[00:47:44]  Podcasting works the same way, by the way.
[00:47:46]  Anybody takes my chain.
[00:47:47]  I'm going to come out blasting.
[00:47:49]  Yeah.
[00:47:49]  Orlando Anderson was involved in that.
[00:47:51]  Tupac sees him right after the Tyson fight.
[00:47:54]  He beats the shit out of him in a lobby and then goes back to his place.
[00:47:58]  And then Suge and Tupac are going to go to an after party.
[00:48:02]  They start driving down the street.
[00:48:03]  Orlando Anderson happens to be Keefe D's nephew, right?
[00:48:08]  And they are in a car together driving down the street.
[00:48:11]  And Orlando and Keefe, depending on which narrator you believe, one of them definitely plugged Tupac.
[00:48:19]  Now, in one of the greatest moments in Tupac history, in all history, fuck it.
[00:48:26]  The cop comes up to Tupac and he says, who shot you?
[00:48:30]  And Tupac says, fuck you.
[00:48:35]  Because even in death, he kept it real.
[00:48:40]  It is one of my favorite movies.

=== Tupac's Final Words to a Cop (06:08) ===

[00:48:43]  Those were like his last words.
[00:48:44]  That was his last words was saying, fuck you to a literal Johnny tight lips character.
[00:48:49]  Yeah.
[00:48:51]  Shut.
[00:48:51]  I didn't say nothing.
[00:48:52]  I didn't say anything.
[00:48:54]  Yeah.
[00:48:55]  Tell the doctor.
[00:48:56]  Tell him to suck it.
[00:48:57]  Second A. Second letter.
[00:49:00]  Exactly.
[00:49:01]  Literally like, who shot you?
[00:49:02]  He knows who shot him.
[00:49:04]  He just beat that guy up 10 fucking minutes ago.
[00:49:07]  You know?
[00:49:08]  He's like, nah, man, fuck yourselves.
[00:49:12]  Speaking of shooting people, don't do that.
[00:49:16]  Listen to these ads.
[00:49:22]  There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
[00:49:26]  Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
[00:49:29]  If you play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
[00:49:32]  And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
[00:49:35]  We always say, trust your girlfriends.
[00:49:39]  I'm Anna Sinfield.
[00:49:41]  And in this new season of The Girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man.
[00:49:45]  A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
[00:49:50]  I felt like I got hit by a truck.
[00:49:52]  I thought, how could this happen to me?
[00:49:54]  The cops didn't seem to care.
[00:49:56]  So they take matters into their own hands.
[00:49:58]  They said, oh, hell no.
[00:50:00]  I vowed I will be his last target.
[00:50:03]  He's going to get what he deserves.
[00:50:07]  Listen to the girlfriends.
[00:50:09]  Trust me, babe.
[00:50:10]  On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:50:19]  What's up, everyone?
[00:50:20]  I'm Ego Modern.
[00:50:22]  My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
[00:50:29]  It's Will Farrell.
[00:50:32]  My dad gave me the best advice ever.
[00:50:36]  I went and had lunch with him one day and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
[00:50:41]  I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
[00:50:43]  I'm working my way up through it.
[00:50:45]  I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
[00:50:47]  He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
[00:50:52]  Yeah.
[00:50:53]  He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
[00:50:56]  And he's like, just give it a shot.
[00:50:57]  He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
[00:51:06]  If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
[00:51:08]  It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
[00:51:15]  Yeah, it would not be.
[00:51:17]  Right, it wouldn't be that.
[00:51:18]  There's a lot of luck.
[00:51:20]  Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:51:28]  In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckard found himself at the center of a paternity scandal.
[00:51:35]  The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story.
[00:51:40]  This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.
[00:51:43]  You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
[00:51:47]  I doctored the test once.
[00:51:48]  It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.
[00:51:52]  I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.
[00:51:56]  Sunlight's the greatest disinfectant.
[00:51:58]  They would uncover a disturbing pattern.
[00:52:00]  Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
[00:52:02]  Greg Gillespie and Michael Marancini.
[00:52:05]  My mind was blown.
[00:52:07]  I'm Stephanie Young.
[00:52:08]  This is Love Trap.
