Three 6 Mafia and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony faced off for their highly anticipated VERZUZ battle in Los Angeles last night (December 2) – and things got a little testy.
- READ MORE: Three 6 Mafia: “We changed music – we created a whole new sound for hip-hop”
The two groups, widely considered among hip-hop’s most influential, went head to head at the Hollywood Palladium as part of the popular entertainment series created by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz.
While overall a successful celebration of their respective careers, there was one moment where the two groups, who had beef for a brief time in the early ’90s, came to blows after Bizzy Bone of Bone Thugs got upset claiming that he was being mocked by Three 6.
“Hey yo, hey. Before we even get started, you ugly motherfuckers ain’t fit to be mocking me while I’m on the motherfucking stage. Like straight the fuck up,” Bizzy said, addressing the competition after his group had finished performing their song ‘Buddah Lovaz’.
Three 6’s Juicy J replied by telling Bizzy: “N***a, suck my dick”, after which point the Bone Thugs rapper threw a bottle at the group. As Three 6’s Gangsta Boo told Bizzy: “Bizzy Bone, you a hater. You must not have taken your pills,” a scuffle broke out with the groups and their respective security colliding and throwing punches.
You can see the melee below:
After a brief intermission, the two groups – minus Bizzy Bone – returned to the stage and kept the battle going.
Later, Bizzy rejoined his Bone brothers and proceeded to hug it out with Juicy J, before apologising for his actions. “I want to apologise to everybody the fuck out there, on both sides. I’m not trying to fuck this shit up,” he said. “Pardon me. Let’s keep the party motherfucking going.”
You can see the two hug it out below:
In 2015, Three 6 Mafia’s DJ Paul explained to HipHopDX the origins of the two groups’ tensions.
“It wasn’t a real beef,” he said. “It was more of a misunderstanding because we was rapping about triple six, devil shit, and tongue twisting over slow beats. We had been doing that since 1989 and then all of a sudden when Bone came out … with ‘Thuggish Ruggish Bone’ and all of that stuff and we hear somebody kind of on our same style: ‘Faces Of Death’, redrum, muder, 6-6-6, tongue twisting. We were like, ‘Damn these dudes done stole our style!’ [Laughs]
He added: “That’s why we got mad about it. We ran into each other a couple of times and there was a push or something. But there was never no fight or nothing like that.”
Elsewhere during the VERZUZ, tributes were paid to Memphis rapper Young Dolph and designer Virgil Abloh, both of whom died over the past couple of weeks, as well as 2Pac, The Notorious B.I.G., Eazy-E, Nipsey Hussle, Kobe Bryant, Lord Infamous and Koopsta Knicca.
Both groups also brought out a bevy of special guests including Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Lil Jon, Chamillionaire, Lil Eazy-E, Young Buck, Project Pat, 8Ball & MJG, La Chat, Shatasha Williams, Lil Flip, and actor Terrence Howard, who performed ‘Hard Out Here For A Pimp’ from the film Hustle & Flow, in which he plays pimp turned rapper Djay. The track was written by Three 6 Mafia and bagged them the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2006.
See the setlist for the VERZUZ below:
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For the past 18 months, conversations had been going on about a VERZUZ involving Three 6 Mafia and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. There was an independent online battle with a similar format to VERZUZ planned between the two last year, but according to Three 6 Mafia’s DJ Paul, the latter battle was pulled last minute after Swizz Beatz called him to tell him that VERZUZ wanted to host it.
VERZUZ is the popular entertainment series that pits producers, songwriters and artists against each other in a rap battle style format that is broadcast via Instagram Live, Triller and Fire TV.
Competitors take it in turns playing a song from a list of 20 from their discography, as fans, friends and fellow artists watch on. A winner is later decided by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz.
