Hit 'Em Up

"Hit 'Em Up" is a song performed and written by Tupac Shakur and his clique, The Outlawz. It is known as a 'diss song'; that is, a song which has the purpose of verbally assaulting and insulting a person or a group of people. It is widely regarded as a classic diss, and is the most well-known Tupac diss. This song samples Dennis Edwards's "Don't Look Any Further" and repeats "take money" in the background as satirical play on Junior M.A.F.I.A.'s "Get Money" .

Tupac intended "Hit 'Em Up" as a response to Biggie and Puffy knowing about but not warning him of the November 30, 1994 shooting in New York but was released afterwards in 1995. A brutal diatribe, "Hit 'Em Up" was released on the "How Do U Want It" single in 1996. Besides Biggie and Puffy, Lil' Kim and Junior M.A.F.I.A., Chino XL, and Bad Boy Records were also targeted. Originally, there was a Jay-Z diss in the rather lengthy outro, but Hussein Fatal of the Outlawz convinced Shakur that Jay-Z should not be attacked since he hadn't been aggressive to Shakur. The several seconds of silence of the outro before Shakur spouts, "Fuck you die slow motherfucker, my fo-fo make sure all y'all kids don't grow" was the part aimed at Jay-Z. This is verifiable by studio footage of Shakur. The censored line is: "Jay-Z, Lil' Kim, Lil' Caesar, fuck you!"

Many people at the time felt that this song went 'too far', what with Shakur's claim that he had slept with Notorious B.I.G.'s wife, Faith Evans, and the attack on Prodigy of Mobb Deep having sickle-cell anemia. Many listeners and critics have also criticized it for further inciting violence in the 1990s East Coast-West Coast rap wars. None of the criticism affected Tupac at all, and he seemed very proud of the song. He remarked that "Hit 'Em Up" was a "classic battle record."

Many rappers from New York responded to the song. Biggie made reference to 2Pac's claims the he slept with his wife on Jay-Z's track, "Brooklyn's Finest" saying "If Faith had twins, she'd probably have two Pac's Get it, Tupac's". Mobb Deep later released a diss called "Drop a Gem on 'Em" and teamed up with LL Cool J to diss him again on his "I Shot Ya" remix. Lil' Kim dissed him along with Faith Evans. The Jay-Z and an underground rapper Sauce Money dissed him on "Dead or Alive 1 & 2". The C-N-N and Mobb Deep dissed the west coast on "LA, LA". Even the Fugees dissed him a few times.

It is mostly noted as a "shock value" song, aimed at simply discrediting the Notorious B.I.G. and Bad Boy Records. XXL called it the #1 diss song ever.

This song has featured on two of Shakur's albums:

• How Do You Want It (2Pac single) Original version of the song.
• Greatest Hits Original version of the song.
• Nu-Mixx Klazzics Re-mix--Same lyrics, different beat and slightly edited.

Parody use

The song was used as an Anti-Barney humor song with an online video which appears that Barney and other characters are rapping, it is humorous because of the adult content of the song which opposes Barney's status quo of a children's atmosphere.

Other uses

The song is often dedicated as a hate song to other people mostly perhaps by the most hated member in Internet forums. Often the most hated member posts the lyrics of the song for everyone to read often removing Biggie and other Bad Boy names with the usernames with one whom hates. They are also many other variations of the song, one includes attacking the Republican Party by using George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as the subjects instead of Biggie and Mobb Deep.

In his feud with Everlast, Eminem utilized the same lyrical format and beat of "Hit 'Em Up" in the second part of his diss "Quitter." While the track starts with an ominous beat vaguely reminiscent of "The Way I Am," it switches up in the middle of the song to the "Hit 'Em Up" beat. Eminem's crew D12 takes the place of Tupac's Outlawz.

In 2006, shortly after Terrell Owens was signed into the Dallas Cowboys, he created his own version of Hit 'Em Up, this time dissing the Philadelphia Eagles his former team that terminated his contract due to bad behavior.