The Notorious B.I.G. would have celebrated his 50th birthday on May 21, and to mark the bittersweet occasion, Hip-Hop notables honored the late Brooklyn icon in a myriad of ways. During a recent Twitter Spaces conversation celebrating Biggie’s 50th birthday, Jay-Z discussed the impact of Biggie and Tupac Shakur, two rap icons murdered at the height of their fame.

“As far as Big and ‘Pac and pushing forward, that’s just me being a student of the game," Jay explained. "And loving the game and loving the culture and wanting to push the culture forward. That was the challenge that I was faced with and that’s a void. That’s a big void. Others stepped in to fill it as well, not just myself. That’s a big void. That’s the two pillars right that. Imagine that, within a year.”

“Bro, you filled them shoes though," Diddy replied. "You came in and we definitely give thanks. You definitely came, and I just know how much Big really looked up to Jay. They looked up to each other. That is crazy you had to step into the shoes of two people. That’s all it was was those two people. They had things on lock."

Diddy went on to say that Jay's position was a hard one to be in.

“Hov was coming, but it was like these two cats was just so big, and so to have all of that come on you and have that responsibility to keep this shit fly and keep the art of it going. I think Hov kept the art of it going and take where they was at and take it even higher.”

Biggie rose to fame on Diddy's Bad Boy Records label in the mid-1990s, before the rapper was gunned down in Los Angeles in March 1997.