From Baltimore Arts School To Global Icon: How Tupac Shakur Changed Hip-Hop And The Culture

Urgency has a sound, and Tupac Shakur made it impossible to ignore. Disco Hicks and brother of the show Shaun Whittaker open with the restless kid who studied acting and ballet at Baltimore School for the Arts, raised on Afeni’s Panther principles, then follow him through Digital Underground’s tutelage into a voice that could move streets and stadiums. The story bends through trauma and triumph: on-tour losses that hardened him, the Juice audition that stunned casting directors, and the moment his acting revealed a talent too big for one lane.

They dig into the records that defined eras. 2Pacalypse Now planted empathy and protest in the mainstream. Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. bottled 1992’s tension and hope. Me Against the World turned legal peril into poetry and precision, a no-skip classic of pain and perspective. Then the air shifts: All Eyez On Me, tracked at breakneck speed yet mixed with pristine clarity, sounds like freedom—California Love, How Do You Want It, Picture Me Rollin’—and the sobering counterpoints of Life Goes On and Only God Can Judge Me. Alongside the music, they look at how Pac built songs quickly, layered ad-libs like instruments, and clashed with perfectionists who moved slower than his fears allowed.

The conversation widens to power and consequence: Death Row’s control, Suge Knight’s shadow, and a sobering trip to Milan that showed Pac how little he truly owned. Disco and Shaun unpack the Vegas brawl with Orlando Anderson, the street calculus that followed, and the chain of violence that reshaped hip-hop. The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory brings him back to laser focus—leaner, harder, fearless. On screen, Poetic Justice, Above the Rim, and Gridlock’d show range and timing that hinted at a career that might have rivaled Hollywood’s greats.

Three decades on, the influence is everywhere: cadence, candor, and the courage to be complicated. We talk craft, context, and the choices that still spark debate, then honor the honors—Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Library of Congress—and the people who kept the flame. Press play to revisit the music and moments that made the man, and share this with a friend who needs the reminder. If this conversation moves you, follow the show, rate us, and tell us your one Pac song that never leaves your rotation.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: Why Tupac
• 2:00 Early Life, Family, And Panther Roots
• 6:30 Digital Underground And First Breaks
• 11:00 Juice Audition And Acting Spark
• 16:30 Trauma, Tours, And T‑Roy’s Death
• 21:00 Debut Albums And Lyrical Direction
• 27:00 Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. And 1992 America
• 33:00 Legal Trouble, Marin City, And Jealousy
• 38:30 Poetic Justice And Image Shifts
• 43:00 Above The Rim And Soundtrack Era
• 48:00 Me Against The World: Pain Into Poetry
• 55:00 All Eyez On Me: Freedom And Velocity
• 1:02:30 Studio Process, Producers, And Craft
• 1:08:30 Death Row Power, Control, And Tension
• 1:15:00 Fashion Week, Kadida, And A Turn
• 1:20:00 Vegas Brawl And The Shooting
• 1:26:30 Street Politics And Aftershocks
• 1:32:30 The Don Killuminati: Return To Focus
• 1:37:30 Gridlock’d, Gang Related, And Range
• 1:43:00 Legal Cases, Activism, And Risk
• 1:47:30 Honors, Influence, And Afterlife
• 1:51:50 Final Reflections And Farewell

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:05

What up though, music bookers? I'm your host with the most disco. I am joined again with my brother, the show. Sean P. What up, though?

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Man, what's happening, my brother? Very, very happy to be uh on here again.

SPEAKER_04: 0:20

Yeah, uh, I'm glad to have you here. Uh I definitely gonna lean on you. Uh, I want to ask you before we get started, are you uh how did you feel about those Thug Life and uh I still I ri I still I rise uh CDs?

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Man, um it's funny I was I was as I was going through his albums, it wasn't included in like his top 11 studio albums. Uh I love Thug Life. Um that was one of my favorite albums. Um and Still I Rise. That that's a really good album as well. One of my favorites, too. So and it came after he passed. So to me, that was a really good album to come um after he had passed, uh, knowing that he still really has some real good music in the vault. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09

Uh excuse me, excuse me, listeners. We're gonna do Tupac today if you don't know. Yeah, today's subject is Tupac. Uh man, I couldn't wait to do that. Uh, you know, just do some uh research on this guy. Cause I I'm one thing we talked about in the last episode when I asked you if you wanted to do this was uh I'm just seeing the disrespect that comes Tupac's way. And um it's unwarranted, man. The guy was great, the man was great, probably one of the most influential MCs. I mean, um, so yeah, I wanted to do him right, and I'm glad you're here so we can just do this man right. And I hope a lot of these Gen Zs and millennials listen to this, and I hope this will change your opinion on the man we know as Tupac Shakur.

SPEAKER_00: 1:58

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 2:00

All right, man. Uh Tupac Amari Shakur. He was born, what the same parish crooks?

SPEAKER_00: 2:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_04: 2:07

Uh uh June 16, 1971. And we all know he passed uh September 13th, 1996. Uh, the 13th was on a Friday. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_00: 2:18

Friday the 13th, yes. I I remember that day very well. Man, it was a good and bad day for me. I uh uh it ended on a great night, but it was a it was very sad to to get that information.

SPEAKER_04: 2:35

Yeah, yeah. I I really can't remember exactly what I was doing at that time. Um I remember that doing I remember doing that time, and I remember how much the impact his death was, but I can't remember exactly the exact day and what I was doing. But I know I know exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 2:51

I'm sorry, go ahead, brother. My fault.

SPEAKER_04: 2:53

No, no, I was just saying I just I don't remember exactly what I was doing, but you do.

SPEAKER_00: 2:57

Yeah, I was um I was coming from work. I had worked at a barber shop called Morris uh Barber and Beauty on Six Mile in Southville in Detroit, West Side. And I was traveling, I I had just pulled up in the McDonald's, it's still there, right there at uh Six Mile and uh Livernoy, and I had just pulled up in the parking lot, and on the way in, the inf the news had came across the radio that he had passed away. Yeah, wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 3:26

Cause I remember um well this was after he got shot though, right? Because you know he was in the hospital for a few days, and I remember thinking he was gonna pull out of it because he got shot before him. It's like, ah, he's gonna pull out, but uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:39

Same here, same here. He got shot on the 7th and he died uh six days later.

SPEAKER_04: 3:45

There you go.

SPEAKER_00: 3:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 3:47

Um did you know who named him Tupac?

SPEAKER_00: 3:52

I know that his mother named him that after it was um an Indian chief, I believe. I don't know exactly, but uh he was a warrior who he had named him after.

SPEAKER_04: 4:03

Uh it was uh lady named Um Karen Caddison. Okay, she's a white Jewish lady, and she was rumored to have a relationship with uh with a Fenny.

SPEAKER_00: 4:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 4:15

Yeah, which was you know, which is you know, by her being the Black Panther and then her just having a relationship with a white woman was it was tripped out. But yeah, she the one that you know she the one that said you should name her Tupac Shakur. Oh wow, yeah, and his uh biological father was William Garland, who's still alive, and then his stepfather is Matulu Shakur.

SPEAKER_00: 4:40

Matulu, he passed away in 2023.

SPEAKER_04: 4:44

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and uh Tupac was proud of his mother, man. He used you know, he used to brag about his mother being a Black Panther, and and um and he he clung to the early lessons that he learned from her with the about with black pride and all that, but as time went on and she uh they uh relationship became strained because of the drug addiction.

SPEAKER_00: 5:06

He was he was his mother in in the male form. He took on pretty much in exactly who she was, just in the male version.

SPEAKER_03: 5:17

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_04: 5:19

All right, uh most uh most of this information that I got from um doing my research is from a two uh Tupac's book uh by Gerald uh Jeff Pearlman, Only God Can Judge Me, The Many Lives of Tupac's Shakur. And uh all the information and rumors about Tupac that I knew was all tied up in this book, you know. And Jeff Perlman did an excellent, an exceptional job. He interviewed over 600 people in this book, man. Uh Tupac's high school girlfriend who shared more than uh hundred love letters. And uh I've seen that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:54

I I really just I just came across uh a YouTube video that said that she had the the love letters under her bed still. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 6:05

And um and she was white.

SPEAKER_00: 6:07

She was white, she was white. They went to uh they went to what was it, high school? Did they go to high school then?

SPEAKER_04: 6:12

Yes, yeah, okay. Yeah, um, you know, he went to a few, but was it the one, uh the Baltimore School of Arts? That one, the performing art school?

SPEAKER_00: 6:22

Um I'm I'm gonna say yes, but don't quote me on that, but I do think so it was the Baltimore School of Arts.

SPEAKER_04: 6:30

Okay, and um, and also they interviewed some, you know, his uh some crack dealers in um Marin City in California who informed who informed his sound and perspective.

SPEAKER_03: 6:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 6:41

In 1984, his family moved from uh New York City to Baltimore, where he transferred to the Baltimore School of Arts in the 10th grade, and that's where he studied acting, poetry, jazz, and ballet. Man, uh those schools like that, because it's so laid back, and they allow you to be they allow you to be uh you to be uh to learn discipline and dis and over your own affairs, more so having somebody uh telling you what to do. And man, these students when they was they was drinking and smoking with the teachers.

SPEAKER_00: 7:14

Yes, they were.

SPEAKER_04: 7:17

And think about those, and I appreciate those type of schools because my daughter wanted to go through one. Um and so uh my youngest daughter, Ariel, uh big ups to her. But she uh I went to the I took her to the school just to see what they had to say. They had this open house going on, and and I'm looking at this, and it's you know it's artful, all these kids with all different colored hair and all this, and and you have to know what you want to do to go to one of these schools. You just can't say I want to go to school, so you can just be laid back because if you if you lay back, then it's gonna really feed into that, and you're not gonna do what you're supposed to do. The kids that usually go to this type of school are driven by what's driving them whatever they're into. Tupac is definitely just what's the rapping, man. He wanted to act.

SPEAKER_00: 8:13

Yeah, you know, to to add on to that, uh, doing the reading, and I I was I mean, I was pulling from everywhere trying to research, and what's funny is kind of like Michael Jackson, like, it's a lot to cover with Tupac. Uh it's it's almost like when they did the movie, it's kinda kinda hard to just squeeze everything into one movie by him. But I will say that I he was just extremely creative. He was extremely creative and uh a poet, man. Like he just he loved knowledge, he loved to learn, and he loved expressing uh what he learned, which it made him not just special, but extremely, extremely special.

SPEAKER_04: 8:55

Yeah, absolutely. Um and and thing about it is his mom poured into him, and which which was sad that black men don't live long. And so he was always impatient, he was always in a rush because he didn't know how long he had. And unfortunately, he he believed that and he lived that way. And just think from from the time he put out two Apocalypse Now until he passed away, that was we talked about six years, man. He's all of that we we talked about this man now, and in the six men, in six years span where he just went into really hard, like this is my destiny. I'm just going in, and we talked about this guy this 2025. He died in 30 years later '96, man. And we still talked about this man, and who felt that he didn't have uh enough time on it. He he wasn't gonna have enough time on this earth, so he poured all he had into what he wanted to do, and here we are, man. And a lot of people don't understand that. Uh yeah, that's man, he died at 25.

