How did the whole Naughty altercation start?
It started because Tony decided that he wanted to do this record called “Get Off My Rhythm” that he put out on his own label. He asked me if I wanted to do it with him, I’m like “cool, what you wanna do?” “You know I’m just sick of people stealing my beats.” I’m like “Tone, this is hip hop!” So I said cool, let’s do it. I come from the battle era, so why not? We did this record and at the end of the record he said something like “fukk your puny little unit” talking about Flavor Unit. And I was thinking “wow Tone, you really got personal on this thing.” See I knew Flavor Unit. Lakim and I were label mates! Plus I used to go to East Orange all the time, I would run into Latifah now and again, we would do shows. So anyway, Lakim didn’t want to step to me about it, so they had this little dude that was coming into Flavor Unit, I guess he figured “I’mma get my stars and stripes on” and he decided that he was gonna diss me.
That’s how that started. How it ended was, we got into a lot of fights, arguments and actual physical fights between the two of us and his crews. And I ended up moving to New York. When Manny and I became partners I ended up becoming the youngest rap artist have his own office on Broadway, the same building as The Source. I’m only 20 years old, living! And one day I was leaving my office and this Benz passes by with this arm hanging out. This big black ass arm hanging out the damn car window. And I’m thinking “I wonder if that’s Treach.” Not two seconds after I thought it, he pulls over and gets out the car. And when I was in New York there were two things I never left [home] without. One was a pistol. Two, I had this dagger that went from here to here [shows length of right forearm]. I had a fatigue jacket on. So when I saw him I started to run towards him, digging in my arm. And I guess he must have thought I had a gun or something, but really I was pulling a knife out of my jacket. So he’s like “Yo! Wait a minute! I’m coming to peace this shyt out.” And I’m thinking hold up money, we done got into too many altercations for this. But I backed up. Mind you, my piece is in my car. So I get in my car, and so he’s leaning [over the window] trying to see what I’m putting down, like “yo man, I really think we should squash this beef shyt.” I’m like “yo man I’m not gonna be getting jumped in clubs” because we done had other altercations, one at the “Ill Street Blues” video, one at a club called Mars when I’m hanging out with John Singleton and Ice Cube right before
Boyz In The Hood. So when he said it, I’m thinking cool. He put his hand out to shake my hand and I shook it, thinking that was it.
But Jack The Rapper comes up in Atlanta. We in Atlanta, chillin and I got Daniel Hastings. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that name, but Daniel Hastings is a Latino [photographer] who shot the Wu-Tang cover, he shot my cover for
The Ghetto’s Been Good To Me Album, he shot
Diary Of A Mad Band,
Return Of The Boom Bap. So he, this guy named Chris who designed the Wu [logo], my attorney and my accountant were all in Atlanta, eating at, I think it was the Hyatt. So we just there chillin and somebody says “yo Treach just walked in.” So I look to the back of me and I could see this orange, like, a prison jumpsuit and he had this huge ass bike chain around his neck. A bicycle chain, literally, with a lock. And so I said, don’t worry about it, I just saw him in New York, everythings cool, we’re good. So I’m in the middle of spooning some food and talking and next thing you know there’s this bright ass orange suit right next to me, with this lock. I can see it out the corner of my eye and I don’t want to turn. I don’t even want to look at this shyt because I’ve got my attorney here, I got my accountant here, it’s all business, we’re talking business. And this dude, who does he have with him? Treach never went anywhere without a gang of folks. I look up and I see Apache, I see Shakim. Shakim and Apache and have always been cool. And over here I notice a huge person standing over here [to my left] and I look over and it’s Freddie Foxxx. And he just so happened to be standing right behind my attorney, so I’m thinking it’s about to be really fukked up around here. Mind you, I got a bag under my table with a .32 in it. In the Hyatt! And so, I scoot the bag over. I’m talking to Treach and he don’t know but I’m unzipping this bag. And after it’s unzipped I look up like “I thought we squashed this.” He wanted to be like Mr. Tough Dude on some “yeah I just wanted you to remember.” And I said “well I remember” and he left. I got up from the table and went to talk to Shakim and Apache like “yo, I’ve known you too long to come around my business table with this shyt.” And he was like “I don’t got no problems with you, but that dude is how I eat.” But to end a funny story, Redman was smoking herb upstairs, so we go upstairs and De La Soul and I have always been cool, so I see Dave and Mase and Mase is like “yo Treach is downstairs really bugging right now, walking around like a shark, talking about ‘where YZ at?!’ And I’m thinking, family, this dude was just standing at my table, if he was gonna do some shyt, it could’ve been right there. Now all of the sudden I’m gone and he wants to be Mr. Tough Guy. So I went back downstairs, but when I get down there there’s no orange suit. And that was the end of that. At the end of the day, I guess years kinda cleared that up. I’m glad nobody really got killed because in that beef I honestly was thinking that somebody was gonna get shot. And since they carried bats I figured it wasn’t gonna be me.