2Pac was ready to take aim at Common from a lyrical perspective during Ice Cube’s beef with the Chicago rapper in the mid 1990s, according to Outlawz member Napoleon.
In a sit-down interview with The Art of Dialogue, ‘Pac’s former protégé said the late All Eyez On Me rapper “looked up to Cube” and was down to defend him against Common Sense — only he was dealing with his own friction with the N.W.A legend.
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“I remember when the East Coast-West Coast thing was heating up, I think Common and Cube was going through their beef, like they were dissing each other,” Napoleon said. “I remember ‘Pac was like, ‘See, if I was cool with Cube right now, I’d be going after Common for him, but now I’m staying out of it.'”
He continued: “‘Pac had a lot of love for Cube. I never heard him say anything negative about him. I think at one particular time they were closer, and maybe they just went their separate ways. But that’s the only thing I heard him say about Cube, but he definitely respected Cube.”
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Napoleon went on to say that because 2Pac and Common “had a lot in common,” his former groupmate “would’ve regretted going at him.”
“Good thing he didn’t go at Common ’cause they like the same. If they ever had met each other, they would’ve had a lot of love and respect for each other.”
Ice Cube dissed Common on the 1995 Mack 10 track “Westside Slaughterhouse” in response to his classic ode to Hip Hop, “I Used to Love H.E.R.,” which he felt was a slight against West Coast rappers and their growing dominance in the industry.
This caused the Chi-Town native to fire back with a diss record of his own, “The Bitch In Yoo.” Both men were able to squash their beef after meeting with Minister Louis Farrakhan in 1997 and later appeared in the 2016 movie Barbershop: The Next Cut together.
Common previously reflected on the feud in a 2014 interview with 93.7 The Beat, where he spoke about being flattered by Cube acknowledging him and how his “warrior” nature meant he wasn’t about to back down.
“I’m a warrior at the end of the day,” he said. “At the point it was just for me one of those things where if you continuously diss me then I’m gonna have to come back at you. And when I come back at you I’m gonna come like for real.”
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He added: “First of all, I loved Ice Cube and N.W.A. I grew up listening to them. So, when I first even got dissed by Cube I was mad, but I was kinda like ‘Dang, he know who I am.’ I was kinda happy that he knew who I was ’cause I was just getting out there. But I felt that it was necessary for me to do that cause you just can’t walk over me.”
