upon his first single, "Party and Bullshit," sought and met Tupac. In August and September, in New York to rap, Tupac visited Biggie in Brooklyn, and they rapped shows together in Manhattan. Biggie joined Tupac and Randy "Stretch" Walker—of the Live Squad rap/production team from Queens, New York—yielding a new trio of running, rapping, and recording mates.Tayannah Lee McQuillar & Fred L. Johnson III, Tupac Shakur: The Life and Times of an American Icon (Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2010), pp 150–151. Yet in July, Puffy's firing from Uptown Records paused Biggie's album recording, an 18 months total while Biggie struggled financially.Shani Saxon, producer, "Back 2 the essence: Friends and family reminisce over hip hop's fallen sons", Vibe, 1999 Oct;7(8):100–116, wherein pp 110–116 cover Biggie and p 112 covers his entry to the music industry. Puffy placed Biggie as guest on two more singles, Mary J. Blige's "What's the 411?" remix and Super Cat's "Dolly My Baby." Tupac, star of the films Juice and Poetic Justice had his second album Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... (1993) yield his first Top 20 hits on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, "I Get Around" and "Keep Ya Head Up". In November, in New York shooting March 1994 film Above the Rim, he socialized much with underworld boss Jacques "Haitian Jack" Agnant.Justin Tinsley, " 'Hip Hop Uncovered' tells the story of the feared 'Haitian Jack' ", TheUndefeated.com, ESPN Enterprises, Inc., 12 Feb 2021. Brooklyn boxer Mike Tyson advised Tupac, "I think you're out of your league." Tupac's first Rolex purchase was to enter Agnant's circle. Biggie recalled presence at the purchase, but Tupac's thereupon maybe favoring company wealthier than Biggie, who warned Tupac to avoid Agnant. Tupac, feeling Agnant a friend, reportedly told him of the advice, causing Biggie backlash from Agnant's circle. In June 1996, Biggie reflected, "There's shit that motherfuckers don't know. I saw the situation and how shit was going, and I tried to school the nigga." "He knows when all that shit was going down, I was schooling a nigga to certain things, me and Stretch—God bless the grave." Stretch died in an unsolved shooting on November 30, 1995. "But he," Biggie said of Tupac, "chose to do the things he wanted to do. There wasn't nothing I could do. But it wasn't like he wasn't my man." By the November 30, 1994, nonfatal shooting of Tupac, he and Biggie, as