SPEAKER_00: 10:04

25 years old, and like you said, he squores all of that into that short period of time. I mean, you talking about a vast majority of work, uh, brother. I mean, from the music to the uh to the acting and everything, and then he still had he was writing and you know, doing a lot of other things that never came into fruition because he, you know, he did pass away. But like you said, um he believed that he was going to pass early, and unfortunately, what he believed did come true.

SPEAKER_04: 10:39

Uh, because you spoke a lot of it, and yeah, believe it or not, you know, uh when you when you speak stuff in his existence, it comes to fruition, man.

SPEAKER_03: 10:48

And unfortunately, it came.

SPEAKER_04: 10:51

Uh man, I was man, let's let's get into some of this stuff. So um he joined the digital underground as a roadie uh March 17, 1990. He was official member. Uh he became official member in 1991, and um he was on the single same song, and um that's when he all around the world. That's my jam. Yeah, he made a debut on it. Yeah, shock G, baby. Yeah, uh uh he he was uh that's when he was known. That's when he made it official that his name was Tupac because his first his first rap name was MC New York.

SPEAKER_01: 11:33

MC New York. Yeah. Crazy.

SPEAKER_00: 11:39

Yeah, man. And um because he was born in Harlem, I believe.

SPEAKER_04: 11:43

Yeah, be born in Harlem, yeah. Yeah, born in Harlem. His uh mom couldn't find work, so then they moved to Baltimore.

SPEAKER_00: 11:50

And you and you know, I want to interject real quick. I was when I was doing my research on that, man and and she came up tough, she went through a whole lot, and it made me just think about like for a young woman to come up in New York, like New York is and and this is no knock on New York, but it's it's a lot of people, and it's just uh you can get ate up in New York. And I I see why she was uh she was as tough as she was because she just she went through a lot, so yeah, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_04: 12:23

This is and and then she passed okay, and then 1990, um the digital underground, they went on they went on a tour overseas. Okay, and they couldn't, they had, you know, they had a lot of members in that group, and they couldn't take Tupac with him, with them. And so H tron Gregory was trying to find something. He was shopping, uh Tupac's demo around, everybody was saying no. And so Tupac was getting he was getting impatient, and so uh that's when he was contacted, contacted to go to go to Atlanta and um and then do the uh the new African Black Panther uh Panther Party. And they wanted him to be the chairman, but he was he was only 18, so he didn't know what to do. And so he was down there getting patient, and uh and so uh the atron Gregory reached out to Shock G and said, uh hey, uh we gotta do something with Tupac, man. He's a patient, man. We uh if you don't find something for him to do, we're gonna lose him to the streets.

SPEAKER_00: 13:26

Yeah. Yeah. They had jumped around a lot, um, you know, with his mom and them as far as the move, they moved a lot. Um and you know, a big shout out, I want to give a shout-out to um a friend of mine. Um I haven't seen him in a long time. His name is Taft Gaddy. He was instrumental in bringing Afini to uh Michigan. Actually, before Northland closed, there was a bookstore. It was called the Truth Bookstore in uh Northland, it was a black-owned bookstore. He brought her um to the bookstore because she was selling her book, which was uh co-written with Jasmine Guy. And man, she was so sweet, man. I got a chance to meet her and take a picture with her. And um just a just uh uh incredible and a wonderful woman. Both of them had tumultuous lives, uh, but they gave the culture so much for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 14:21

Yeah, yeah, but uh bunny B was quoted. He said, uh Tupac was impatient and immature. He said he had no filter, he always believed he was right and he never apologized. He said, if you heard somebody say they was tight with Tupac and never had a problem with him, they were probably lying or exaggerating their friendship because he said Tupac was born combative and never bit his tongue. He uh he challenged every little thing.

SPEAKER_00: 14:51

Uh at 17, he said, I'm like my mother, I'm arrogant, just like my mother. And I think he had just did an interview, he was like, I quit my job to come to this interview because they wouldn't give me the time off, and I think this is important. But he he he was serious, he was like, Yeah, I am arrogant, but for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 15:11

Yeah, and then uh Digital Underground went on tour with Big Daddy Kane, and that was the Chocolate City tour. And then um, after that tour, they uh they were offered to go on tour with Public Enemy, and that's what they had an offer between MC Hammer and Public Enemy. Even though MC Hammer had the bigger numbers, they felt more in line with uh public enemy. And so they went on uh that tour. And on that tour, you had Kid in Play, Salt and Pepper, Jadgy Jeff with the Fresh Prince, Silk Times Leather, EPMD in Vogue, Poor Righteous Teachers, Chill Rock G and Queen Latifa.

SPEAKER_00: 15:50

Great lineup right there. Man that's back to back to back to back to back great uh artists right there. Great artists right there, all of them.

SPEAKER_04: 16:01

And a lot of those, a lot of those art acts were like older than Tupac, and so he he didn't and a lot of them uh like after they were performed, go back to the hotel, but Tupac wanted to hang out in the streets, man, and you know, just live a little bit. And so that's when he became uh close with Tretch, Trech, yes, who was uh Queen Latifah's roadie, and then he got close with uh Trouble T T-Roy from uh Heavy D and the Boys.

SPEAKER_00: 16:28

I was just about to say uh he was the young man, and well, the song, of course, uh When They Reminisce Over You was written for him. He died on that tour.

unknown: 16:39

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00: 16:39

On one of the tours. I think they they were playing or something, and he had fell and he had uh basically it injured his head pretty bad, and I think he passed away like several days later, or a few days later after that. That that really crushed Tupac because they were really close.

SPEAKER_04: 16:56

And man, back in the day, uh two hip-hop figures was like huge when um when they passed away, it was just like a big blow to the uh hip-hop community. One was uh uh Scotland Rock. I remember that one when he passed away, and then when T when T Roy passed away, it was huge. I was in college at the time, and um uh no, I was I had just got out of college, I had just came home from school. So yeah, he passed uh that was uh that that concert you were talking about, that tour, that was on July 14th, 1990, at Market Square Arena. And like you said, they was playing around. But he he didn't want to play, he they was playing, pushing like like a dumpster, and they was trying to like dodge the dumpster, and he was like, he he was setting off to the side, and he was and they didn't realize they didn't realize how high that riser was, and so when they pushed it, he was trying to avoid that dumpster and he he jumped, yeah, yeah, but like you said, fell all the way down and it really affected um Tupac, man.

SPEAKER_00: 17:59

Yeah, yeah. And because you if you think about all of the trauma that he had already been through, and then to be really tight with somebody doing something that they love to do, and for that to happen, that was uh that was devastating.

SPEAKER_04: 18:12

Yeah, because one of the things when um Jeff Perlman interviewed his his classmates, they were saying, you know, he was this uh this one uh student said you have you had poor, you had very poor, you had very poor. No, he said you had very poor, poor, very poor, very, very poor, and then you had Tupac. And he would always get he was always get teased about his teeth, his clothes, he wore the same clothes. Um he was skinny, scrawny, and all that. And and then another word they kept throwing around was effeminate, man.

SPEAKER_00: 18:44

They said he had he was effeminate, and um, uh bro, I've you know Pac mentioned that in one of his interviews, he was saying how he admissed not having his father around. He was like, you know, by being raised by a woman, you're gonna have some feminine attribute abuse, and you know, he knew that about himself. He was just saying how a father, the way that he reassures his child, especially his son, is different than a woman. He was lacking that. He knew that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 19:19

Yeah, man. And so uh he was featured, like I said, he was also featured on the EP. This is the EP release, The Sons of P, uh Digital Underground. And let's get to that, man. So then that's when uh kickstart his career. Then uh, did you know? Uh like I said, before we started this uh podcast, I was just watching Juice, and that was released January 17th, 1992. And that film, uh that movie was filmed between March and April 1991. So Daryl B. Chill, we know him from uh Chill and B was it Chill B and Smooth? I think that was a group he was in. Uh Daryl. Metro uh got trench, Money B and Don and Donald Fazon, they all uh audition for the role of bishop.

SPEAKER_00: 20:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 20:10

And um when they saw uh but they wanted somebody big and menacing. So but when they saw Tupac, uh they didn't think he were he was gonna fit the role, but once he read it, and it was like, oh, they were blown away at his audition.

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

And you're talking about for the juice, for juice, yeah, yeah, for bishop, yeah. I do remember Money B saying that that uh he basically like it was like a last-minute thing. Like he invited Pop. Like he already felt like he wasn't gonna get the role, but so he invited Pop. And they say once Pop did it, it was like for them, it was a no-brainer. They was like, Yeah, yeah, we just come on walk this way. We got you.

SPEAKER_04: 20:51

Yeah. And uh the uh and the my favorite scene, man, I was just watching it when Bishop like when Q said, Bishop, you crazy. He said, You know what?

SPEAKER_05: 21:01

The last time you said that, I was kind of tripping, right? But but no, you're right, I am crazy, and you know what else?

SPEAKER_04: 21:10

I don't give a f I don't give an F about you, I don't give an F about Steel, I don't give a F about Raheem either. I don't give an F about myself. Look, I ain't S. You're less than a man than me, so as soon as I figure out you ain't ass, pow. Yeah, so big remember that motherfucker.

SPEAKER_00: 21:32

The acting, his acting in that, it was it was he really engulfed. I mean, he really got into that character.

unknown: 21:42

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00: 21:43

Um and like because I now because was Juice his first one? Was Juice the first movie he did?

SPEAKER_04: 21:49

He was yeah, he was first major role. He was also remembering that movie, uh, he was in nothing but trouble, but that was because the digital underground was in that movie, and that was in '99 with Dan Aykroyd.

SPEAKER_00: 22:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, so by it being his first movie, he really he empty he embodied that uh character. There was a young lady, I forget her name. She was on TikTok, but she she was like his acting was so real that it scared her. She was like, that's how you know he did a tremendous job uh with that. But yeah, that Bishop was uh was was something, he was something D. That was that was a very, very good movie. One of my favorite movies. I still can watch that like I've never watched it before.

SPEAKER_04: 22:32

Yeah, and think about and he would get into character, and think about these actors, man, they get into these characters and they embody, and sometimes they just they stay in character even when they're off the camera. Yes, and and it's sometimes you gotta you gotta release, especially if it's a bad character, you can hold that spirit on you and it will affect you. And a lot of people are saying that that happened with him. I was talking to my boy John about it, and like remember uh The Dark Knight, that movie when Heath Ledger did the Joker, Heath Ledger, yeah. He ended up dying, ended up killing himself, man. Because that's and that spirit was on him. He couldn't get he couldn't even shake it. Yeah, so when these actors and they stay in character, man, they they gotta be careful with that.

SPEAKER_03: 23:17

And that's true.

SPEAKER_04: 23:19

I ain't gonna lie, bro. I was feeling some of that doing this podcast. I mean, doing the research on this, listening to all the music and watching those movies. It was it was so much gun violence. And then a lot of movies that he played, well, a couple of movies he, you know, he died in a few of them, and and two, I think a couple of me died by gun violence, man.

SPEAKER_00: 23:37

So it was just like three three of them to be exact. So he died in Jews. He died because he fell in juice. He fell, yeah. Yeah, and then he he died in gang related, where he played the uh officer. Um and he he died in uh Above the Rim, where um uh Marlon Wayans, I forget what his character was in there, uh, but he killed him at the end of that movie. And you're right, man. You know, uh and the young brother that played him, Demetrius Shipp Jr., uh he had vowed not to do any more Tupac roles. And you're right, uh doing this research, um I I hate to say it, man, because I love that brother, man. He he lived it was very dark. Uh his life was very dark. Uh through, I mean, pretty much all the way throughout. And um, you know, not to to speed up, but to go to the movie uh uh All Eyes on Me. Right before he was killed, there was a scene where he got to relax with Kadada and they were out by the pool side or whatnot. And that was the first time that I recognized in his life, it was the first time that he really had peace.

