Live Squad debuted in 1988 with the self-produced tracks "Troopin It" and "We Ain't Havin' It" on BQ In Full Effect, a limited 12" EP featuring Percee P and Top Priority.
In the summer of 1991, Stretch met Digital Underground affiliate Tupac Shakur and the two made fast friends, becoming nearly inseparable.
MTV Raps, who helped get Live Squad signed to Tommy Boy Records by recommending their demo tape and executive producing their early releases.
Due to the movie's graphic nature and Live Squad's hardcore style, all while the backlash from Ice-T and Body Count's "Cop Killer" continued against rap music, Tommy Boy were forced to drop them from their radio-friendly roster and the album was shelved.
Stretch continued to make cameo appearances in his friends' movies: in the Tupac-directed music video for Mac Mall's "Ghetto Theme" (1992); Above The Law, Money B and Tupac's "Call It What You Want" (1993); Ed Lover & Doctor Dre's Who's the Man?
Stretch contributed raps and beats to the album, many of them co-produced with Tupac as 'Thug Music', including the lead single "Bury Me A G".
As criticism of gangsta rap continued, songs were cut from the album by the label, including the planned first single "Out On Bail" (which Tupac performed with Stretch at The '94 Source Awards) and the Notorious B.I.G.
had performed a joint set together at Maryland's Bowie State University in 1993[7] and collaborated on the unreleased track "House Of Pain", intended for Biggie's 1994 debut Ready To Die.
's associates Lil' Cease and the Bad Boy camp, as the rapper was also there recording for the song, and their tensions were eased - but entering the building lobby they were held at gunpoint by three men and Tupac was robbed, shot and beaten.
Shakur stated that he believed the robbery to be a cover for the attack,[8] and began to openly speculate that Henchman, Biggie, and the others may have been involved.
In a jailhouse interview with VIBE Magazine, Tupac insinuated Stretch, an imposing figure at 6'8",[3] should have done more to help him and was surprisingly out of harm's way: "I was, like, 'What should I do?'
He also questioned Tupac's account of events, and hinted that his gunshot wound may have been self-inflicted, something suggested by forensic reports: "Me personally, I only heard one shot.
Bill Courtney, a retired NYPD cop from the infamous "Hip-Hop Squad", believed the stick-up was a response to comments Tupac had made in the New York Daily News against an associate of Jimmy Henchman, Haitian Jack: "A message was being sent to him not to name-drop."
[11][6]Ed Lover spoke to The New York Times about the falling out: "Tupac made disparaging remarks about him in VIBE Magazine and it really hurt his feelings a lot.
"[3] The incriminations against Stretch continued once Tupac was released from federal custody to Death Row Records on 12 October 1995 and began a flurry of recordings for his 1996 album, All Eyez On Me; on "Ambitionz az a Ridah": "Had bitch-ass niggas on my team / So, indeed, they wet me up,"[10] and in the first verse of "Holla At Me": "When me and you was homies / No one informed me it was all a scheme / You infiltrated my team and sold a nigga dreams / How could you do me like that?
Nas, who enlisted Live Squad to contribute beats for his sophomore album It Was Written in November 1995, later recollected the situation: "I met Stretch by some dangerous cats that I was hanging with.
He wasn’t really recognized for the great work he was doing with Tupac and the hardcore records he did with his own group Live Squad with his brother Majesty.
All Eyez On Me was released two month's after Stretch's death with all disses intact, and the follow-up The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996) contained more allusions to Stretch's role in the 1994 attack on the tell-all diss track "Against All Odds": "And that nigga that was down for me, restin' dead / Switch sides, guess his new friends wanted him dead".
Closing the final Tupac album, that track also fired shots at the Bad Boy camp and Nas - artists that he felt Stretch had switched allegiance to.
Tupac did make peace with Nas in New York's Bryant Park on 4 September 1996, and even listened to It Was Written - featuring the Live Squad productions "Take It In Blood" and "Silent Murder" - as he made his fateful trip to Las Vegas for the Tyson-Seldon fight three days later.
According to label boss Suge Knight, Tupac intended to remove the Nas disses from the Makaveli album but died before he could do so - there are no accounts if he resolved his feelings for his former friend.