on it—but he couldn't finish it. Puff said, 'Go get your man Big, and get him on that record: we have to have it done by Monday.' It was Friday. Found Big. Big came to the studio, blessed me. And that's history." (LL Cool J, around this time managed by Puffy, was a guest—along with Biggie, Busta Rhymes, and Rampage—on a remix of Bad Boy's first single, Craig Mack's "Flava in Ya Ear.") Junior M.A.F.I.A. Biggie, when variously interviewed and asked about "Who Shot Ya," explained the lyrics as portraying a young drug dealer's turf war against an older drug dealer, that "I wrote," and that it "was finished," too, "way before" late November 1994. "It was supposed to be the intro to that shit Keith Murray was doing on Mary J. Blige's joint," Biggie asserted. Mainstays at Biggie's recording sessions were members of his rap clique Junior M.A.F.I.A., especially Lil' Cease, who recounts his alliance with Biggie from their Brooklyn neighborhood, whom Biggie brought into the music industry, and who seemingly was one of only two persons within the music industry whom Biggie thoroughly trusted. In 2017, Cease indicated that "Who Shot Ya" recording, too, was "way before" late November 1994, but that "Keith Murray, LL Cool J, and Big" were the original artists on "Who Shot Ya," planned as "the intro to Mary J, My Life, album." Cease added that once this original was rejected as "too hard" for her album, Biggie took it and, adding a verse to replace Keith Murray's verse, made it his own. Industry rumor mill The November 1994 attack on Tupac was a turning point in American popular music. Although Biggie never conceded the accusation, "Tupac Shakur and a legion of his fans interpreted the Biggie B-side 'Who Shot Ya?' as a troll job," a barely veiled taunt. In any case, a "rap battle" ensued. Tupac's June 1996 answer song, "Hit 'Em Up," taking lyrical menace to unprecedented extreme, was personal and overt, "arguably the most passionate and unhinged diss record in history." Tupac had been otherwise incarcerated across 1995 into October, but associating menace and homicide began before Tupac's release from prison.Cathy Scott, The Killing of Tupac Shakur, 3rd edn. (Las Vegas: Huntington Press, 2014), p 241. The new trend in rap culture promptly figured into pop culture. Lost friendship In May 1993, on Bad Boy's first visit to Los Angeles, Biggie,