SPEAKER_03: 24:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:56

Where he was able to just relax and chill and not have to worry about who was still in this, who he was beefing with, what he was going through. Um, yeah, you're right, man. The the research on him, um again, I love the brother, but a lot of it is is troubling. It's troubling.

SPEAKER_04: 25:14

Yeah, yes, um, yeah, it was pretty reckless. He lived a reckless life. Uh, but yeah, I'm gonna talk about that later. But yeah, man, you hit that was a great point. Um in 1996, things have started to change. Unfortunately, he didn't get to live it through. All right, uh on August 13, 1991, that's when he signed the contract on Interscope Records. And um uh Two Pocalypse Now was released November 12th, 1991. So half a million went gold. The singles trapped, Brenda's got a baby. If my homies, if if my homies call, you know, they the meet of us, they done meeted that album. I think that album was um it had a lot of fillers on it. It was it was kind of uh, I don't know. Uh I remember uh I think Money B was talking about when um he was still working on um two podcasts now album, and Shock G invited him over to his house and said, bring the demo, and we want to listen to it. And so they had that, they had his album and they had it, they had Ice Cubes, Kill at Will. And Kill at Will had just come out, but uh a lot of people hadn't heard it, so they played him back to back, and Tupac felt some kind of way because Kill Kill at Will just smashed his album off the water, man. It just smashed him off the water.

SPEAKER_00: 26:35

Q was on another level. Oh man.

SPEAKER_04: 26:39

Yeah, and he and Pac was accused of trying to sound like Q too, especially his first couple of albums, most definitely. Uh I had the tape. Uh, I was living in Detroit at the time, and I was working. I was working at the Inkston Complex, right? And I had to catch the Trumbull bus. So I would I lived on uh Rosa Parks and I would catch the bus to Michigan Avenue right there by Tiger, the old Tiger Stadium, and I would catch the bus from old Tiger Stadium all the way down to uh to Middle Belt, and I would have to walk, and I would have to walk to the complex and and my Michigan Avenue. Yeah, yeah, and uh my soundtrack was two apocalypse now, uh CD or the tape at the time. And I used to just man, I was playing a mess out of it. And then and but the like I said, the meat of the album was those three songs, and those were my songs though.

SPEAKER_00: 27:34

Uh which one's which one? Trap, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 27:37

Trap, Brenda's Got a Baby, and if my homies call.

SPEAKER_00: 27:41

Now, Trapped, I got a little story for you on Trapped. Um Ray Love wrote part of that song, and not intentionally. He had actually wrote a piece of it, and he said he threw it away because him and Pacnam, they used to be in a group together. I forget what the name of the group was, but they were in a group and he had written that little part, but he was like, uh, he said he didn't want that to be on wax, he didn't want people to really feel how he was feeling because during that time, as you know, being a brother, it was it was tough for us during that time. As a matter of fact, black men were considered considered endangered species in that late 80s, early 90s. And he had he had wrote it, crumbled it up, threw it away, pot came through, and somehow he rumbled through the trash, whatever he saw it. He read it and he was like, Man, you're not gonna do nothing with this. And he was like, nah, he was like, I don't want nobody to hear that. And so he was like, Well, I'll take it. And then he it was one verse, and then he added like two more verses uh to that song, to the trap song. That's how that came about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 28:51

I saw that too. And also, too, uh Brendan's got a baby. He was filming juice when he had heard about the story about the girl, you know, uh 12-year-old girl who was pregnant, threw her baby down the trash chute.

SPEAKER_00: 29:03

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_04: 29:04

Who got impregnated by a 20 20-year-old cousin?

SPEAKER_00: 29:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 29:09

And that's that was a deep song, man.

SPEAKER_00: 29:12

Yeah, and one of my that probably is my favorite song off of the I think it was the most popular song. It is the most popular song on that album. And it was produced by a brother named Big D. Okay. Um, yeah, he produced that.

SPEAKER_04: 29:28

Uh also, too, on the word on that s on the album um words of wisdom, that's a fresh time he heard Tupac uh break down the acronym a nigga, never ignorant, getting goals accomplished.

SPEAKER_00: 29:39

Goals accomplished, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 29:40

Yeah.

unknown: 29:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:42

So that was another one of my favorites on that album was um was part time, which was also produced by uh by Big D. Um, so that that one shock D Shock G produced um I didn't realize Shock G was his dog. Man, he produced a lot of stuff, which we'll get into as we continue. Um Lunatic. I thought Lunatic was okay. Um, but again, like you said, comparing that Kill Wheel to that, it kind of got pushed to the back. So I I I wasn't into it as much as I was the uh Kill Will, but you know, doing the research, I did go back and listen to it quite a bit. Um, yeah, Brenda's got a baby. Lunatic is okay. Trap was my joint part-time. Uh it like you said, it had a lot of fillers on there.

SPEAKER_04: 30:32

You know, uh, you know, when Tupac was in Marin City um back in '92.

SPEAKER_03: 30:40

Let's see.

SPEAKER_04: 30:41

You know, it was uh he had it was a wrongful death suit against Tupac Shakur. It was settled out.

SPEAKER_00: 30:47

Um that's when the boy, the six-year-old boy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 30:51

And think about it, there were some positive figures in his life, and they would talk to him, but he would just he was stubborn. And it was like, man, you don't want to go back to Marin City, man. You know, this is after he did the movie and all that and the album. Like, don't go back. He's like, man, they love me back out there. So he went out there, and that's when, hey, man, we're doing that research. That's when I found out that uh Mopreem and Mo Sadies was the same dude. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_00: 31:16

I did not.

SPEAKER_04: 31:17

Mossades the Mellow, quiet nice fellow, met 3T, how to rhyme my Capella. I did not know that was Mopreem.

SPEAKER_00: 31:24

Wow. You just taught me something. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 31:27

And because they when that kid got shot, he was identified as the shooter. Mopreem was.

SPEAKER_00: 31:34

Yeah. Yeah. Because I know that the gun was registered to Pac, even though he wasn't the one that um that actually pulled the trigger on that. I'll say this about I'll say this about that that situation. Pac was in a tough place. Um, and as you know, again, you know, uh being a teenager going into our adulthood during that particular time, because I graduated in '91. Um, to to go from being the son of a black panther and that movement and everything that went on with the Panthers to now coming into this new realm of uh how we black folks turned out, that was a hard transition for him. That's why when he did go back, he was thinking like, my people love me. You know, um, I'm I'm a representative for them. And I know that that broke his heart to be in that situation to where it not only did a child get killed mistakenly, but just getting approached in that situation when he was coming back to show love to Marine, uh Marine City in that situation. So that was a tough transition for him. And and you really kind of have to be there or be like us, our age, to kind of to know how that transition went. Because again, we went from the public enemy era to the NWA era, which was uh that was a hard transition, man. It was a hard transition um you know, for us as young black men, living through that moment or those moments rather.

SPEAKER_04: 33:12

And the thing about Marion City, that's what one of the things he was warned about. He said, uh those people get jealous of you. And so he's like, those people don't want you coming back, they're jealous of you. Yeah, and that's what like what you had said. They're like, my people's man, but no, I guess he wasn't there enough to see that uh they had their feelings for him had changed. And like you know, they were saying that you get used, and um, and he was they was jealous.

SPEAKER_00: 33:38

Uh so then and and add to that with the jealousy thing, he got into a lot of fights in Marine City, too. So they looked at they didn't look at Pac as the Tupac that he became. They looked at him as man, you you that dude we was beaten on last week. Or like, you know, you you not on that level to us. We know who you really are.

SPEAKER_03: 34:00

Yeah, yeah, exactly, man.

SPEAKER_04: 34:04

And uh, so yeah, he uh, you know, then that's when he started getting it, started wanting uh he didn't like how the final, he didn't like how two pop clips came out, so he wanted it. So that's strictly for niggas was when he went into the studio and started doing that, uh, he felt he wanted to go in a different direction. And um and you know, that album went through so many different drafts. And just because what that happened with him and all his legal issues and all that, the exec's like uh, nah, nah, well you gotta change, you gotta change some of that content, you know, because he was, you know, because he was definitely going hard on the cops. But you know, I mean, I mean the cops were, you know, they was they was doing some crazy stuff. And so, I mean, the only thing he could do is speak from his heart for what he experienced and what he saw other people go through. I mean, but you know, it's a tale of different Americas and all that, but uh and uh so yeah, so when he was like, I I think I think that um like what you were saying first, like the disrespect that he receives now.

SPEAKER_00: 35:10

Um, even though we have social media and we got YouTube and we got so much to go back and look at, it still was nothing like actually being there. So again, if you think back, bro, um he had a situation where he had to sue the cops because they had assaulted him for jaywalking in a situation. I think that was in New York, I believe. You had the Rodney King situation where you see a man getting beat up and it was on tape and they got off. You had the situation here with Malice Green. Um, these are all situations that we lived through and seen with our own eyes. Um, and so yeah, he did have to change it, and I know it was difficult, but strictly for my niggas is one of my favorite albums because it again that was during the Ronnie King, Malice Green, the riots in uh California. So we were on edge as black men back then, and Tupac was on the he was the on the forefront representing for us during that time, real talk.

SPEAKER_04: 36:14

He was he was the voice of the hood for sure.

SPEAKER_00: 36:16

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04: 36:18

Um, you know, it's like some say black of the berry, the sweet of the juice. That's the dark of the flesh, then deeper the roots. Yeah, that album. Uh I didn't own like I own two popular two pocky now. I didn't own this one, but a lot of people I knew had it, so it was always playing in the background. This was back in many two, man.

SPEAKER_00: 36:43

Uh the album came out in the album came out what dude 1993?

SPEAKER_04: 36:49

February, yeah, February 16th, 1993.

unknown: 36:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 36:53

So listen, so check it right. So I I to this day, I still have a cassette tape that I bought back in 1993. Um, because it was on cassette then, even though they was kind of switching up. But I went to the University of Detroit and we led a protest against the University of Detroit. Um, I think it was in it might have been 92. Might have been 93. I'm I'm I can't remember. It might have been 92. That's what it was. It was 92. Uh, but we was we were banging at Tupacalypse now. Um, so all of that that kind of coincide with us doing what we were doing. Um, it was it was a revolution, it was a revolutionary time uh for us. And again, like you said, he he represented for us big time.

SPEAKER_04: 37:40

So, what are your songs on there? I like um like the ones that we released, you know, but uh representing 93 was my job.

SPEAKER_00: 37:49

I got a head be representing I got a head, but ain't no screws.

SPEAKER_04: 37:59

Yeah, I get it, and Papa song too.

SPEAKER_00: 38:03

Yes, yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, I wasn't close with my pops coming up, so that song hit home. Of course, keep your head up. Um uh I get around. Yeah, and then there's a there's an interlude on there, um something to die for. That is it is so smooth and it's it's uh so real. And I I I believe in that song or in that interlude, it talked about um Natasha Harlands, the young lady that was killed by the Korean, uh, the owner of that store. Um, the young lady, I I guess the lady thought she was still in a juice or something.

