Today marks the 15-year anniversary of the murder of Biggie Smalls, and in light of his passing, Chuck D is expressing remorse for suing the slain MC.
In a new interview, the 51-year-old opened up about filing a copyright-infringement and defamation suit against Biggie over the unauthorized use of his vocals on the DJ Premier produced track “Ten Crack Commandments.” The suit was settled in 1998 for an undisclosed amount, but looking back, the Public Enemy frontman says that the whole thing was one big misunderstanding.
The issue was with Sean “Diddy” Combs and Bad Boy Records, rather than Biggie himself. “Well, my thing is I don’t go after anybody,” he told HipHopDX. “But in that particular case, which was coming from Bad Boy, which was BMG, which was who sued me on another—it was like one of those things. So it really had nothing to do with Biggie. Nothing. It had nothing to do with [DJ] Premier, and at the end of the day, it was Def Jam and Bad Boy, it was BMG and Universal. It was really one of those … it was just stupid.”
On the flip side, Chuck said that the fact that Diddy failed to reach out to him and talk things out didn’t help the situation. “I told Puffy, I said, ‘You know, you guys, when it comes down to me give me a heads-up. Don’t be doing something [when] you know where I am and you know where I come from. How you gonna just go and do some Shyte like that and not talk to me?’ And from that point on, it was cool.”
For what it’s worth, Chuck is no stranger to taking legal action if he sees fit. Last year he filed a $100 million class-action suit against Universal Music Group for unpaid royalties.
He’s serious about his bread.
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Photo: Chuck D