[00:52:10]  Laura, Scottsdale Police.
[00:52:12]  As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
[00:52:16]  Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news out of Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges.
[00:52:23]  This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona.
[00:52:28]  Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:52:38]  10-10 shots fired in the City Hall building.
[00:52:41]  A silver .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.
[00:52:45]  From iHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios, this is Rorschach, murder at City Hall.
[00:52:51]  How could this have happened in City Hall?
[00:52:53]  Somebody tell me that.
[00:52:54]  Jeffrey, who did it?
[00:52:55]  July 2003.
[00:52:57]  Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.
[00:53:02]  Both men are carrying concealed weapons.
[00:53:05]  And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.
[00:53:13]  Everybody in the chamber's ducks.
[00:53:16]  A shocking public murder.
[00:53:18]  I scream, get down, get down.
[00:53:19]  Those are shots.
[00:53:20]  Those are shots.
[00:53:21]  Get down.
[00:53:21]  A charismatic politician.
[00:53:23]  You know, he just bent the rules all the time, man.
[00:53:25]  I still have a weapon.
[00:53:28]  And I could shoot you.
[00:53:31]  And an outsider with a secret.
[00:53:33]  He alleged he was a victim of the flat down.
[00:53:36]  That may or may not have been political.
[00:53:37]  That may have been about sex.
[00:53:39]  Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:53:49]  Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back.
[00:53:55]  I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.
[00:54:00]  Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.
[00:54:05]  Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name.
[00:54:15]  And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more.
[00:54:20]  Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin.
[00:54:23]  You related to the Phantom at that point.
[00:54:26]  Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
[00:54:28]  That's so funny.
[00:54:29]  Sherry stay with me each night, each morning.
[00:54:38]  Say you love me.
[00:54:41]  You know I.
[00:54:42]  So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

=== Puffy Pocketing Millions in the 90s (12:23) ===

[00:54:51]  We are back again.
[00:54:57]  Oh, no.
[00:54:58]  No, no.
[00:55:02]  Oh, man.
[00:55:05]  Shame.
[00:55:05]  Shane.
[00:55:06]  So much shame.
[00:55:08]  Fuck.
[00:55:09]  So, Tupac.
[00:55:10]  We're talking about Tupac, who was almost certainly killed by Dwayne Keefe D. Davis.
[00:55:15]  So Davis, while believing himself immune to prosecution, admits to killing Tupac in 1996.
[00:55:20]  This is much more recently.
[00:55:21]  He just got arrested, I think, last year.
[00:55:24]  And he also claims, while he, again, believes himself immune, that Diddy offered him a million dollars to kill Tupac and paid that fee to a different Southside Crips member to do the job.
[00:55:35]  And he did not get that money ever.
[00:55:37]  No.
[00:55:41]  Wow, he got fucked over by a fucking rap gangster.
[00:55:44]  Amazing.
[00:55:45]  Diddy's not a man of his word.
[00:55:47]  Man, this guy.
[00:55:48]  No, so one of the things, so Keefy D had actually been a security guard for Puffy for a while.
[00:55:53]  And like, and that's how that link had been established.
[00:55:56]  You know, one of the things that's like, there's parts of this whole story that you have to kind of take with like a bit of like, I don't think Keefe D was actively like seeking out Tupac or anything.
[00:56:08]  I think there's a situation where if Puffy was involved in this whole situation, the way that it has been accused, I think he did what they say he did, which is he put a word out.
[00:56:17]  The word is, if you kill Tupac, I give you a million dollars.
[00:56:20]  Right.
[00:56:21]  And then I think Keefe D and Orlando Anderson happened to be in the right place at the right time, right?
[00:56:30]  They were at the right place at the right time.
[00:56:32]  They were connected in the right situation that it happened that they were like, we know where this motherfucker is.
[00:56:38]  We are here right now.
[00:56:40]  Let's do this shit.
[00:56:41]  And we'll try and collect on this later.
[00:56:43]  And I think probably, although I don't think it was a million dollars, right?
[00:56:48]  I could be wrong about this, but I think what it was actually transferred was like 200,000 or something like that.
[00:56:53]  This is what Keefe D says, right?