SPEAKER_03: 38:45

Yeah, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00: 38:47

Yeah, she ended up. That's another thing you add to what I was just talking about with Mouse Punny King. Um so yeah, that was, and then there's a song in there with uh with ice cube and ice tea.

SPEAKER_04: 39:00

Uh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, they go hard too.

SPEAKER_00: 39:03

That's my jam. That one, and then the one with uh these is my last words. Yeah, that that was my that was my track right there.

SPEAKER_04: 39:15

And I love that he had those two people in there too, man. You know, both of them had uh they did a lot of uh anti-police songs in their catalog.

SPEAKER_00: 39:25

So I'm sorry to interrupt you, bro. Uh I'ma throw a quick uh multi-questioning in now. Who produced uh I get around? Was it Dick D? Was it Special Ed? Was it Leila or Shaq G?

SPEAKER_03: 39:43

Shaq G.

SPEAKER_00: 39:45

G, baby. Yeah. He got that one, he got down.

SPEAKER_04: 39:49

Uh because uh money B. Hey, money B, Money B was saying that he he's like, man, you tell the public, I got the best verse on your song. How you gonna let somebody come on your song? And do and do a better verse. So that's you know, that's debatable. You know, I think Tupac had the most quotables in that song, but you know, Money B did a good job on that, man.

SPEAKER_00: 40:10

He did a great job on it. That's what I mean. Man, God bless Money B. But that is definitely one of the things that we remember him for, is his his verse on that on that trend.

SPEAKER_04: 40:24

And like I said, it was so many, you know, he had a he had to change it up, change the content of it. And so he was he reached out to Shite. He's like, Man, you got something for me, man. I need something for this new album. And and Shah T and sent him that, and there you go, you have it there. Because he was gonna use it for him, they were gonna use it, he was gonna use it for Digital Underground, but he ultimately ended up getting it to Tupac. Yeah, um, they smashed it out, man. And that album that album went platinum.

SPEAKER_00: 40:53

Yeah. Did you uh go ahead, man? No, go ahead. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04: 40:57

I was it did you were you aware about the uh when Tupac got arrested in East Lansing?

SPEAKER_00: 41:03

I I was because that now what that was that wasn't a connection with the Hughes brothers, brothers, was it? That was something different.

SPEAKER_04: 41:10

No, yeah, that was he was he was supposed to perform at uh Michigan State, and um, you know, put Tupac uh he flew out there and they were having issues uh with the sound with the sound, and he just got mad and he said he wanted to go first. Let's let me go first, and then they was tripping on him. It's like, you know how you know how how long it took me to get out here and how far I had to come. And he's like, I want to go first. And then they was having issues with sound with the sound stuff and with the sound system, and he asked one of his partners for a microphone. There's another act on there. They had a uh he had his bought, he had just bought a microphone and he let Tupac use it, man.

SPEAKER_05: 41:52

Do you know Tupac slammed that microphone down twice, man?

SPEAKER_00: 41:59

He was a hot head, man. He was a hot head. I think he went to jail for that.

SPEAKER_05: 42:05

Yeah, the week in jail, yeah, April, April 5th, 1993, man. And uh the instant secure uh podcast swinging the bat at the dude, man.

SPEAKER_04: 42:19

At the record company exec in Flint, and uh that's what had again, yeah. He did 10 days for uh for 10 days, okay.

SPEAKER_05: 42:30

Man, look though, how you not having any respect for other people's property, man. Dude looking out for you, but you gonna take his microphone and slam it twice.

SPEAKER_00: 42:40

And you know what? When I used to perform, um do it like at the open mics, is the guys would always drop the mics, and that's like just so disrespectful, man. And like to just slam it twice, bro, out of anger is just that's diabolical.

SPEAKER_04: 42:57

And think about it, the dude was a wrestler in college, right? And he had a nickname, and uh, and he was like, Man, please, Pac got in his face, he was like, please, man. So that's what Pac swan about. And then, you know, think about Pac, he had boys, he always had boys with him, yeah, and so they stomped the dude out.

SPEAKER_05: 43:24

Uh oh.

SPEAKER_04: 43:30

Oh, and and um when I was talking about he did, you know, he had this couple of rough drafts and uh strictly for my niggas, uh troublesome was part of it, man. Which we never end up getting released in '96. Uh so, but yeah, let's go. Let's move on. Poetic justice, bro. Release release uh July 20, 23rd, 1993. Man, uh Ace fail, man. You know, so many stories come behind the scenes of that, man.

SPEAKER_00: 44:04

Uh, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04: 44:05

We know about uh Janet Jackson want him to take an A A's test, which man, that's that's her right. You know, like I might be pissed on you. We know you get all, and the thing about they said she knew that he got around. I mean, got a song called I Get Around, right? Yeah, Ace is running rapid, man. You better get you better get tested. I want to make sure she said she wanted to make sure he was healthy, man.

SPEAKER_00: 44:27

And we we were so unaware, because it was new, it was that was that was new uh for us during that time. We were so unaware of the dangers of it and how you could get it and contract it. But I heard that uh he was like he kept telling everybody, no, get out of my trailer. I don't care who you send, I'm not taking one. He was like, Now, if I could physically be with her, then I'd take a hundred A's test.

SPEAKER_03: 44:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:56

But uh, yeah, he kept telling everybody, nah, he wasn't gonna do it.

SPEAKER_04: 45:01

And he didn't do it, he didn't even do it, man.

SPEAKER_00: 45:04

Yeah, uh, and I love that movie, man. That movie, uh, that was another uh movie where his acting, I felt that he was he was starting to really become an incredible actor. Yeah, um, because if you really go back and you look at that movie, because I I've done some acting myself. I've I've been to acting school and all of that.

SPEAKER_04: 45:27

Oh, okay. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00: 45:29

And yep, I went to um I went to John Casablanca, which was a uh a TV commercial in acting um school back in the day. Um and I've done like some acting workshops here and there. But like they really want you to dive into becoming the character and his his mannerisms uh in that and like even in gang related, but his mannerisms in that uh just from going from being calm and cool to smooth to angry to mad, his transitions were for an up-and-coming actor, man. He was he was a bad boy, man. Bad boy.

SPEAKER_04: 46:07

That's why he excelled when he went to that performing art school, you know. Um yeah, he he loved to act. That's one of the things in '96 when he said, you know, he he he loved hip hop, but his passion was acting. And yeah, you can see that. Yeah. Uh another thing, too, during the film of the you know, think about when you're doing a movie, you they want you to look the same, like so, because you know, you can't change anything. And yeah, dude left out, came back with thug life on his stomach.

SPEAKER_00: 46:40

Yeah, we call those. I think I forget what you call that. Um is it continuity? Where some like you're right, like you know, because sometimes you have days where you, you know, you you got a couple days off, um and you you want to pick up where you left off. But yeah, uh, I think Janet Jackson did mention that that he had got the Thug Life tattoo during the filming of the movie.

SPEAKER_05: 47:07

And John C was like, What man, like, what I was supposed to do with that?

SPEAKER_04: 47:11

Tupac's like, figure it out. And you know, uh his stepfather Mthulu was, you know, still like giving him uh worldly advice and life advice. And Tupac went to Matula, was like, what you think? He was like, Man, come on, man. No, it was Mthulo that came with those acronyms like the Thug Life, uh, Thug Life, you know, um, the hate you give little infinite infants, F everybody. That was from Matula. Yeah, he was like, uh, nah, you gotta change that up, man. You gotta change it. Make it positive, you know. So yeah, that was that was a good thing.

SPEAKER_00: 47:54

So quick note. I uh my very first trip to California uh in 2000, in December, Christmas time of 2000. I forget what the name of the mall was, but it wasn't too far from LAX. I met Jing John Singleton, and uh it was a footlocker out there. He was just out there um by himself in there shopping like we was. Um I got the opportunity to meet him.

SPEAKER_04: 48:19

Yeah, rest in peace, too.

SPEAKER_00: 48:21

Rest in peace.

SPEAKER_04: 48:23

All right, man. Uh released September 26, 1994 was the Thug Life uh CD or the uh album. Back then I had the album. What you think about that? I didn't really get into that. I really didn't listen to itself for uh what was the singles off there? Pour out a little liquor. That's the only one that I was aware of.

SPEAKER_00: 48:43

Okay, so for me is Pour Out a Little Liquor. It's uh Cradle to the Grave, uh Crap Don't Stop, you know. Um and one of my favorites, man, um produced by Warren G. How Long Will They Mourn Me? Yeah, featuring Nate Dog. Um, but Cradle to the Grave, that's that might be on one of my my top 10 Tupac songs. Okay, that's that's a classic to me. Okay. And then another another one on there, Street Fame. I I I'll be honest with you, that I I really that's that album was it was pretty good. If um I don't I don't know if you've listened to it thoroughly, but it it might be something you might want to throw in the chamber uh while you're cleaning the house or something one day.

SPEAKER_04: 49:33

Okay, okay. All right, yeah. I was about to, man, I had I was just I listened to so much pop, man. And um uh like I had to give it a break, so I didn't I didn't mess with that one. Uh then that takes us to it takes us to Above the Rim.

SPEAKER_00: 49:52

Above the Rim. Another great soundtrack. Excellent soundtrack.

SPEAKER_04: 49:59

Man, uh release marching. Yeah, oh man, that's my favorite song on the whole album.

SPEAKER_01: 50:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 50:07

Uh you know, and it wasn't, I don't think it was it was on, it wasn't included. I don't I don't think it was included on the CD, but it was on the tape, on the cassette.

SPEAKER_00: 50:17

Yep, you're right. Pain right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 50:20

Uh that uh uh that movie was released March 22nd, 1994. Uh the soundtrack rather, I mean. And uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 50:30

Who produced that soundtrack? Was it Death Row?

SPEAKER_04: 50:33

Yeah, it was Death Row Joint.

SPEAKER_03: 50:35

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 50:37

Uh Regulate was on there. Remember Old Time Sake, Old Time Sake, Sweet Sable, Afropuffs.

SPEAKER_00: 50:45

Yeah, oh my girl Rage. Uh Love Miss and Rage.

SPEAKER_04: 50:49

Mm-hmm. That that went that went double platinum. Went double platinum, yeah. But Bang, share it with me. Oh, that beat so hypnotizing. Yes. Uh-huh. And that's the name thing about Pac, man. He would have man, his backgrounds, the background singers, which be a lot of time be women, and then um also as ad libs. He was he had the foresight that they would have like, you know, like Pac. We only got so many tracks to use, and he would use, I think it would use like four tracks on his voice alone.

SPEAKER_00: 51:23

Yeah. He um he inspired me in so many ways of me doing my own music. What I loved about Pac, and if you when you do your research on him, you realize a lot of people that he worked with, uh Pac loved authenticity. So, like he would go in, and once he recorded something, he didn't do a whole lot of uh let's fix that. Let's he liked it. If it was done a certain one, once you did it one time, he was good with that. That's why a lot of times I think when he went to Death Row, he clashed with Dre a little bit because Dre would take forever to do a track, and and respectfully so, because he's a producer, he got a different ear. Uh, but even Sloop said that Pac taught them how to just go in there, get the song done, we on to the next one, you know. Um, and I I did that myself, bro. Like I would go into the studio, a six-hour block, man. I'm three songs. I'm I'm done. Three verses each song, you know. Whether I came in there with something written already, or I wrote it in there within that six hours, two to three songs getting done. I adopted that from Pop because I just I felt as if the more material you do, the better you get, the more you hone yourself, the more instead of just trying to concentrate on you know, maybe one good gym, which is it's nothing wrong with that. But I I adopted that philosophy myself or my own work.

