They can be known as grudges, feuds, or commonly in the hip hop world as beefs. We are of course talking about musicians that fall out with each other for professional or personal reasons and declare war on one another. These type of conflicts can start with an argument about money, politics, talent, image, or pride and can end up with a biting war of words played out in the media, threats, physical attacks and in the most extreme cases death.

We look at some of the most famous music industry grudges, how they started and the main events that defined them.

#1 – Tupac vs Notorios B.I.G.

Christopher Wallace (aka Biggie or The Notorious B.I.G.) and Tupac Shakur, (2Pac) started out as friends but things quickly turned sour after a shooting at a studio in New York.

In 1994 2Pac entered the Quad Studios before being confronted by two men in ski masks. They ordered Tupac and his entourage to the ground in a attempt to rob them. Tupac was shot in the incident and shortly afterwards members of The Notorious B.I.G. entourage arrived downstairs, although they were not robbed despite wearing expensive jewellery.

The timing of the incident led 2Pac to believe that he had been set up by Biggie and matters were not helped when Biggie released the track ‘Who Shot Ya?’ shortly afterwards. Media coverage heightened the ill feeling further and labelled the fallout as an East Coast v West Coast war.

The grudge came to a sad end 2 years after the initial incident. Tupac was killed in a shooting in 1996, and Biggie was gunned down 6 months later. To this date no one has been convicted of either murder.