Tupac releases 'Hit 'Em Up' — the most notorious diss track in hip-hop history

Why it matters

"Hit 'Em Up" came out as the B-side to "How Do U Want It" on June 4, 1996. Tupac produced it (with Johnny J). The instrumental is a re-recorded interpolation of Junior M.A.F.I.A.'s "Get Money," a Bad Boy-camp single, which Tupac flips against Bad Boy itself. The song is the most direct, most personal, most line-by-line vicious diss track in the history of commercial rap. Tupac names Biggie. He names Puffy. He names Lil Kim. He names Mobb Deep. He names Chino XL. He says he slept with Biggie's wife Faith Evans. The Outlawz come in for the back half and pile on. The whole record runs five minutes. It is also, structurally, a very well-crafted rap song; the beat slaps, the cadence escalates, the structure tightens. "Hit 'Em Up" is the song where the East/West conflict crossed the line from beef into the kind of public, lyric-level personal warfare that is hard to walk back from. Tupac would be dead three months after it dropped. Biggie would be dead nine months after that. You can listen to it now and hear two careers about to end.