SPEAKER_04: 52:50

That comes from his personality, like you said. He was trying to rush, he was he was impatient. You know, he only said my time on this earth is limited. So let me, we got to do this now.

SPEAKER_00: 53:00

Yeah, we gotta get it out the way. Come on, come on, come on.

SPEAKER_04: 53:04

Well, you know, like when you talk about Dre, Dre's like that, uh, where he would like to like work on stuff. Q-tip is another person that's like that. Even Michael Jackson, man. Michael Jackson was just he would spend so much time on one song, but uh yeah, but that's just how they were, man. But yeah, some sometimes that works for some people and some it don't.

SPEAKER_00: 53:24

So so with that being said, because uh that the next album uh would be All Eyes on Me. No, Me Against the World. Me Against the World, my bad. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 53:37

Um yeah, uh released March 14th, 1995, Endoscope Records. That went four times platinum, and this is considered Pac's best lyrical album, and that's when he started to get the better samples. I was I was when I was listening, I was like, oh yeah, his sample game was getting a lot better, the production has gotten a lot better. And but thing about it is I remember thinking back when it came out. It wasn't when I listened to it now, it's it's a great album. But back then, I was hesitant to listen to it because all the stuff that he was going through, uh, he like he embodied whatever he was going through. It was he was down, he was depressing, he was uh, he was he had that impending prison sentence and sentence that he had, and then he had uh, you know, then the police stuff that he was going through.

SPEAKER_00: 54:31

I I remember that album dropping like it was yesterday. Shout out to um some Ingstrites, James Poole and Jerome Gray. They had owned uh EB Music. The building still sits here right on uh Inkster Road in uh in Andover next to uh the the haunted uh whatever funeral home. But I'll never forget um the it went on sale at night. Me and my homeboy, my homeboy uh Dre Lund, straight out of Highland Park, my dog, uh he had a he had a uh orange Buick La Sabre, I think that's what it was, with a peanut butter top. And uh I lived on I lived on um on Six Mile in Livernoy back then, actually to be exact stokeel in Florence. And uh we drove midnight in the peanut butter top La Sabre all the way to EMB music to get the to get the album, and we listened to it on the way home, and the first track that just stood out to me was uh shit uh So Many Tears. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 55:41

Ah, that sample too. I see that's another thing too, man, because you know I'm I'm there's no it's no uh it's no secret that I'm RB first, and he used he used Stevie Wonders, that girl. And so it was hard for me to just jump on board, but the lyrics make you like draw you into it. It's like, oh man, with the stuff that he was talking about. And he just had so much on his heart, man. You know, uh he was sent to 15 days for that. Like you had brought up Alan Hughes when he was supposed to play. What was that that role? The the uh positive, the um uh Sharif. Sharif, yeah, it was supposed to be Sharif.

SPEAKER_00: 56:22

Sharif, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 56:23

And uh they were having all these reads, and Pac was always trying to change stuff, and yeah, and then he was always challenging Alan Hughes, man. He jumped on him, and then and then also he was you know, he was charged with gang rape with that female in the hotel, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:39

Yeah, uh that that that um I want to give Pac his props as far as the way that he should have got paid, but I guess maybe back then it just wasn't a big thing. Um, but he was a producer on all of his material, like he didn't just write and go in the booth, he would be like, Okay, I like this with that, that sounds good with this, let's put this in there, uh, let's sample this, you know. Um, and he and if you listen to that album, especially that song right there, there's uh there might be like another song besides the Stevie Wonders sample in that there's so many tears uh track. Um, but you're right, he was going through all of the legal stuff, and I'm I'm I'm gonna stand on this when I say this that I don't believe to this day that he did what he was accused of. He did say that he could have handled that night better than he did. Yeah, but I believe that he was just in a situation, you're around a bunch of guys that you don't really know. Some stuff went left, and it ended up uh ending the way it did. Now, a street rumor was when he got shot. Um yeah, qua studios, because he recorded in that that studio uh by my research, he did some other songs in that studio before. Yep, yep. Um, that uh Jimmy Henchman, of course, which he mentioned mentioned in his the uh Against All Eyes, was um involved in that whole situation.

SPEAKER_04: 58:19

Haitian Jack, right?

SPEAKER_00: 58:20

Haitian Jack, and he says, uh promise to payback to the henchmen in due time. I know you snitched niggas is listening. Um but henchman was was he worked with Puffy, um um and he was a part of that. I wasn't saying he was a part of Bad Boy, but he was in allegiance with Andre Harrell and those New York guys. He was he was the muscle um to that. So there was some beef between henchman and Tupac, which led to that shooting uh that night of him because he was gonna get taught a lesson. So if you listen to Against All Eyes, Tupac does say that um, you know, he was told that you can't go to war until you get your money right. Supposedly, Jimmy Jimmy Henchman told Tupac that you can't go to war until you get your bread right. So basically, you know, you're you're a peon to me, and I'm gonna show you what time it is.

SPEAKER_04: 59:17

Yeah, he had all that over his head, man.

SPEAKER_00: 59:19

And um yeah, and then and I'm gonna add one more thing. Believe it or not, if if you if you listen to a lot of the music that we love, the back good uh good music comes out of chaos. Yeah, pain. Some good music comes out of chaos, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_04: 59:40

Chaos, pain, hurt, heartbreak, all of that. Uh yeah, because uh I'm looking at track list and if I die tonight, which yeah, me against the world, drama sidle, uh so many tears, temptations. You think about temptations. Um, I didn't like you know. Because like I said, I the the thug stuff wasn't really in my cup of tea. The songs that was geared for to the women, that was me right there. This was like that would draw drew me in. Because he had he had a certain way to talk to these women, the way I mean they loved him, man. And he would say certain stuff, and just the way he would put stuff, and it would just yeah, I just resonate with all the stuff that he had said. Temptations was one of them boys.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:26

Classic.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:27

Yeah. Um, then you got Lord knows uh young niggas heavy in the game, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:34

Heavy dear mama, dear mama's yeah, it ain't easy, yeah, yeah. Old school, yeah. Uh yeah, after world, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:50

Death Robin, see man, he was just speaking this stuff into existence, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:56

Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, Chuck G produced um old school, okay, which is a good track. I to me, out of his catalog, I do believe that Me Against the World is his best work. Like it's a no, yeah, it's a no-skip album for me. Like, that's an album you can put it in and play it from track one all the way to the end.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:18

Yeah, yeah. I I learned that, man. Like I said, I just at the time I was like, think about with Tupac, he'll make you feel he feels. He was really good at that, man. He had his emotion, he would pour his emotions into his songs, into his lyrics, and if you listen to it, and it would have been it's high, it's highly influential, man. Like whatever you do and think, and so I purposely avoided that that CD because I didn't want to feel that. And um, I was filling for him because I remember he went to prison and all that, and I was just to me, it was it was just sad. So fast forward to uh February 13th, 1996, when All Eyes on Me released when he got out of jail, Pac was like full of life, and uh uh this album. Hey man, this album reminds me of the side pocket. Did you used to go to the side pocket?

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:15

I sure did. I got a story about the side pocket, too.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:19

All right, people in side pocket was a pool haul and bar. It was it was man, it was it you had to be there. I used to go there every was uh Friday and Saturday. I used to go out there. It was always crowded, too. Always crowded, and all eyes on me when that was released, they played the whole double album, like not even skipping, not even skipping the song, just letting it roll. And that's how I got familiar with just being at the side pocket and uh the DJ just playing uh All Eyes on Me, and people just vibing with it. It was such a vibe, and it's like a nice soundtrack to play in a bar because it's you know it's a lot of dance tunes, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:58

Yes, yeah. The the the producers that were on that album, uh, they spoke a lot about um how it was a lot of partying women, drinking and smoking in the studio when they did that album. But if you listen to that album, it is the one of the most beautifully uh mixed and mastered albums of all time. The clarity of it uh was unlike any other album, not only just Tupac album, but any other hip-hop album of that time. Those guys did a tremendous job of uh bringing the clarity and the sound out of that uh that double album right there. And I do want to say this too, because Tupac was credited for uh putting out the first double album, um, but he actually was not. There actually is an artist from Detroit um by the name of Eshine. He was the first rapper to actually release a double C D. Yeah, I know that made you that the evil one, yeah. Um yeah, and I I'm not gonna take shots at the brother, but I I knew somebody that was a very good friend of mine that did some work on that album that uh wasn't done right, but that's a whole nother story. But yeah, back to all eyes on me.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:22

Yeah, Pac was this, he was full of life, man. He was um I'm out on bail. Let's party, like you say, I was party, and that was he was he was a celebrity, he became a celebrity, you know. Uh yeah, and so and then think about it too, all the songs on there, man. And I was thinking about all the things had changed since Pac passed away. Like on the song Uh All About You, it was a reference to Bruce Jenner, man.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:50

Is it? I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:53

I think it's one of the outlaws say I run up run up in you like Bruce Jenner or something about running like Bruce Jenner, man. I was like, oh heck no.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:09

I remember that line.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:10

I uh vaguely, but I do remember that line.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:12

Yeah, I was like, oh heck no, you ain't Bruce Jenner ain't running nowhere now. All right, uh okay. Um Pac when Pac was in prison, man, he had become a uh he became a fan of uh pornographic star and director Ron Hightower, man, and he uh asked him to direct the video for how do you want it?

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:38

You know, enter uh Heather Hunter.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:43

Yeah, yeah, Heather Hunter, man.