[00:56:55]  I'm not saying this is the literal amounts or how it actually happened.
[00:56:58]  So I think that that's exactly like, I think it got transferred.
[00:57:01]  I think people didn't like the one guy definitely pocketed that money or according to the story, pocketed that money.
[00:57:08]  The in-between guy pocketed that money and was like, okay, bitch.
[00:57:12]  But I think that, you know, again, unreliable narration in this whole story, but there's some, I don't think it was intentional is my point that they were trying out at that moment to kill Tupac.
[00:57:24]  They didn't go to Vegas with the intent of killing Tupac.
[00:57:27]  I think they went to Vegas to see a fight and there was an incident and then it just turned up and it was a perfect time, you know?
[00:57:34]  Yeah.
[00:57:34]  It seems more like that than it was a premeditated situation of they're out there looking to kill Tupac like they're on the street ready to do it.
[00:57:42]  Like Biggie saw Keefe and was like, I will give you this money.
[00:57:45]  Go kill him now.
[00:57:46]  And he went there directly.
[00:57:48]  I think it was a crime of convenience more than anything.
[00:57:50]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:57:50]  That seems likely to me.
[00:57:52]  I don't know what happened.
[00:57:53]  And again, when I was saying this is what this guy says, I'm not saying this is literally what happened.
[00:57:57]  This is a dude bullshitting to the cops that he thinks he's immune.
[00:58:01]  Right.
[00:58:01]  So the cops had him reach out to the guy that he said actually got paid for the job and to Diddy, basically trying to get Diddy on a wire being like, yeah, killing Tupac was rad.
[00:58:12]  Right.
[00:58:13]  I don't think that worked.
[00:58:14]  Sean is not that dumb and he has nothing to do with it.
[00:58:16]  He has notoriously been very good about not talking to the wrong people.
[00:58:21]  Yes.
[00:58:21]  You know?
[00:58:22]  And he has not been charged with this.
[00:58:23]  I don't know that he ever will.
[00:58:25]  But prosecutors summarizing one of the interviews with Keefe D in court documents wrote, and this is from right after Tupac's death, Sean Combs reaches out to defendant, wondering if Southside Crips were responsible for Shakur's death by asking, is that us?
[00:58:37]  Defendant, beaming with pride, answers yes.
[00:58:40]  And that is probably how it went down because often these things are not like, I ordered a hit and then he was shot.
[00:58:46]  It was more, I made it known and I spread some money around.
[00:58:49]  Like I wanted someone to take a shot at this guy, but like other people could have done it.
[00:58:52]  Like I don't know.
[00:58:54]  You know?
[00:58:54]  This is what I'm talking about, the clout industry of this, because it is part of entertainment industry.
[00:58:59]  It's part, it's part male ego.
[00:59:01]  And like, especially at this time, like the way that the rap industry was was like very like strong, like male ego-centric type stuff.
[00:59:08]  You know, it was like Tupac literally, the beef between him and Biggie, like, you know, Biggie made who shotcha and he responded.
[00:59:15]  Tupac responded with saying, you claim to be a player, but I fucked your wife.
[00:59:19]  You know, like he came back with what at that time was considered the most, and the rumors around him and Faith Hill actually having, you know, a relationship were certainly like, that's real shit.
[00:59:31]  You know, like, this is a real like manly type fight.
[00:59:34]  You know, this is what they're fighting about is these chauvinistic type concepts.
[00:59:38]  Yeah.
[00:59:38]  No, I mean, it's exactly like I put two bullets in Dan from Knowledge fight, you know, not because I didn't like him, just because, you know, he was on my turf, right?
[00:59:47]  You know, he was on my turf and he didn't call me before Jordan went to Portland.
[00:59:51]  You know, this is just the way nobody likes it.
[00:59:53]  This is just the way podcasting has to be.
[00:59:55]  There's no other way to do it, you know?
[00:59:57]  Sorry, man.
[00:59:58]  There's no other way to do it.
[00:59:59]  Yeah.
[00:59:59]  Yeah.
[01:00:00]  One of the NPR guys stabbed me.
[01:00:02]  You know, that's just the way it is.
[01:00:03]  One of those Radio Lab guys.
