[jballer]

Tan didn't just pull these words out of thin air, they are lyrics from 2Pac's "Hit 'Em Up"

> F** Mobb Deep! F** Biggie! F** Bad Boy as a staff, record label, and as a motherf**' crew!

> And if you wanna be down with Bad Boy, then f** you too! Chino XL, f** you too! All you motherf**s, f** you too!

> All of y'all motherf**s, f** you, die slow!

https://genius.com/89450

[kvathupo]

As a Tupac fan and lover of print news, I think this article encapsulates what's wrong with modern media: the selective use of context to engender a political stance, from which outage is engendered

The problem isn't social media or long-form print news, but the 24-hour news cycle in my humble opinion. As we saw in the case of that shocking bombing of a Palestinian hospital, I've increasingly felt that once reputable media companies have prioritized returns (eyeballs) over news. Indeed, many of these paragraph long 24-hour updates reuse the same sentence structure I noticed.

[iosnoob]

It's mentioned in the article (reference to Tupac song)

[jballer]

It’s buried and incidental when it should be the lede.

Invoking an artistic expression of “I can’t find words strong enough to convey how much I loathe what you stand for” is very different from making a literal death wish.

[flir]

You'd strain yourself less if you went for "but he was drunk".

I see it's flagged, too. tbh, flagging Twitter drama's probably a good thing in general. I mean, he deleted and apologised.

[whoknowsidont]

That's cool, why did he choose these lyrics? The context actually makes it worse if you know why Tupac wrote those lyrics.

This is legitimately not okay. He needs to step down.

[tptacek]

Nobody is stepping down over awkwardly quoting Tupac.

[pvg]

He should be threatened with feeling the wrath of a menace in a reprimand on official company letterhead.

[tptacek]

This is one of those times being bored and reading all Dan's comments has led me into a truly stupid thread, which I then truly stupidly engaged in.

[pvg]

It's super hard to resist continuing to reply with inlined 'pac quotes, too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiCjD5qVV_U

[tptacek]

i deserve this

[whoknowsidont]

Framing this as "awkward" is so stupidly disingenuous. I surely hope you are not serious, though this is HN so I guess I shouldn't be surprised by this line of commentary given the audience and people involved.

[mlrtime]

> He needs to step down.

lol, step down? From what, the cellar comedy stage?

[slater]

Y Combinator. Of which he's the CEO.

[zoklet-enjoyer]

It's from Hit Em Up. I say variations of it all the time. Kind of a meme

[jballer]

Whoops, thanks - I corrected myself and linked to the right one but didn't update the text til now.

[zoklet-enjoyer]

Speaking of Tupac, specifically diss tracks, the original version of When We Ride On Our Enemies is probably my favorite.

https://youtu.be/2Fwg1W_C28E

High Til I Die is another good one, not a diss track https://youtu.be/LxNTvHSNIYQ

When I was in high school in the early/mid 2000s, there was a series Tupac bootlegs going around. Makaveli 1 - ¿10ish? That's all on YouTube now and probably torrents. Songs getting leaked on message boards too. He put out so much good material in such a short span of time. He was working on collabs with Boot Camp Clik and some other east coast guys and was supposed to do more stuff with Bone Thugs. He had a compilation album he was working on called One Nation that was supposed to end the stupid East/West thing. Which reminds me, it blew my mind when I could get on myspace and talk to one of the guys from Boot Camp Clik about it.

[defrost]

Pretty sure K'naan won the East Coast - West Coast diss war https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ouDZkX1Yh8

[choppaface]

So the violent message was an e/accident ?

[darth_avocado]

Didn’t read the article because of the paywall, but I’d be surprised if the article mentions this. Mission local is a very pro the board of directors, and if you don’t live in SF, they are absolutely terrible. They don’t deserve to die, but they absolutely deserve to be kicked out.

[lucasjans]

The article mentions this.

[almost_usual]

Downvoted for stating the obvious? Did anyone read the article?

> On Saturday morning, Tan apologized about the death wish in a subsequent post, saying he was simply referencing a lyric in Tupac’s “Hit ‘Em Up,” but that it “wasn’t a good call” regardless. The notorious diss track famously added fuel to the fire of East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry, leading to Tupac’s murder in a drive-by shooting just three months after its release.

[jballer]

The article is tragically revisionist and completely ignores the context:

People tried to kill Tupac, then Tupac went off on them, then people killed Tupac.

The article summarizes this as “Tupac said mean things and it got someone killed.”

[dragonwriter]

The distinction you make would be significant if that article was about Tupac and his justification or lack thereof in writing the lyrics, but it is completely immaterial to an article where what is relevant is Tan and his reference to the lyrics.

[jballer]

The article’s central claim is that to quote these lyrics is to “wish death” on the people you’re naming. The context leads me to the exact opposite interpretation: it’s a righteous condemnation of others for wishing death on you.

[chmod775]

Yeah, that's unreadable unless you're used to the modern U.S. English spelling of "fuck".

> Fuck Mobb Deep! Fuck Biggie! Fuck Bad Boy as a staff, record label, and as a motherfuckin' crew!

> And if you wanna be down with Bad Boy, then fuck you too! Chino XL, fuck you too! All you motherfuckers, fuck you too!

> All of y'all motherfuckers, fuck you, die slow!