Wallace, when interviewed, explained his "Who Shot Ya" lyrics as simply portraying a rivalry between drug dealers. The instrumental is a sample that loops a portion of soul singer David Porter's 1971 song "I'm Afraid the Masquerade Is Over", from the album Victim of the Joke? An Opera. The song supposedly references Shakur's 1994 non-fatal shooting, which Shakur had suspected Wallace of being involved with. Wallace disputed Shakur's portrayal, and called the rumors blaming him "crazy" in the track's lyrics. Out of prison, Tupac answered in June 1996 by the B side "Hit 'Em Up"—accusing Wallace by name—a "diss track" which inflamed the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry to its peak. Associates of Wallace who witnessed his "Who Shot Ya" recording have unanimously disputed that it targeted Shakur.

Who Shot Ya" traces to the Uptown Records recording of R&B singer Mary J Blige's second or November 1994 album, My Life. Its record producers were Carl "Chucky" Thompson, Prince Charles Alexander, and Sean "Puffy" Combs, while Nashiem Myrick, studio manager, "played a big role." Prince Alexander was a Bad Boy regular, whereas Chucky Thompson and Nashiem Myrick were among "the Hitmen," the inner circle of staff record producers at Bad Boy Entertainment. Puffy began Bad Boy in 1992 while A&R director at, and initially in partnership with, Andre Harrell's Uptown Records. Myrick had joined Bad Boy at its outset in 1993 as "studio intern," but in 1994 was its "production coordinator." Myrick, as the main producer of "Who Shot Ya," recalls Puffy tasking him to make an instrumental for rapper Keith Murray as an interlude on Blige's album. Myrick thus "came up with 'Who Shot Ya' "—or at least its basic instrumental—Myrick recalled in 2013. Despite the "Who Shot Ya" impetus or evolution being retold with some discrepancies across the interviewed witnesses—Biggie himself, Nashiem Myrick, Chucky Thompson, and Biggie's protégé Lil' Cease—agreed is that Puffy declared the result "too hard" for the R&B album.

"Who Shot Ya?" is a song by American rapper the Notorious B.I.G. (born Christopher Wallace), backed by Sean Combs. Bad Boy Entertainment released it on February 21, 1995, on an alternate reissue of Wallace's single "Big Poppa/Warning". Its new B-side "Who Shot Ya", a revision of a track already issued earlier in 1995, was "controversial and hugely influential." Widely interpreted as a taunt at Tupac Shakur, the single provoked a "rap battle" between the two rappers, formerly friends.

WHO SHOT YA?