[01:00:04]  I'm not going to tell you which one.
[01:00:06]  I don't talk except for I'm talking about it.
[01:00:07]  I ain't no snitch.
[01:00:08]  I ain't no snitch.
[01:00:10]  I'll snitch on Joe Rogan.
[01:00:12]  I'll snitch on Joe Rogan.
[01:00:13]  Yeah, I'll snitch on Joe Rogan being so fast.
[01:00:15]  Let me find out some news on him.
[01:00:18]  So anyway, not conclusive, but probably pretty safe to say.
[01:00:21]  Diddy had something to do with the Tupac killing.
[01:00:25]  At the very least, he influenced it by positively putting that word into the hood.
[01:00:29]  Right.
[01:00:30]  Right.
[01:00:30]  If you kill him, there's money on it for you.
[01:00:32]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:00:34]  And, you know, obviously the greater crime in this is the fan art that this whole tragic rivalry has inspired.
[01:00:40]  I'm speaking specifically.
[01:00:41]  I wrote this episode listening to a bunch of Tupac and Biggie socks.
[01:00:45]  And while I was, you know, how YouTube does its thing, and it took me to a playlist some DJ had made that was like Tupac and Biggie songs called Biggie versus Tupac.
[01:00:53]  This has nothing to do with the story, but whoever made it did a Photoshop that Sophie's going to show you.
[01:01:00]  And it's supposed to be like split down the middle, Tupac's face and Biggie's face side by side.
[01:01:07]  But the way they did it, it just looks like Tupac had a stroke.
[01:01:12]  Oh, God.
[01:01:13]  I can already picture it.
[01:01:14]  Yeah, Sophie, to show it off.
[01:01:17]  Okay, I got it.
[01:01:19]  It just looks like Tupac's stroke down.
[01:01:21]  It's just like the way like Biggie's got kind of those drooping eyes.
[01:01:26]  Not a successful Photoshop, my man.
[01:01:28]  I'm sorry.
[01:01:29]  Oh, my God.
[01:01:30]  Here's the thing, man.
[01:01:31]  Just like, you know, just like NWA, you know, the largest consumers of this East Coast, West Coast rap world were suburban white kids.
[01:01:38]  You know, it's like, and this is true with even today, like you get into like the Travis Scott stuff.
[01:01:43]  You get into like any rap that's like, you know, it is largely consumed by suburban white kids who also, I'm sorry, guys, like, you know, same team or whatever, but you guys could be some of the dumbest, corniest people that exist on the planet.
[01:02:01]  Like that is pretty brutal, man.
[01:02:03]  Like the doubt, like the as a suburban white kid who was listening to fucking Biggie when I was 15.
[01:02:10]  Yeah, me too.
[01:02:11]  Sorry, guys.
[01:02:13]  Yeah.
[01:02:13]  We just weren't really nailing it.
[01:02:15]  I'm going to be a gangster one day.
[01:02:19]  Plano fucking tech.
[01:02:21]  God, that was so funny.
[01:02:22]  All the kids who would pretend to be fucking gangsters.
[01:02:25]  Oh, my God, dude.
[01:02:26]  They're just our large consumer of that beef.
[01:02:30]  And also, even today, we're still sitting with this, the Kendrick Drake thing right now that is going on.
[01:02:35]  I don't know how plugged in you are to this.
[01:02:36]  I've tried to tell you.
[01:02:37]  It seems largely egged on by like suburban white populists.
[01:02:43]  No, and I honestly, I'm considering taking some shots at Drake.
[01:02:47]  This seems like the time to do it.
[01:02:49]  Yeah, he's low.
[01:02:50]  He's low.
[01:02:51]  You can really get some in and nobody can say anything.
[01:02:53]  This is going to be an easy pod.
[01:02:57]  Punching down on Drake with whatever, 400 billion fucking streams on Spotify.
[01:03:03]  So Sean Puffy Combs at this point has helped to orchestrate Half a Coast's campaign of assassinations that led to the deaths of two of the greatest rappers of all time and also some other people.
[01:03:13]  This was a tough period for Diddy though, because after Biggie dies, he's successfully gotten rid of one of his major competitors at the cost of losing his own golden goose.
