As part of a Twitter Spaces hosted to celebrate what would’ve been the Notorious B.I.G.’s 50th birthday, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs told Jay-Z he “filled” the shoes of Biggie and 2Pac after their deaths.
Hov and Diddy were in attendance at the TIDAL-hosted event, when Jay said the death of Biggie and Pac left a “void” in the rap world.
“As far as Big and ‘Pac and pushing forward, that’s just me being a student of the game and loving the game and loving the culture and wanting to push the culture forward,” said Jay, as heard in the clip below. “That was the challenge that I was faced with and that’s a void. That’s a big void. Others stepped in to fill it as well, not just myself. That’s a big void. That’s the two pillars right there. Imagine that, within a year.”
It was at this point during the conversation that Diddy made sure to give Hov his flowers for stepping up after such a huge loss.
“Bro, you filled them shoes though. You came in and we definitely give thanks. You definitely came, and I just know how much Big really looked up to Jay,” said the Bad Boy Records founder. “They looked up to each other. That is crazy you had to step into the shoes of two people. That’s all it was was those two people. They had things on lock.”
When Jay released his debut studio album, Reasonable Doubt, in 1996, both Pac and Biggie will still thriving. In fact, Biggie appeared on the record. By the time Jay dropped his second album, In My Lifetime, Vol. 1, both rappers had been murdered.
“Hov was coming, but it was like these two cats was just so big, and so to have all of that come on you and have that responsibility to keep this shit fly and keep the art of it going,” Diddy continued. “I think Hov kept the art of it going and take where they was at and take it even higher.”
Jay also took a minute to speak on how in 1995 or ’96, Biggie wanted to go to Atlanta with him and “get, you know, two big houses next to each other” as they continued pursuing success.
“And I’m looking like, Atlanta?” Jigga recalled. “I’m like, ‘We’re the hottest guys in New York City, like in the world, in the Mecca. Why we going to Atlanta?’ And you think about Atlanta, how Atlanta is today and how influential Atlanta is, like you just see how much of a visionary this guy was. … All the things that he was talking about was just like way ahead of his time.”
As part of the celebrations for what would’ve been Biggie’s 50th birthday on Saturday (May 21), the late rapper’s estate released his first new single in 17 years, “G.O.A.T.” Featuring Ty Dolla Sign and Nigerian R&B singer Bella Lubo, the track repurposes lyrics from his Life AFter Death song “I love the Dough,” which originally featured Jay-Z.
