Tupac’s funktion som mentor till the Notorious B.I.G. var en gång i tiden på gränsen till att förvandlas till ett mer officiellt förhållande, menar författaren Ben Westhoff, som i en ny intervju med Complex Magazine påstår att Biggie, vid ett tillfälle, tillfrågade Tupac att bli hans manager:

“People forget that Tupac was already blowing up, already a pretty big star when Biggie was just kind of getting started. Tupac kind of took Biggie under his wing and tried to teach him everything he knew, kind of took him to school. Biggie’s career wasn’t taking off as fast as he hoped it would. And so he actually asked Tupac if he would be his manager.”

Tupac ska sedan ha avböjt Biggie’s erbjudande, med en motivering som handlade om hur Pac redan var i väldigt kapabla händer hos Puff Daddy och Bad Boy Entertainment, där Biggie kom att bli skivbolagets mest framträdande ansikte utåt. Westhoff förklarar att det var närheten mellan Tupac och the Notorious B.I.G. som gjorde deras senare konflikt så mycket mer allvarlig:

“After he got shot, Tupac believed that Biggie knew about it in advance, knew it was going to happen. That made him doubly mad because he mentored Biggie so much and helped him, and he really believed that he double-crossed him.”

Lyssna på Complex Magazine’s intervju med Ben Westhoff nedan:

//Ludvig Löfström

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