[01:03:23]  Sort of.
[01:03:26]  He waited a whole two weeks to release his.
[01:03:28]  That's exactly what I'm saying.
[01:03:31]  Yeah, so he releases his first hit single in January of 1997.
[01:03:35]  An album follows in July, which includes a touching tribute to Biggie titled, I'll Be Missing You.
[01:03:41]  That might as well be titled, I'll Be Cashing In on Your Death.
[01:03:44]  Although the complaint that you're going to get from this, people are going to be like, but he never cleared the sample, right, from Sting.
[01:03:50]  Right.
[01:03:50]  Yeah, he samples Sting's every move you take, right?
[01:03:53]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:03:54]  The greatest crime.
[01:03:56]  Yeah, he never clears it.
[01:03:57]  And he, to this day, like, Sting collects a pretty big amount of cash off of that.
[01:04:02]  However, don't also forget that this is a time in the world where appearances pay, radio play pays, like everything pays.
[01:04:11]  This isn't Spotify era where like, you know, the song being everywhere in the entire world doesn't give you any money, even though you're not getting any publishing off of it.
[01:04:20]  Because when you record it yourself, you own that, that's the master recording.
[01:04:24]  You own your version of it for certain things, right?
[01:04:29]  Publishing is one thing.
[01:04:30]  They can take all the publishing and you still make money off of that song because it plays places.
[01:04:36]  So it's not like he made no money off of that.
[01:04:40]  I just know like people are going to, but he didn't cash in on that because Sting did suppose.
[01:04:45]  No, it's like there's still money to be made, especially in the 90s.
[01:04:48]  There was still a lot of money to be made off of having a number one song in the country.
[01:04:53]  This is the first rap single to debut at number one on the Billboard Top 100.
[01:04:57]  Like he makes a lot of money as a result.
[01:05:00]  Everybody knows this song.
[01:05:01]  He comes out at the VMAs dancing in a white suit.
[01:05:06]  It was actually iconic.
[01:05:07]  It's actually iconic.
[01:05:09]  The Biggie memorial in the background.
[01:05:11]  Oh, God.
[01:05:12]  Dead friend's huge face.
[01:05:13]  Is he just fucking cash register sounds going off?
[01:05:16]  Immediately.
[01:05:17]  And there is also real quick, just to backpedal a second, there is a lot of talk about Biggie wanting to leave Puffy's label before this happens.
[01:05:29]  There is interviews with tons of people.
[01:05:31]  Again, unreliable narrator type stuff, but there is a lot of interviews of people saying that Biggie wanted out of his deal with Bad Boy because he felt like Puffy was taking advantage of him.
[01:05:44]  He felt like he wasn't getting what he should from his music, that he wasn't getting like, I think at the time, like he was worth like maybe $20 million or something like that, you know, but he was not like reaping what he actually should have from 90s era music.
[01:06:02]  You know, it's like when you had a banger in 90s era music, you made like $50 million.
[01:06:09]  It was like an insane amount of money that you could make.
[01:06:12]  Like if you talk about 90s bands, they were selling, they were still selling physical product.
[01:06:17]  It's not like now with streaming and stuff like that.
[01:06:19]  They were selling a physical product.
[01:06:20]  So if you had a platinum album in the 90s, you made 25, 30 million.
[01:06:27]  If your label didn't screw you, if you weren't getting fucked over, you made like 30 or 40 million dollars.
[01:06:34]  Like you made in a tremendous amount of money.
[01:06:36]  There's a lot of, there's a lot of conversation about Biggie having known that prior to his death, which also leads to the implication that he may have actually been involved in Biggie's own death.
[01:06:49]  Yeah, and we're largely just staying away from that because it's not provable and the stuff that's provable is honestly a lot worse.
[01:06:56]  Again, very unreliable narrators everywhere, but it should at least be known that there is the theory out there in the world that that is something that goes on, you know, that that happened and that was what he was part of with that.
[01:07:09]  Well, that's going to do it for part two.
[01:07:12]  Will, you got anything to plug before we roll out?

=== Blue Sky Thoughts on Cancel Culture (04:42) ===

[01:07:15]  Man, I have podcasts.