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:45

Uh Ron Hightower.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:48

So Ron Hightower said, Pacquiao, leave him alone. Like, man, I got a vision. I need I need you to direct my new video. Uh, how do you want it? He's like, I want it. I said, I want a video to where you playing it while you have while you're chilling with your girl, you can be you know doing whatever with your girl that's playing in the background, and so high tire is like okay, but he's like, Man, look, is it is it is that something you really want to do, or you just want to bang the chicks, man? Because you know, high tower had a match and he always had the women with him. He's like, Man, it ain't about them. It's about us, it's about us, and so right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:26

And that was that was that was how do you want it, right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:29

How do you want it? Because there's two versions of that, and uh, and so high tower gave him his number. He said, Man, hour later, uh, Tupac pulled up with a car full of uh you know homies, um, bodyguards, uh, black panther types uh following him. And he was like, dude, high tar at home must be out cold because he had an elevator, and uh Pac got on the elevator with him, and like like dropped to his knee. He's like, Man, come on, man, I need you. So he was like, All right, man. He said, let me think about this, and um, let me think about this. And so he said, you know, they had they had a party, and so high tire went to sleep. He said he went to sleep about two or three o'clock in the morning. He said, all he heard was Tupac banging the banging the chicks in the living room. He said one after another, he was just banging these chicks up. He said he woke up groggy from drinking the next night. He was like, look, man, and Pac was still like, hey man, what's up, man? He said, Look, gay, gay high tower, some money, go get you some steaks, get some Alez A, just come back. It just could be me. You could be the only dudes here, and it'd be the rest of these chicks, man. Wow. Yeah, so Tupac was, you know, a couple of uh porn stars. He went, he know, knocked off, man.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:51

Hey, he got it in, and in 25 years, he got it in. Well, them six for sure, for certain.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:02

Because they were saying that uh he was you know socially awkward when it came to women. It wasn't until you know he starts, they started seeing him in the film and stuff like that. He got his teeth fixed, he had braces, he had, you know, he had the messed up teeth.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:16

And I also, too, they always talked about the way he walked. He was slew foot, he walked like a duck, uh, but that never changed. But he did get his teeth fixed and stuff like that. And then when he was in prison, he did yoke up a little bit, so that helped him out. Um, but yeah, man, uh the double album. What you think? This probably is my favorite Tupac album. Okay. It just it's not better than uh Me Against the World. I know that for sure. And I I don't even think it might not even be better than the next album we're gonna talk about, but uh it just resonated with me because it was just happy. You know, I'm all about the life. He was experiencing life, he was loving life. So you got California Love to America's Most Wanted, How Do You Want It? And I Ain't Mad At You.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:04

I ain't mad at you. Yep. I know how do you How Do You Want It? And California Love uh topped the billboards, the top 100 at number one, uh, which was dope. Uh the album, like I said, it was one of those albums where he was home, he was happy, he was partying, like it was like I'm back out here. And did you know, and you probably do know, that album, that double album was done in 14 days. Yeah, that's a lot of work uh to finish an album of that magnitude in that short period of time. And that's for me, for me, and and I know we we did the LL Cool J. I know that's your favorite rapper. Pac is mine. I got like a 1A, 1B, and it switches up sometimes. It's Pac that is Nas for me. Uh but the guy, man, he was just so immensely talented, man. Um, and like you said, the pain and the drama and everything, like he just everything just came out on wax. But another one of my favorite tracks off of that album is is um of course All Eyes on Me, uh Picture Me Rolling. Uh uh I love one of the beats I love on there, and I love the track too, is uh Trade and War Stories. That's one of my favorite ones. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:29

Matter of fact, since we're here, I'm just gonna go through the tracks. Ambitions of a rider.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:34

Ambitions of a rider.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:36

Uh yeah, that was one of my man, that first side was just dope. Uh so yeah, Ambitions of Arida, all about you. Scandalous, she's so scandalous. Nate dog. Mm-hmm. Rest in peace, and then you got a rest of peace. My mind made up.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:57

Yeah, Methan went hard. Now I heard, now I heard, actually, it's factual that the other uh Wu-Tang member, um, Inspector Deck had the I read the. I think I just uh heard, I think it's on YouTube service or somewhere. It was supposed to be on that track, but Pac was like, nah, we good, we straight, and they end up cutting that his verse out of that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:20

Yeah, yeah, I did see that too.

unknown: 1:11:22

Yeah, that sucked, man.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:24

He had the dog pound man, Batman on there too.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:28

Uh how do you want it, man? Casey and Jojo, man. That's like I said, Pac had a eye, he had an ear for the background, and so having them on there, they were singing that song like they was in church. Um two of two of America's most wanted was Snoop Dogg. Yeah, and that's when I started to say, like, because I remember um when we first heard Snoop on the Chronic, and then his own album, I thought, man, this dude is out cold. But then it then it started to sound like his his rhyme started to sound elementary to me. And it really came out in this when he was rapping with Tupac. His his yeah, yeah, it was like, oh, you're not on this level, you're not on this guy's level at all.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:14

Yeah, yeah. And what's funny is before when Pac came into Death Row, Snoop was actually more popular than Tupac was.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:27

Yep, he surpassed that. You know, I guess Tupac was feeling the resentment after a while because it was so much attention on Tupac. Sug was giving him, you know, uh Pac was priority, and and rightfully so.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:42

Yeah. Um and then Snoop was fighting a murder case, uh which kind of derailed his his career as well at that time. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:52

See, but like when Pac, when he was going through his stuff, he went, he hit that pen and paper and it and it showed when he wrote. But that Dog Father, that Dog Father album was straight trash, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:02

It was, but it was trash. I think it's only it's only one track on there I like, and that's the um the gold rush. Okay. But that's a hard track. That track, the gold rush, but you're right. That album uh I didn't I wasn't a fan of that album.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:25

Nah, I wanted it, I wanted to succeed so bad. I I like the one that was, you know, the song that was released with Uncle Charlie.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:32

Um, but yeah, that one was decent.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:35

Yeah, yeah. You know, it was it was radio, radio friendly. Uh okay, let me go and continue. No more pain. Hearts of men. Hearts of men life goes. Yeah, I love that. Uh life, huh?

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:48

No, I was just uh had the beating. It just came the beat was in my mind.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:53

Yeah, uh, life goes on, only God can judge me. Rappin' for Tails on that boy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A West Coast legend.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:02

Then your song, Trading War Stories, yes, and yeah, California Love. I like now, I like the remix, not the album version. The album version I don't even listen to.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:13

Uh I ain't mad at you with Danny Boy. Then what's your phone number?

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:28

Can't see me with George Clinton.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:30

And uh Shorty Wanna Be a Thug.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:33

I know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:35

Can't see me was produced by um Dr. Dre. Yeah, you can see uh and Shorty Wanna Be a Thug. I believe that was produced by Johnny J. And I heard that Johnny J's son was in the studio, I guess, when they were where when they were when the beat came out. And I I I guess like Father Like Son, whatever, I guess the son had been going through some things, and so Tupac used that as inspiration to write that song. Shorty Want to be a thug. He was actually talking about Johnny J's.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:07

Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Okay, yeah, yeah.

unknown: 1:15:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:15:11

That makes sense, man. Uh-huh. Then you had to holler at me and why they want to call you snitch.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:17

But you know, yeah. Um, I didn't do my research on this, but I'm going to. Um he was he was talking to Dolores C. Tucker on that particular song was kind of aimed at her.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:35

Um, but I heard that, and I had to do my research on her that she she's done a great job uh far as what her mission was in life. Uh so I have to do my research on on her.

SPEAKER_04: 1:15:52

Um yeah, because unfortunately, because Tupac called her out on a few songs, and so she was vilified, but she was doing what she was she was supposed to, you know, and um, so I get it, man. Um yeah, when you uh when we ride, thug passion, man. Man, I didn't man. Did you drink Alazay and Hennessy Dog?

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:15

I couldn't do it. I could I mean I used to try it, it was just a drink I just couldn't, I couldn't get with man. It just the combination just didn't do I didn't I didn't like it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:16:26

I think about it is Alize has cognac in it, so you just doubling up with the Hennessy.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:33

It was like you have a dumbbell cognac and then whatever the sweet stuff that was horrible, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:38

Yeah, it was, bro. And that wasn't Ali.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:41

Uh what's up with these rappers? Because you got Alize. He you know, he talked about Alize, the Beastie Boys, who's a brass monkey, all that sweet stuff. It was just sweet.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:51

Yeah, yeah, I couldn't deal with it. And I drunk Hennessy for a long time. Oh, you did? Oh, I did, yeah. And I graduated from Hennessy to Remy Martin and that was me, VSOP.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:03

I was yeah, it started giving me heartburn, so I decided to leave that alone.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:07

Uh what's funny is I I switched to my this was in my early 30s. The doctor was like, Well, you know, the dark looker got all the sugar, you gotta go go white, and that's what made me go from the Hennessy. Uh went to that to vodka, and then I left vodka for tequila.

SPEAKER_05: 1:17:27

Ah, no, we hey, we on this, we was on the same journey.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:32

Because if I do, I don't drink, but if I do, if I have a drink, if I'm in that setting, I feel like just you know being social with it, I do patron. I do patrone.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:41

Okay. I I stopped drinking myself, bro. I'm over, I'm close to 130 days clean.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:47

Oh man, congratulations, man. Yeah, man. I yeah, because I I'm on that journey too, and I feel good. But uh one thing, um, this is you know, we sidetrack it, but uh I I prayed for that and I asked God to take the taste of alcohol out of my out my mouth, and he did, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:05

So I don't even crave it, I don't even crave it at all. Man, listen, I I had got to the point I was fooling myself, like I just drink on the weekend, go through weekend, get here. I'm running, just drinking a whole lot. But I pray for the same thing, Lord. Just take it out, my my take the taste, but the taste for it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:25

You're right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:25

No, I don't I don't even crave it at all. And I can sit around people that drink it all day, and I'm good.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:30

Yep, yep. All right, man. Uh pitching me rolling, and then you got checkout time. Hey, I rather want to, I'd rather be a nigga.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:39

N I G G A. Get drunk smoked, smoke, smoke weed off.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:45

Smoke, and no think about it. Is he glorious? He glorified. All right, I would say the chronic chronic got everybody like if you didn't smoke weed when the chronic came out, you start smoking weed, even the nerds were smoking weed, yeah. And then uh Tupac just made drinking, smoking with a girl. He he made it like be a thing, and then and then he really, I mean the N-word was always said a lot, but he made it sound. He made when he said it, it just made it seem like like how you want to make it sound endearing. He made it sound like that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:19

Like embrace it, y'all. Embrace it, yeah. You're not lying though. The the the chronic took your casual weed smoker to an everyday smoker. And then the Tupac era, you're right. It it the drinks, because by then it was Saint Eyes and the the Malt Liquor craze was real crazy. So yeah, we we we fast forward into uh from the chronic to the the 40s and to the hard alcohol. That transition was the music definitely uh encouraged that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:54

Yeah, it's highly influenced, man. Influential, yeah. So yeah, Tupac and the stuff. He was rapping about, so I so I want to do man, give me some. I wanted to give me some blunts, give me some drink, and find a shorty to chill out with. Watch uh J Leno or something. Yeah, and speaking of that, speaking of that song, all I was on me. My favorite song on the album is run the streets.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:18

Run the streets. You can run the streets with Joe. Yeah. Classic.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:31

Love that track, bro.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:32

That's that's one of my favorites, too, off that album.

SPEAKER_05: 1:20:34

Dude, and then the sample to use, Peace and My Love.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:42

The secret how to keep a player so low, making it home, cooking. I see you later. Yeah, yeah. Man, dude, it's only two songs on there that I uh I memorized. It was Runner Streets and How Do You Want It? Those, man. I was like, I went through my pock stage, and so when them songs came on, man, you you were about to see a performance, bro.

SPEAKER_05: 1:21:06

Uh that's right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:08

Yeah. Hard to find E40 be legit. And then Heaven Ain't Hard to Find.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:17

Now that's a I that's one of my favorite tracks, too. Heaven ain't hard to find. That's a dope track.

