Almost 29 years later, there are still new details coming out about the 1994 shooting that eventually changed the hip-hop game forever and Billy Garland is here to share some. Billy Garland revealed that Biggie himself visited Tupac at the hospital shortly after the Quad Studios shooting on November 30, 1994, where Pac was robbed and shot 5 times.
In the wake of the impressive success of the “Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni & Tupac Shakur” docuseries, Tupac’s father Billy Garland found himself under the spotlights. After revealing how he felt when he first heard the classic “Dear Mama” track, Garland now provides more new and exciting details about the time he spent with his son.
In his recent interview with The Art Of Dialogue, Tupac’s biological father revealed that after Pac was taken to Bellevue Hospital at 462 First Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, he was there in the waiting room alongside Afeni Shakur and other friends and relatives of the late rapper. While waiting for the 2 and a half hours-long surgery to be done, Garland noticed Biggie – “by himself” entering the waiting room to come and check on Tupac’s condition.
“I’m waiting in the waiting room, Biggie came in, by himself. By himself,” Garland says in the video. “So that shit I heard about them being involved in that, I been around, I’ve done these things, okay? I been around a lot of drama. And I know, nobody who does a hit goes to the hospital by they goddamn self.”
“Now, they may go to the hospital mob style, but they taking two or three muthafuckas with them. He was there by himself. Just as innocent as you wanna be. Just as nice as you wanna be. And I knew, and I think Pac’ knew, he had nothing to do with it. I think they was feeding him that bullshit,” Garland continues.
When asked if he told Tupac that Biggie came to visit him in the hospital, Billy confirmed but also clarified that he used his time to talk about other topics with his son.
“Yeah, I think I did, but…I don’t think that was the conversation that we would really talk. We talked about so many other things – his mother, this and that. How you doing pops and sh*t like that,” Garland says in the video.
“I might be the only motherf*cker who didn’t take nothing from my son…who didn’t take nothing from my son,” he adds.
Watch the 3 minutes and 50 seconds-long video above.
Its a good reminder Biggie was never involved in that, but, its not really news.
I’ve known about it for decades.
Legend has it Biggie held onto Tupac’s burners he pulled out on the robbers and part of the reason he visited the hospital – other than to visit his friend, who was nearly killed – was to return them (to Stretch or whoever was holding Pac down while the doctors worked on him and he recuperated).