1995351 words · 2 min
Little Shawn on the Night at Quad Studios
Tupac was supposed to rap on his song, then burst bleeding from the elevator: how Little Shawn pushed back in Vibe in 1995 against accusations and threats.
Original: Statement by Little Shawn, titled “Little Shawn on the NY Shooting” in the archive · Vibe · 1995
Inside Quad Studios, it was packed like a party, and somehow everyone knew that Tupac was coming. That night, he was supposed to rap on a song by a Brooklyn rapper: Little Shawn. But when the elevator opened, Tupac burst out, shouting that he had been shot and set up. The back of his head was split open and bleeding, and for a moment nobody dared approach him, he was so agitated. In his 1995 response to Vibe, Shawn described that night and pushed back against Tupac’s account.
Dispute Over Tears and Warnings from the West Coast
To Little Shawn, Tupac’s interview made no sense. He insisted that the claim Andre Harrell and Puffy wouldn’t look at Tupac was untrue; he himself had helped, even though he barely knew Tupac. What particularly angered him was the claim that he had been “crying uncontrollably”—he had already gotten into fights with people over it.
Since the interview, people had been claiming that he had something to do with the robbery, and warnings were coming from the West Coast telling him to be careful. He called Tupac a “Media Man” who enjoyed being in the newspapers with every arrest. He himself was no “media gangster.”
Signed to Uptown: Who Little Shawn Was
Little Shawn, born Tyrone Wilkins, was signed at the time to Uptown, Andre Harrell’s label. In 1995, his single Dom Perignon featuring The Notorious B.I.G. was released. His account of the scene in the studio broadly aligns with the reports of Harrell and Combs; in their assessment, all three contradict Tupac.
From Hints to a Coastal War
No evidence of any involvement by Little Shawn in the robbery ever surfaced. The threats he mentions show how quickly Tupac’s hints turned into a conflict between the coasts that went far beyond music. Wilkins later performed under the name Shawn Pen.
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