In the upcoming issue of XXL Jay-Z opens up about his career parallels to Michael Jordan and his short lived drama with 2Pac in 1996. Here is the excerpt:

“I reference Jordan because he had similar stories. He said that he felt cheated when he got to the league and Larry Bird and Magic were leaving. I feel like that. I be like, “Damn, I wonder what it would be like with Big and Pac and everybody here.” The worst I’ve heard was that I wouldn’t be who I am if Big and Pac was here. That’s God given talent. You can’t…

And that would have been interesting too, how that would’ve played out with me and Pac. Because I wasn’t where I am now. It would’ve went down, it was a collision course, 100%. I knew some people out West and they told me about the [Makaveli] song. It hadn’t dropped yet, but was on the way. I had my record ready. I shelved it out of the utmost respect, but it was coming.

I performed it one time only at Apollo over ‘No Diggity.’ No one has that tape. They usually tape the Apollo shows, but they had just stopped taping for some reason. We tried to find the tape. It’s 2,000 people that know about it. I did two verses. It’s the truth, that’s the best shit. It’s so liberating, when you say what the fuck you wanna say .”

For those of you who didn't even know they had beef, I'll fill you in. At the height of the East/West beef and the height of Pac's paranoia, he went at any NYC rappers who sided with Biggie or basically said anything he didn't like in regards to the beef. Jay-Z was one of those rappers who was called out on Bomb First (and also on a couple unreleased tracks).