SPEAKER_04: 1:21:23

Okay. Yeah, that's like both both of those songs back to back, hard to find, and heaven ain't hard to find. And so yeah, I wanna, you know, you had mentioned it earlier in the show, talked about 1996, man. Uh in July '96, Pock hat famously went to Italy. You know, he went to Italy, he went to Milan, he went to Men's Fashion Week. He was while walking the railways, man, for Fasace and all that. He performed uh California Love. He was mingling with the fashion icons. He took Cadada with him right there. And um yeah, it was that's when he started to change. He was you know, and then you know what? When he got with Cadada, he had to apologize here because you know previously he had made a comment about Quincy Jones. He said the only thing Quincy Jones is like to marry white women and bang white women and make and make messed up children. And then think about it, he had to he end up getting engaged to one of those messed up children.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:22

So yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:22:24

And he ended up apologizing, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:27

So uh I didn't know that until I saw it in the movie. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. With Demetrius Ship Jr. Yeah, so I didn't know that. So okay, he was in Italy uh doing the the fashion thing, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_04: 1:22:41

And he was doing the fashion thing, and so that's when you know her influence, and I'm sure uh Quincy Jones influence, that's when he started to realize and sit back. He needed that time away from death row, and and because sure Suge was lording over him, and then that's when Tupac started to realize like, man, none of this stuff is mine. You see, he only had one card in his name, everything else was under death row. And then uh Such was credited at getting him out of jail, but it was Endoscope Records that got him out of jail. It wasn't Suge, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:13

Yeah, yeah, you know what? Um, I think that uh Suge was I'm gonna call it big man delusional. Uh he he thought what he felt was best for Pac. And you know, I mean he did help him during a time when nobody else came to help him. But I think one thing about Pac, he enjoyed uh when you're an artist, when you're creative, you gotta like being free is a lot. Being able to be in control of what you're doing means a lot. And uh you're right, he started to realize that he was in a bad situation.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:49

Um and he couldn't really he could, but he also, I think he also realized that if he left death row, it was gonna have to be strategic because of what he had saw other artists endure on that label, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:06

Oh yeah, that was that's yeah, exactly. That's when he started to change, like man, you know, he was laughing on the outside, but inside he was they were saying that he was like, like, man, this is some crazy stuff, making dudes pee, drink pee, and all this stuff, like yeah, and um, and so he was highly impressionable. So that brings us to his death, man. Um when he um when after the Tyson fight, and they saw that guy on Orlando, Orlando Anderson, and then he went on, and they said Orlando Anderson was a fan of his, bro, and pop went up to him and then socked him, bro, and then everybody just commenced to beating him down. And it was like it was like Orlando Anderson was a real street thug, and he uh but he they said he was about his hands. They say he wasn't into guns, but they say he could throw, he had hands. And so once Pac snuck him like that, uh oh, it was gonna he was gonna definitely retaliate some type of way. Uh he was like, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:11

And I was gonna say I I the streets probably will corroborate this. Um first of all, as much as I love Pac, he had no business button his nose in the street business, in the gang business. And of course, everything was was due to a chain being taken or a confrontation several months earlier at a mall in California. Uh, because uh somebody in in their uh entourage told Pop, oh, there go, old boy, they took the chain or tried to take the chain. Um but Orlando Anderson was known, yeah, you're right, for his hands, but he also was known for being a shooter as well. That's why it was so easy for him to uh if indeed he was the one that pulled the trigger, uh it was easy for him to do that. And then what people don't understand, man, him being a uh uh a gang member, he couldn't go back to his neighborhood with the reputation of uh a rapper that fired on him uh you know in that situation. He did, I mean, California games are about reputation. I mean, that's one aspect of them. And um, unfortunately, it it led to Tupac's uh demise.

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:28

Yeah, because that's the one thing I was saying, like, man, he, you know, uh Orlando Anderson was like, uh my name is out on these streets, I got sucked, I got hit by a rapper. Oh no, it's about to go down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:26:40

No, no, shh. Man, and it's part of his uncle, his uncle, uh Keithy D. Uh I read his book uh not too long ago, Compton Legend. I was I was angry with that brother for many years for being instrumental in Tupac's uh death, um, well, you know, uh having part in it. Uh but him, they were real gangsters. Oh, for sure. Sugnum, I'm not gonna I think they became that, but they wasn't on the level of what Keefe Dem was doing uh during that time. Oh yeah. Um and and so uh but I mean it it's a lot that goes along with especially they knew about it then, but I heard that there was basically like a war for like seven to ten days in the streets of California after Tupac got killed uh that night in Vegas.

SPEAKER_04: 1:27:37

Just think about it, Pac was still alive. Could you imagine um him seeing alright? You see what happened, Orlando Anderson get killed.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:27:47

Biggie get killed. Yeah, yeah, Diddy in jail, we got Suge in jail.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27:52

Yeah, yeah. Biggie was collateral damage, man. Biggie was um, he was the the fact uh uh uh and I can't speak for him, and of course, you know, all them guys is is locked up in the prison, so they they gonna be very tight-lip on everything that they say, but I believe that it was like, look, they done took out Tupac, I gotta take out Joe Guy. And you know, because I uh I mean through history, if you do your research, that might have been the second or third. Pop might have been the third individual that died on Puffy's watch or during that time. I know Suge had a friend that that was killed not by Puffy, but somebody that was affiliated with Puffy. Um and not and Orlando, it's no secret, Orlando Anderson and him in the in the in the Southside Crypts, they did or they did run with Puffy, or they protected him a little bit. So there's some affiliation there.

SPEAKER_04: 1:28:54

Uh then could Qaddafi got killed too, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:57

Qaddafi got killed in New Jersey. Um, yep, in a in a project over there. So I don't know if it had anything to do with um with the Pac situation. It could have. Uh I I have not done my research on that, but he did know a lot about what happened.

SPEAKER_04: 1:29:17

So he was the only one that was willing to talk. Because his mom, who was uh his close friend, uh Tupac was his godmother, I believe. She said uh she was proud of her son for speaking up. And he didn't make it, man. He got taken out.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:33

Yeah, yeah. When you're talking about gangsters, I mean, you already know, bro. Coming up in Easter during the 90s times, man, a lot of cash was dying and going to prison. Just imagine putting millions of dollars in those dudes' pockets with with that mentality and that attitude. So uh it made it dangerous for everybody that was affiliated with hip hop and running in those circles uh back then. And unfortunately, it cost Pac his life, and unfortunately it cost Biggie his life too. God bless both of them.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:07

Yeah, God bless both of them. And uh right now we know that uh 50 Cent put out a documentary on Diddy, and so that documentary is is is shame that Diddy has something to do with both of them, or at least with Pac. But uh the the journalist Tore, I don't know if you follow Tore, but Tore said, he said, Diddy is a bad guy. He said, but I'm not gonna allow people to say that Diddy had something to do with Pac. You know, he said Pac was was uh result of what went down with Orlando and the gang. And then he said, well, as far as Biggie is concerned, uh he said he got information that Suge was behind that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:49

I I believe that. Uh I do too. No, I the reason why I do but I believe that Puffy became afraid because Suge was huge. Uh his muscle was extremely huge as far as um his uh where Death Ro had gotten to at that point. Um and I I think that he was afraid of because something was mentioned about his mother, about they were gonna do something to his mom.

SPEAKER_03: 1:31:21

Come on, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:22

And so I I think I think Puffy just jumped out in front of that train and said, well, we gotta do something first, because both of them were supposed to die in that BMW that night. That was that was the the the so-called unwritten arrangement that both of them, because Suge got shot as well uh in the car that night. Uh so both of them were supposed were supposed to pass. Now they were by the research I've done, they were supposed to uh be taken care of before Las Vegas. But when uh Keefe D's nephew, um a Tupac fan, um Orlando Anderson got jumped by by them guys at in Vegas, that just sped up the process. It became okay, we're gonna take care of this now. Yeah, you know. So, and again, Suge, in my opinion, it was kind of like you took out mine, I'm taking out yours. Yeah, and that's unfortunate. They were stupid for going to California. I don't care what nobody said, they was done for being in California, yeah, and that showed a period of time, bro.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:30

Come on, yeah, stay away. He was worn like think about Pac was worn several times, Biggie was worn several times, don't do this, don't go out there, don't go there, don't do this, and they just, you know, being starving.

SPEAKER_00: 1:32:43

Cause look, you know, like you were saying, bro, according to the um, according to um the the the 50 cent documentary on Puffy, Pac and Big were actually cool. But I think Puffy became jealous of that friendship. Yeah, he didn't like that friendship. Uh and I think he was a little jealous of Tupac. It was kind of like you got you got two guys with two very strong personalities, uh, and they just couldn't seem to mix, and maybe Puffy wanted to be like Pac, I'm not sure. Uh but uh once Tupac got shot, uh shot, Biggie just became it's almost like man, if somebody you got a friend you cool with, you live in Insta, they live in Detroit, they come to Insta and something happened to them, and you might know the guys that did something to them, they're gonna be looking at you like, well, what happened? You know, but uh and Pac love to put stuff in songs and talk a lot, and Biggie couldn't just be like, hey, these guys did this, and these guys did because he knew he probably knew Pac was gonna go and put it in a song, which would have put him in a bad situation. So a lot of that is just it's street politics, man. They both got caught up in it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:00

Oh man, and they say Haitian Jack, man. That they told A Warren Pop, don't mess with him, don't even get in bed with him, but he did though. Alright, let's move, let's go forward. Uh, this next album. The Don Caluminati, the seven-day theory.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:19

That uh won four times platinum. Man, that was that was a great album to follow, all eyes on me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:27

Absolutely. He got back to business on that album as far as his writing and the poor. Like he really got back to business on that album.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:36

Uh released November 5th, 1996.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04: 1:34:40

Mm-hmm. Uh Toss It Up to Live and Die in LA.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:46

Did you know Toss It Up? Uh, there's a song. Uh I Like the Way You Working. No diggity. If you that song and Toss It Up song are almost identical. If you listen to the beat, they saying that because Dr. Dre produced that beat. And so Dre had just left Death Row. So it was kind of like, we gonna take your beat and we gonna do something with it. Uh and that's why I think there's a uh track a line in there where he'd be like, Fruity as this Alize, where he's talking about Dre. Yeah, gonna toss it up. Uh so they took the beat and they kind of like dissed them on it, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 1:35:27

So yeah, uh the salt, the singles are my jam. Uh but this uh Life of Life of an Outlaw, just like that, you crazy White Man's World.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35:44

White Man's World, one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_04: 1:35:47

Uh hold your head up and then against all eyes that you spoke. You had spoken earlier. And it's just yeah, like I said, it was a great album to follow All Eyes on Me. It was almost, man, if he I would say, as much as I love All Eyes on Me, some of those songs were kind of fella. If he would have took some of the songs off this album and put it on there, because a lot of those songs were was made at the same time. That's the thing about it, man. He had so much material that he had to uh do a double album, and then you you talking about some songs that was outtakes that even make these albums. That shows you how much how much work he had put in.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:28

But yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04: 1:36:30

Um, but yeah, I wish some of these songs could have been added to that. But I'm you know, uh it added to his catalog, even though it's short, but uh, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:45

Macchiavelli. Now I don't know the story behind Macavelli. Do you? The actual Machiavelli?

SPEAKER_04: 1:36:52

Yeah, um I just know a little bit this person that uh Faith is death, like the rumors that we hear that's what Pop named himself after Machiavelli. Um that's why pop a lot of people thinking he uh fake his death and came back, he was gonna come back out once things got cleared, but no man. He's too loud.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:14

I was about to say, we his personality would not have allowed him to go to slow things.

