Saafir: I was in the studio in downtown Oakland working on a song called “Hype shyt” (from
Boxcar Sessions) about a situation that really happened to me, and I asked Casual to be on it. I did it out of respect for the fact of him asking me to freestyle on his album. But I gave him more action with it out of the love for him even giving me a little more than a snippet, because I didn’t ask him to come on my album to do a freestyle. I wanted him to come on my album to do a song. My song was about muscle cars, and I had a couple actually. I thought it would it would be some hard, Oakland shyt, and I was trying to really put him on.
I told Casual about it, and he was like, “That’s cool. Alright I’m on my way to the studio.” It got to the point where it was a couple hours, and I called him again asking him “What’s up brotha? Are you coming?” He said, “Yeah, yeah. I’m on my way right now en route,” and I said “OK. But look bruh, if you can’t make it, tell me and it’s good. I’ll jump on some other shyt.” He replied, “No, I’m coming...on my way.” I told him again, “OK, cool. I’ll see you when you get here, man.” I hung up, and he never came nor called. Nothing. I was disappointed that he didn’t come because I had the song planned for him, but I finished the song. I did two versions to it, and kept it like it was a mission.
Casual: After a while, Saafir really caught feelings because I wasn’t available for his studio session for the recording of his album, claiming that I cost him money. But if anybody knows the true nature of the industry, it doesn’t work like that. If somebody can’t make it to the studio, switch your songs and do something else until I can make it. It ain’t like you’re sitting there with nothing to do, or if you do that then that’s your fault. But we bumped heads over that 20 years ago, and we reconciled however we felt back in the day. It eventually came to the point where we were discussing the matter. I thought and said to him that he was “putting too much on it.” And he responded: “Oh I’m putting too much on it, huh?” Then the next thing you know we had beef or what have you.
Saafir: I didn’t trip on it, and I have no problem with Casual. We cool now, and the Hieroglyphics Imperium I wish them more success. I’m happy with them and they got my respect. We started off as folks. But the problem was not about him not coming to the studio—it was about
afterwards. The next day, I went to Domino’s (Hieroglyphics producer) house going towards North Oakland, coming from the lake area. I knocked on the door, and Domino and them were playing videos games. And we start speaking like, “What’s happening, bruh?” Everything was going cool. So I asked him, “What happened to you last night?” And his response was, “Awww you putting too much on that. You going out.”
And I envisioned myself firing on him and anybody that jumped up when he said that. But I was thinking “Naww…” Because if I get violent and start boxing, I was gonna take it to the streets heavy. And I remember that I looked at him and everybody in that room, and said, “OK, brotha. It’s cool...alright, my nikka. I’ll just holla at you another time,” then left.
What it was all about was some Rap shyt, and I would keep it in the spirit of that. I felt like he was dissing me. How you gonna tell me, “I’m putting too much on it” or, “I’m going out” if I’m asking you, “What happened to you last night?” and you said you were coming, like I was beneath you or something? It was about the arrogance of it. I didn’t let nobody disrespect me like that. So I felt like I had to respond. If you disrespect me, we fightin’. And if I get my ass whooped, I’ma take that ass-whopping like a man. But I know I stepped up, handled it and stood my ground like a man. Anybody that knows me knows I been like that.
Casual: Basically the battle was manufactured when he started going on the radio rapping his raps about me and stuff.
Saafir: I was just on the radio clowning. I was just freestyling, and I said his name. But I don’t remember the freestyle totally because it was a freestyle. But I even do remember saying, “Let’s take it to wax” in my rhyme on the radio, and that I wanted to get on record and do it. It was just to show that nikkas wasn’t as dope as they thought they were, that they were really gassed, and that I can rhyme. It was a situation in which the best way to deal with it was on a real Hip Hop level. We actually got down on stage at his show. The crowd was big, and he was flippin’. The doorman wouldn’t let me in at first. I told him that I was Saafir, and he said “No you’re not.” I told him “Let me in. I need to do something and talk to that dude on stage.” The doorman wouldn’t let me in until someone came to the door saying, “Hey, what’s up Saafir!” So he let me in. Then I just creeped from the crowd and got onstage. I was on the sideline, and the crowd started going crazy. So Casual instantly stopped the show and said, “Wassup?!” I said, “What’s hap’nin? We gonna battle!” It was some classic Hip Hop shyt. He had his DJ put a beat on, and he went in on me. Then after him, I went in on him.
Casual: That happened at a club called The Independent now, but back then it was called the Kennel Club. Somebody came to me from the side of the stage, and I was in my prime back then, so it was full of my people. Not only was it full of my people from Oakland, but also my people from San Francisco were there. And I guess he was there with his boys, and they were old enough to go to the show, which was cool. They wanted to present his animosity to me. So somebody came to me saying, “Saafir is at the front door.” So it was a safe situation obviously, because it was my party. [I said], “Let him in.” And they were over there saying, “He got problems,” so I said, “Give him the mic.” So that was when the initial shyt went down.
At that session I learned, before the other battle on the radio, that he was prepared. Because he came with some written raps to a show while I was not even thinking about it [laughs]. And when he got onstage he had “writtens.” I wasn’t about to be giving that beef no respect like that. I was thinking, “I’m not about to think and write no raps for you, bro.” I was gonna approach it like whatever I say after what you say is gonna be strictly off-the-top.
Saafir: I did something in the midst of that battle, and he was flowing really tight. He was in my face calling me all kinds of stuff, and I did something to throw his focus off. I won’t say specifically what it was, but it completely threw him off his game.
Casual: I do not remember that, but I think him spitting written raps about me shocked me. It was odd.
Saafir: At the end of the battle, he said “We can do this on the radio, on KMEL.” So I said, “Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s go! Wassup?”
Casual: We had a lot of occurrences in between those battles. Some people would see each other in the streets and espoused our beef, taking it to their hearts to do shyt that even we didn’t want to do.
Sway: It was the period that happened where there were rumblings between those crews, and I thought, “Wait a minute…hold up. Why y’all beefing? This is a great thing about to happen.” It was well known in the Bay Area about the beef before we brought them on the
Wake Up Show. I think Souls of Mischief came up on the
10 O’Clock Bomb, and I thought they were saying something indirectly about Hobo Junction on the show. Then I feel like the Hobo Junction came on the air and kind of said something too. And I felt like these dudes were trying to make a platform on my show for the wrong reason. So I told Tech about it, but then I used to be an instigator kind of. So I said, “We should just have a battle, and battle it out on the
Wake Up Show.” I figured we should air that episode out in the Bay Area because we were doing both down in L.A. at that time.
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/edito...ory-of-saafir-vs-casual-s-wake-up-show-battle
. That was embarrassing.