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""Hit 'Em Up""
Single by 2Pac featuring the Outlawz
Released	4 June 1996
Format	12-inch single
Recorded	1996
Genre	West Coast hip hop Gangsta rap
Label	Death Row/Interscope
Producer	Johnny "J"
2Pac featuring the Outlawz singles chronology
"How Do You Want It" (1996) "Hit 'Em Up" (1996) "All Bout U" (1996)
Audio sample
Info (help·info)

"Hit 'Em Up" is a diss song by Tupac Shakur, featuring his rap group the Outlawz. It is the B-Side to the 1996 single "How Do U Want It".The song viciously insults several East Coast rappers, chiefly Tupac Shakur's former friend and enemy, The Notorious B.I.G.. "Hit 'Em Up" was produced by long-time collaborator Johnny J and samples "Don't Look Any Further" by Dennis Edwards.

A brutal diatribe, in "Hit 'Em Up" Shakur's venom was aimed at two other hip hop artists, The Notorious B.I.G. and Sean "Puffy" Combs, who he believed had advance knowledge that he would be robbed and shot in a November 30, 1994 incident in New York City, but didn't warn him (and possibly played a role in the incident). By extension, Shakur also took aim at Combs' Bad Boy Records and B.I.G.'s associates Lil' Kim and Junior M.A.F.I.A.. (The phrase "take money", which is repeated throughout the song, is a satirical play on Junior M.A.F.I.A.'s recent hit, "Get Money".) Mobb Deep and Midwest rapper Chino XL were also targeted. Jay-Z was originally insulted in the song's lengthy outro - right before Shakur says: "Fuck you, die slow muthafucka, my fo-fo make sure all y'all kids don't grow!" - but Hussein Fatal of the Outlawz convinced Shakur that the Brooklyn rapper had been neutral and the insult was erased, leaving several seconds of silence in its absence in certain remade versions of the song.

Some people at the time felt that this song had gone 'too far', with Shakur's claim that he had sexual intercourse with Notorious B.I.G.'s wife, Faith Evans, and his derision of Mobb Deep's Prodigy for having sickle-cell anemia. It was also criticized for intensifying the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry, and in hindsight, cited as the turning point towards the violence that later claimed the lives of both 2Pac and Biggie. Shakur disregarded criticism that he had taken the traditional hip hop rivalry to a dangerous extreme, remarking that the song was a "classic battle record". XXL later appointed "Hit 'Em Up" "the #1 diss song ever". A sequel was later released.

The Notorious B.I.G. humorously responded to Shakur's claims that he had slept with his wife on "Brooklyn's Finest", a duet with Jay-Z from the latter's 1996 debut Reasonable Doubt, rapping, "if Faith had twins, she'd probably have two Pacs/ Get it? Tu...pac's."

One of Shakur's most popular songs, it would reappear on a number of releases:

• How Do U Want It Original Single feature this song on a b-side.
• Greatest Hits features the song upon track 13 on disc 1.
• Nu-Mixx Klazzics features a remix of the song, with the intro lyrics from the originally explicit version and the main lyrics from the edited radio version.
• Live at the House of Blues features Hit Em Up, the concert was Tupac's last live performance, and the song was available on DVD and CD.
• This song also appears on Death Row Greatest Hits
• Parodied by Eminem(who is a 2pac fan)in the 2nd half of his song "Quitter" which in itself is a diss rap aimed at Everlast.