Apr 24, 1997493 words · 2 min
Tupac and Biggie on an Anti-Violence Single
Two murdered rivals on a track against gun violence: How Trapp's single “Stop the Gunfight” entered the R&B charts in April 1997.
Original: “Tupac, Biggie Turn Up On Anti-Violence Rap” · MTV News · no byline · April 24, 1997
No. 41 for two murdered rappers
In late April 1997, MTV News reported a chart entry with a bitter aftertaste: the single Stop the Gunfight had debuted at No. 41 on Billboard’s R&B chart. The track featured Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. By that time, both rappers had already been shot and killed.
Behind the song was Trapp, a rapper from Atlanta. According to MTV, he wrote the track after his younger brother was killed in a gang-related shooting. He had reportedly worked with Tupac and Biggie before the two made it big. As additional guests, he brought Chocolate Chip, Southside Clik, and Trey onto the recording.
Trapp explained the record’s late release by pointing to disinterest from labels: they had wanted more than a single. For three years, he said, he worked up to 70 hours a week to finance the album himself. He intended to donate part of the proceeds to a gun buyback program run by the civil rights organization Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Four-year-old verses about drugs and bullets
The chart figure holds up under scrutiny. Billboard records Stop the Gunfight entering the R&B singles chart at No. 41 in its issue dated April 26, 1997. A week later, the track peaked there at No. 35. On the Hot 100, it reached No. 77, and climbed to No. 9 on the rap chart. It was not a major hit, but a notable success for a project without a major label behind it.
What the report only hinted at: the verses were not new. According to Billboard, Trapp took Tupac’s and Biggie’s verses from a joint recording the two had made roughly four years earlier. That explains a disconnect pointed out by Billboard itself: on a song against gun violence, the two rhyme about drugs and bullets. The album of the same name features two tracks with both voices.
A plea for peace after two murders
The timing turned the single into a symbol. Tupac had died of his gunshot wounds in Las Vegas on September 13, 1996. Biggie was killed in a drive-by shooting in March 1997, about six weeks before Stop the Gunfight entered the charts. Companions in the early nineties, the feud between the East and West Coasts had turned them into public enemies.
A record uniting both voices under an appeal against violence therefore struck a nerve. It was not a reconciliation: the recordings dated back to the time before their falling-out, and neither man could be asked anymore whether this was how he wanted to be remembered. Just how deeply the two murders occupied the scene was also demonstrated in May 1997 by a conference at Harvard University that discussed rap, violence, and responsibility.