Ya' sounds exactly like a track that accidentally launched rap's biggest feud between Biggie and Tupac." In 2009, the biographical film Notorious was released, and Rahman Dukes, who with coworkers had done research for it, announced, "Biggie himself clears up 'Who Shot Ya' misunderstanding." Dukes prefaces that Lil' Cease, who was Biggie's main rap buddy, as well as DJ Mister Cee, who had discovered Biggie, denied it as a Tupac taunt. Dukes adds, "Hell, even Diddy"—formerly Puffy—"shot down those claims." Dukes asserts, "Only the late, great B.I.G. could clear matters up, but we all know that's not possible." Dukes reports a "long-lost freestyle" with "a few bars," "a bit of hard-core evidence," but leaves it for listeners to judge. On the other hand, in 2010, rap magazine XXL assessed "8 subliminal diss records" and appraised, " 'Who Shot Ya?' remains highly contested, but the lyrics to 'Long Kiss Good Night' were even more direct." "In the April 2003 issue of XXL, Lil' Cease confirms the record was aimed at 'Pac, while Puff contends that 'If Biggie was going to do a song about 2Pac, he would have just come out with it and said his name.' " Released posthumously, "Long Kiss Goodnight" itself features Puffy's ad lib disclaimer—And we ain't talking about no other rap niggas—but this song, nonetheless, "was definitely about 'Pac, no 2 ways about it," concludes XXL by citing other lyrics.XXL meanwhile estimated about "Who Shot Ya?" that "the timing of its release and the perceived subliminal shots"—including allegedly "telling lyrics" in Biggie's second verse, new in the single—"lead us to believe that this was most likely a diss record." In 2014, however, Bad Boy staff producer Chucky Thompson, key in Ready to Die production, and witness to "Who Shot Ya" production, asserted, "I still have that recording with me today, and him saying that phrase had absolutely nothing to do with Tupac." Nashiem Myrick, the song's main producer, asserted, "We have no reason, no motive, at all, to have set 'Pac up. What's the motive? What's the issue? It's no issue. So, nah." However, in August 2022, former Bad Boy Records president Kirk Burrowe's admitted on Youtube that the Notorious B.I.G.'s song "Who Shot Ya?" was indeed intended for Tupac. Burrowes then candidly explains himself, elaborating that the artists may not have known but that his former record label boss Sean Combs thinks in different dimensions