[01:07:16]  If you are a nerd and you like audio stuff, but not nerdy audio stuff, I have a podcast called That Sounds About Right with my friend Shane Lance, who is a polar opposite of me as a human.
[01:07:28]  He's very Christian, very positive human being.
[01:07:31]  And I am divorced three times.
[01:07:34]  So we make a good pair.
[01:07:36]  And we talk about cool audio stuff about our own careers and a little inspirational.
[01:07:42]  I mean, it's called That Sounds About Right.
[01:07:44]  I also am found all over the internet on things from YouTube to TikTok under Greasy Will, Greasy Will Music, Greasy Will.
[01:07:52]  I'm easy to find a Z and only one L on Will.
[01:07:55]  Yeah, check him out.
[01:07:57]  And check me out on Blue Sky at iWriteOK and check out our other podcasts.
[01:08:03]  Are you loving Blue Sky?
[01:08:04]  I heard that.
[01:08:06]  It's fine.
[01:08:06]  That's great now.
[01:08:07]  Yeah, I'm happy.
[01:08:08]  You actually liked one of my shits the other day on your thing and people were very excited about it.
[01:08:13]  Yeah.
[01:08:13]  I don't have many followers on Blue Sky, but I share some really dark twisted thoughts on there.
[01:08:18]  So, you know, if you're into that, you can find me there too, I'm sure.
[01:08:21]  Watch Will cancel himself and watch me cancel myself all on Blue Sky.
[01:08:27]  Blue Sky.
[01:08:30]  All right.
[01:08:30]  Well, that's it.
[01:08:33]  Behind the Bastards is a production of CoolZone Media.
[01:08:36]  For more from CoolZone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:08:46]  Behind the Bastards is now available on YouTube.
[01:08:48]  New episodes every Wednesday and Friday.
[01:08:51]  Subscribe to our channel, youtube.com/slash at BehindTheBastards.
[01:08:58]  When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
[01:09:06]  I vowed I will be his last target.
[01:09:09]  He is not going to get away with this.
[01:09:11]  He's going to get what he deserves.
[01:09:13]  We always say that, trust your girlfriends.
[01:09:18]  Listen to the girlfriends.
[01:09:19]  Trust me, babe.
[01:09:20]  On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:09:30]  What's up, everyone?
[01:09:31]  I'm Ago Modern.
[01:09:32]  My next guest, it's Will Farrell.
[01:09:36]  My dad gave me the best advice ever.
[01:09:39]  He goes, just give it a shot.
[01:09:40]  But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
[01:09:47]  If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
[01:09:50]  It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hanging in there.
[01:09:57]  Yeah, it would not be.
[01:09:59]  Right, it wouldn't be that.
[01:10:00]  There's a lot of life.
[01:10:01]  Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:10:09]  In 2023, bachelor star Clayton Eckard was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.
[01:10:16]  You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
[01:10:20]  I doctored the test once.
[01:10:21]  It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern.
[01:10:26]  Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
[01:10:28]  Ray Gillespie and Michael Ranchini.
[01:10:31]  My mind was blown.
[01:10:32]  I'm Stephanie Young.
[01:10:34]  This is Love Trapped.
[01:10:35]  Laura, Scottsdale Police.
[01:10:37]  As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
[01:10:41]  Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:10:49]  10-10 shots five, City Hall building.
[01:10:51]  How did this ever happen in City Hall?
[01:10:53]  Somebody tell me that.
[01:10:55]  shocking public murder.
[01:10:57]  This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics.
[01:11:03]  They screamed, get down, get down, those are shots.
[01:11:07]  A tragedy that's now forgotten and a mystery that may or may not have been political, that may have been about sex.
[01:11:13]  Listen to Rorschach, Murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:11:23]  I'm Lori Siegel, and this is Mostly Human, a tech podcast through a human lens.
[01:11:27]  This week, an interview with Open AI CEO Sam Altman.
[01:11:31]  I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to the products we put out in the world.
[01:11:38]  An in-depth conversation with a man who's shaping our future.
[01:11:42]  My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI.
[01:11:45]  Listen to Mostly Human on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
[01:11:53]  This is an iHeart podcast.
[01:11:56]  Guaranteed human.