Good point about “siding” to be honest even with the fans who may have had healthy debates almost everyone loved the music from both artists.
By the way what was the background to the No Fear music video? My memory fails me
Got something in the back of my mind about a club or studio incident but then it all being squashed soon after
BCC and Big/Junior Mafia were all cool at one point. Tek specifically cuz he's from the same neighborhood as Biggie and JM and they were all extremely tight with one another, about as tight as Tek was with his other BCC fam. He used to kick it with JM members and Biggie on a regular.
Top Dog from OGC used to sing a verse/chorus at shows that he used on "Da Storm" ("I could be as good as the best....or as bad as the worst...so don't test me"). According to every version of the story I ever read or seen, Big was at one of their shows where OGC absolutely tore it down, got love from the crowd, yadda yadda. And Big dapped them up, showed love, etc. too. Mind you, they were all still cool at this point.
Later down the line, Biggie drops the Get Money remix and is using the same hook that Top Dog/OGC/Fab 5 used to rock with at shows.
They took it as him biting. Smif N Wessun specifically stayed neutral about it, but didn't hold their youngins from saying or doing whatever they felt. Hence the video dissing him and Rock throwing the fake Biggie off the stage.
Starang also dropped a radio freestyle dissing Biggie. Shyt eventually got violent when Big's goons caught Starang in a studio and pistol whipped him and fukked him up. Biggie got killed shortly after that, so it got squashed. Everybody from JM and BCC are cool now and have been for years.
As Rock has explained numerous times, the whole shyt was stupid and just youngins being young and dumb. Top Dog "bit" (no pun intended) the chorus his damn self from a dancehall song, so it wasn't like Big stole an original idea from them. It was some hip-hop shyt. Flip/sample from anyone outside hip-hop, but to do it to someone in the culture is considered violating.