Lil Cease was one of The Notorious B.I.G.‘s closest friends before his untimely death, but even he has been left picking up his jaw off the floor after discovering the sample behind the late rapper’s classic song “Who Shot Ya?”
In a video posted on Instagram by the Notorious B.I.G. tribute band The Frank White Experience, the Junior M.A.F.I.A. rapper can be seen listening to David Porter’s 1971 track “I’m Afraid the Masquerade is Over,” which provided the soundbed for Biggie’s infamous 1995 diss track against 2Pac.
While listening to David Porter’s song, Cease realizes that it was flipped by Diddy, The Trackmasters and Nashiem Myrick for “Who Shot Ya?”
He says while vibing to the soul record: “So this where it came from? Like, damn! This shit is like school for me, I like to find shit like this. They was on some shit!”
“Who Shot Ya?” was originally meant for Mary J. Blige but Diddy and Uptown Records executives thought it was “too hard.”
“I’m Afraid the Masquerade is Over” originally came out in 1971 from Porter’s album …Into a Real Thing.
He is an inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and known for his collaborations with Isaac Hayes, Aretha Franklin and James Brown.
In other Lil Cease news, the Brooklyn native previously admitted that Biggie actually wrote all of his rhymes.
“I started rapping after Biggie passed when I had to write my album. In them times before that, Biggie was writing the raps for me,” he said in an interview with VladTV. “Everybody else was writing their rhymes though.”
“Most of the artists from Junior M.A.F.I.A rapped; I just wasn’t a rapper. It was an idea he had just for me performing with him that whole year before we got our record deal. His album came out in ’94, we came out in ’95, so it was like a business move for him, something he wanted to try out.”
Cease added: “He used to try to get me to rap. I was just intimidated because this n-gga was so nice, so dope. I can’t write nothing nowhere near close to what the fuck this n-gga was doing.
“He used to always tell me, ‘Don’t worry about what you say, it’s how you say it.’ He was just like ‘Yo, I’m going to write you a bunch of raps, and you going to deliver them.’”
This guy always seemed mentally handicapped tbh
And still doing better than you in life with no government assistance that’s gotta sting #NODIDDY
Seems like BIG was loyal to his friends… which is ironic that he hooked up with such a snake in Puff who is the antithesis of loyal.
How you not going to understand the architect? That’s crazy. Do I knew this way before Ceass, a biggie homie knew it? Wooow. What was cease listening to growing up?
He listened to Biggie growing up.
It’s one of the most well known samples in rap music, how is he just discovering this?
Shit, he didn’t even write his own rhymes so I’m not surprised he didn’t know about 70’s samples. Same sample as Duel of the Iron Mic.
Hope they got permission before using the beat
My mind gets blown after reading 30 y.o. news.
Who shot ya was definitely not a 2pac diss track
WORD…
FKN stop.
“Who shot y@” was recorded waaay B4 their beef started BUT released during it. This is like spreading a HUGE FALSITY to the of narrative EVERYTHING to do with their situation.