SPEAKER_04: 1:37:21

And I don't know about you, but do you know about the medical examiner messing pictures getting out of the things on the slab? You see those years. Yeah, so I saw all the tattoos and hanging up. There was no AI back then, so yeah. I don't know what y'all are talking about. I saw that opened up and laid out on the side. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37:46

I think too, his mother was probably so angry with the world and the way that everything went of surrounding her son that she the way that they um his ceremony and everything, had like the little private ceremony, spread his ashes on the beach and all that. I think they she didn't want to give the world that part. She wanted to just save that for herself because she basically sacrificed him. The world, you know, he was sacrificed, but I mean, pretty much. Yeah, bro. And I and another thing I want to add too, man, and you know, um, we we both love the Lord and we talk about how, you know, you can speak things into existence. I think Pac wanted to save the world because he always was in the mindset of trying to uplift and heal, uplift and heal. And um I do believe that that was a part of his demise as well, because the world is what it is, you know. Um, and I think that uh, and that's the tough thing about being a revolutionary, too, is trying to save and help a lot of people, and uh eventually it caught up with you.

SPEAKER_04: 1:39:00

Uh he could have lived it out, you know, he could have lived through and lived it out, and he's you know, he like I said, he had just changed, he had just turned the corner, and um, we're gonna talk about these movies, but on the set of these movies, he got close to the actors and actresses, and the conversations he was having with them. He was like, uh, matter of fact, when he got paid for gridlock, he went to uh the producer and said uh uh he he ended up he finally got a bank account established and he said I want the check in my name, send it to me directly. Yeah and so that's when things started to change because he already knew, man, uh Suge was coming on set, man. Matter of fact, uh on the on I think on the it was either gridlock or gang related. I think it was gang related. He was uh Suge was either pop up or either uh he would either escort Pac to the The movie set and then they say Pac would be a certain way when Sug was there. When Sug left, he was just like he would just like decompress and then be himself.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:10

He could breathe.

SPEAKER_04: 1:40:11

Yeah, unfortunately. I just recently saw Gang Related. I didn't that movie, I didn't think it was a good movie. Uh it was it wasn't fleshed out. The character wasn't fleshed out because all of a sudden you just see these two cops, but you don't know their personality. All of a sudden, you know, uh they murder an undercover cop and they try to cover up through the whole film.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40:36

And they just talked about for that small bag of cocaine. Yeah, it was it wasn't like it was like suitcases of bags full of dope. They killed them over a small bag of cocaine, bro.

SPEAKER_05: 1:40:50

Oh no, did you listen how they were having these conversations with each other? They were out in the open, it was like it wasn't secret.

SPEAKER_04: 1:40:57

They was in the police station, and Pac was like, Did you hear the story about the two cops killing an undercover agent?

SPEAKER_05: 1:41:02

I'm like, dang, dude, you right in the police station.

SPEAKER_04: 1:41:05

Like it was terrible, man. Jim Belushi wasn't believable. Pac was the only and Layla Rashon, even though she's beautiful, I she didn't uh she didn't come across the believable. Only one that did was Pac. You know, he you know, he seen I just felt so bad. And then you saw Tiny was in there, uh Tiny Lister. Uh what's his name? Lister, yeah, uh Debo Zoop. Zeus and Debos. So we assumed that he didn't want to kill Tupac's character.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41:40

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:41:41

But uh what I did enjoy, man, I watched this the other day was uh uh Gridlock. Gridlock was, man, I found myself laughing so much, man. It was good, man. That was a good movie.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41:55

Tim Rossy New. Another uh character that he dove deep into that was different from you know the other characters.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42:06

Yeah, yeah. And I forgot they were supposed to be based in Detroit, you know, they was naming all these Detroit streets. I mean, I obviously it was a film here because I didn't recognize any of the locations, but uh them talking about the names and all that type of stuff. And it was funny how they just had those three, they were just like they were tandem, they're a tandem, they were in a group as well, in the musical group, right? And um, they had no boundaries, man. They in the bathroom together. She's sitting on the toilet while they and then they both, and then Tupac and Tim Roth character pinning the toilet at the same time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:42:42

That was wild, wow.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42:44

I know, and she like kissing them both of them in the mouth. I was like, man, what's this where is that? Where's the boundaries, man?

SPEAKER_01: 1:42:55

Uh yeah, right, right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42:58

And then they go on to the whole show trying to just want to just you know, detox, clear up, and they just trying to go through the system, and the system just giving them the runaround and show you how bad how bad the system can be. Yeah. And I downloaded this soundtrack, and then it was some dope songs on there.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:19

Uh never had a friend like me do that song there. That's one of my favorite tracks on there.

SPEAKER_03: 1:43:25

Yeah. Uh oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:43:29

Alright, man. If uh there's anything, um let's see. What we did talk about. I do want to talk about some of those legal issues before we get up out of here. So we did talk about the Maris, the Marin City, uh shooting with the kid. Uh oh, we forgot about the shooting of the two off-duty officers in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:51

Yes, yes.

unknown: 1:43:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:54

So I might I was a little confused because I had heard a story that I thought it was a woman that was getting beat on, but it was a man that was getting beat on. And they were in a limo or they were something. They were riding, and Pox saw it, told him to pull over.

unknown: 1:44:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:08

And I guess they we went to try to see what was going on, and they told him to get the F back in the car, and he's like, okay. And he came out and he shot both of them. And what saved them was they were off-duties officers, basically beating up a brother for no reason. Again, I go back to during that time. Yeah, our time as young teenagers turning adults, it was tough for young black men. Um, and they had pistols that that they weren't even supposed to have. Yeah, I don't know if they had stolen from the whatever room at the police station or whatnot. Um, and so he was exonerated um for that situation, which is you gotta think, man, to pull over to help somebody. Right, they could have killed that man that night and got away with it. You know, I wonder what that was that is that individual still le living and what what his name was.

SPEAKER_04: 1:45:06

Yeah, because I don't hear anything about that. Uh, we do know that the cops, you know, the cops was shady, and um he was able to get off of that. But yeah, I didn't hear anything about the guy that was getting beat up. We did, I I did read the story about the girl that was uh, you know, the the song uh Brenda's got a baby, the the the baby that was thrown in the in the in the in the chute. Yeah they found him.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:32

And by lucky, I guess the guy that was doing the trash compactor heard the baby crying. And that's what made him not basically kill the baby or do his job.

SPEAKER_04: 1:45:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:44

So now I believe that child is still living.

SPEAKER_04: 1:45:46

Yeah, that's what I was about to say. He he is living in um he was adopted and he wanted to find out, he wanted to find out who his parents were, and then somehow he found out that uh his parents were a certain, I think wherever that happened, he reached out and and it was like, Hey man, do you do you like Tupac? It's like yeah, he's like, Do you know the song Brandon's Got a Baby? He's like, Yeah. He said, You're that baby.

unknown: 1:46:12

Like, what?

SPEAKER_04: 1:46:13

And then that led to him to him finding out who his mom was. And so they uh yeah, so he and I think they got a relationship now.

SPEAKER_01: 1:46:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:46:26

Right, you know what I'm saying? That was that's dope, man. Uh he was inducted in the Hall of Fame, Hip Hop Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2010, Dear Mama was added to the Library Congress National Red uh Recording Registry. Uh he was in Yes, salute in 2017. He was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46:50

Uh that's the one that's in Ohio, that's in Cleveland.

SPEAKER_04: 1:46:54

Yeah, yeah, that's in Cleveland. And in 2023, he got the star Walk of Fame in Hollywood.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:47:03

And and also in 2023, he got a stretch of road uh named after him in Oakland.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47:10

Oh wow. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:47:12

And also in 2023, he was ranked number four of the top five rappers by Billboard. But you know, Billboard, man, they lost they lost a lot of credibility out a lot of stuff that they didn't put out. Like, I disagree on a lot of stuff, but maybe cool. He he could be higher, I don't know. Uh, but I don't know who I don't know who the top three are. Maybe uh Eminem, they probably put Eminem and Jay-Z, maybe Biggie, I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47:41

Uh yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03: 1:47:43

But yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47:44

I know he sold 75 million worldwide.

SPEAKER_04: 1:47:49

Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah, salute to that brother, man. Any uh any final words, man?

SPEAKER_00: 1:47:57

I just want to say, man, I I hate that Pac was taken from us so young. Um, I wish that he could have lived to be married, have children, uh, maybe do some political things. Uh, I had listened to um a video where him and Monster Cody, um, they were talking about uh some of the things that they wanted to do in the community. I wish we would have had the opportunity to uh see him do that. And Lord knows what type of actor he would have been, probably would have been competing with uh Denzel and a lot of those guys. Um but I'm thankful that um for the short period of time that he was with us, because a lot of his music helped me through a lot during my younger years. There was some a lot of teaching um in it. Um I I hate to say the greatest of all time because that always brings about arguments with people and who they love. He is definitely one of the greatest of all time. So salute to him, his family, his mom. Um, and you know, God bless uh God bless uh uh Pac and those that are still left, his family, his sister. Uh a lot of them are quiet, but God bless them, man.

SPEAKER_04: 1:49:09

Yeah, set, man. Uh keep your head up was was dedicated to her. Some of that stuff. Because he uh if you got your phone with you, I sent you a picture, man. You got your phone on you?

SPEAKER_01: 1:49:20

Yep, yep. You see that picture I sent you?

SPEAKER_04: 1:49:22

Yeah, and that was my that was my Tupac stage, man.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49:26

Okay, we all went through it. We all went through it, boo.

SPEAKER_04: 1:49:31

Uh uh my first dog as an adult, man. Uh a pit bull, I named it Tupac. Probably my best dog, my probably my best dog I ever had. My kids still talk about talk about Tupac to this to this day. Um but yeah, big salute to him. And like you said, I get I get by people have their goats and all that, and who's the greatest. But I will say this, I know he's the most influential because when he passed, oh my gosh, man, everybody wanted to be a thug. Uh then every everybody came out the woodwork, had a relationship with him, and uh, I was cool with him, and then oh man, poop pock was like this, the pot like that. And you know, he had people trying to sound like him, he had a Ja Ru. People say DMX, I don't know, but uh he you could tell he was influenced by that. Uh all the Master P, all the no limit seemed like they were influenced by him. Little Zane was influenced because he definitely had two pox cadence. It was just it was man, the word thug was overused so much. I was like, oh my god, I was so fatigued, bro.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50:38

And I was like, man, we had Pac fatigue.

SPEAKER_04: 1:50:42

Yeah, at least Thug, everybody wants to be your hip-hop gangster and all that, and yeah, and like uh and like in that book by Jeff Pearlman. A lot of people they interviewed, like you said, uh he wasn't a real gangster, and they pointed that out, and they should have protected him, man. Um, knowing that he especially by going to death row and he being a cash cow, uh uh he really didn't want to go to that fight. He had something else he had wanted to do. Yeah, sure, should want him to come. He bought all those tickets and he ended up going, man. And um they should have protected him, man. He shouldn't have been in the middle of that type of stuff. You know, like how regret with a lot of these basketball stars that's in the hood, man. The gangsters, they protect these hoopers, man. They don't let them get in, they don't allow them get any no crap, man. And you're right for it, and they should have done the same with him. I agree. Because he had bigger things, man. He had big stuff to come, man. Like you said, he could have been the Academy Award winner, all types of stuff, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:51:42

And yeah, just and and and to add to that too, um you like you just said, like how we protected our basketball players or our athletes, they should have done that for him, man. Definitely should have done that for him.

SPEAKER_04: 1:52:00

Rest in peace, Tupacamaro Shakur, man. Love you, guys. Love you. All right, all right, my people.

SPEAKER_05: 1:52:10

Remember, keep those classics current.