Jay-Z and Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs once pitted their respective business empires against eachother for a game of baseball, a new book reveals.

Pioneering hip hop journalist Dan Charnas tells the story of the game and the legal woes both stars were embroiled in at the time in his book ‘The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip Hop’, which is out December 7.

The story takes place in July 2000, after Combs had been arrested on gun charges and Jay-Z was accused of stabbing record producer Lance Rivera in a nightclub. Both men were heading up their own lucrative companies which were rivals at the time with Combs’ Sean Jean clothing line and Jay-Z’s Rocawear with partner Damon Dash.

The two decided to bring their rivalry out to the baseball diamond with teams of employees from the respective companies as well as young singer Aaliyah for the Rocawear team. The ‘Are You That Somebody’ singer, who would die the following year in a plane crash, apparently wasn’t the best at the bat, swinging it “like a tennis racket”.

Despite this, team Rocawear still managed to take the game.

Charnas said of the game: "This came at a real turning point for both budding moguls. Which way were they going to go? The street or the boardroom? Both chose the latter, and look where they are 10 years later."

Check out Jay-Z and P Diddy collaborating on 'Maybe' below: