This past Tuesday marked the three year anniversary of the shooting of Tupac Shakur. He was shot on the seventh and died on September 13, 1996, a Friday.
Since his demise three albums of his work have been released, Makaveli the Don Killuminati, the 7 day theory, R U Still Down, and 2Pac, Greatest Hits. All of these albums have reached platinum status, which isn’t bad considering he’s been dead for three years.
To mark this sad anniversary, I’m going to review one of his earlier works, All Eyez On Me.
Tupac Shakur has did something no other rapper had ever done, recorded a double album. With his bail paid by Suge Knight, Tupac joined with Death Row Records and within a few weeks had rapped the entire album. Aided with production from Dr. Dre, Tupac has created a classic hip-hop album.
On his first disc, Tupac has a plethora of fantastic tracks. One of the tightest being “How Do You Want It” with K-Ci and Jojo of Jodeci adding back-up vocals. Tupac uses the first verse to tell a woman how he can “Get you anything you ask for/ It’s either him or me/ champagne, Hennesy.” He goes on to tell the woman that “Your body is bangin baby/ I love it when you flaunt it.”
In the second verse Pac lets censorship fuel his angry rap. “Doloris Tucker you a mutha****.” Later on in the verse he spits “Bill Clinton/ Mr. Bob Dole/ You’re too old to understand the way the game’s told/ You’re lame so I gotta hitcha with the hot facts.” “They wanna censor me/ They’d rather see me in a cell.”
With Dr. Dre’s talented hand crafting the beat, this track is on fire. The beat is unmistakable with it’s high cymbals and the constant snare.
The next track on the first disc is “2 Of Amerika’s Most Wanted.” Joining Tupac is Snoop Doggy Dogg. These two lyricists are at their best on this track. With the opening being “Aint nothin but a gangsta party” the listener’s attention belongs to Snoop and Pac. After a brief intro by Pac, Snoop takes the microphone and begins to lay down some lyrics in his laid back, smooth voice. “Keep my hand on my gun cause they got me on the run/ now I’m back in the courtroom waitin on the outcome/ Free Tupac is all that’s on a brotha’s mind/ but at the same time it seems like they’re trying to take mine/ so I’ma get smart and get defensive as s**t/ and put together a million march for some gangsta s**t.”
Yet again, Dr Dre’s production shines through with a distinct tune that could only have been created by his masterful mind. The drum and bass beat is catchy, the listener will find their heads bobbing along.
“Only God Can Judge Me” relies heavily on Tupac’s lyrics, more so than most tracks. The beat takes a quiet step to the background and Pac’s vocals jump to the forefront. The listener is painted a picture of Tupac’s life, from his thoughts on race relations to his prediction of his own death. “I’ve been trapped since birth/ cautious cause I’m cursed/ and fantasies of my family in the hearse/ and they say it’s the white man I should fear/ but it’s my own kind doing all the killing here.” “Flatline!/ I hear the doctor standing over me, screaming I can make it/ gotta a body full of bullet holes, laying here naked/ still I can’t breath/ something’s evil in my IV/ cause every time I breath/ I think they’re killing me/ I’m having nightmares/ homicidal fantasies/ I wake up strangling, dangling in my bed sheets.”
The second disc opens with “You Can’t See Me.” This track attacks the listener’s ear-drums with a flurry of heavy bass and crashing cymbals. Overlapping the bass and cymbals is a deep synthesizer.
Pac uses this track to express how good he is at rapping. “My s*** be popping out the record store as if it was a drug house/ my lyrics bang like a Crip or Blood/ n**** what/ it aint nothing but a party when we thug/ and there I was/ a young brotha with heart aint have s*** to lose.”
Those who believe Tupac is alive point to this song as proof. “Must see my enemies defeated/ I catch them while they coked up and weeded open fire now them n****s bleeding.” The reference to his enemies would be his well known beef with Christopher Wallace a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G. Pac becomes even more explicit with his distaste for Biggie on “Holla At Me.”
The track opens with a soulful solo and jumps quickly into the kicking beat. Pac starts off with a vicious rap that can only be aimed at one person, Biggie. “Are you confused?/ You wonder how it feels to walk a mile inside the shoes of a n**** who don’t have a thing to lose/ when me and you was homies no one before me it was all a scheme/ you infiltrated my team and stole a n***** dream/ How could you do me like that? I took you family in/ I put some cash in your pocket/ made you a man again.”
Pac then goes into a frightening verse. “I lost respect for you n*****/ we can never be friends/ I know what’s running through your head now/ what could you do if it was up to you/ I’d be dead now/ I’ll let the world know n**** you a coward you can never be live/ until you die/ see the mutha****** bitch in your eyes.” Those lyrics have come true. Tupac and Biggie both had their lives stolen. After Biggie’s death, his second album went on to huge success.
The most famous Notorious B.I.G. dis comes on the track “Hit’em Up.” This track wasn’t included on All Eyez On Me, but was the B-Side of “How Do You Want It?”
All Eyez On Me deserves its spot as a classic rap album. It has, arguably, the most popular rapper to have graced the mic and the most popular producer of the time. This combination could go ten times platinum, oh wait, they did.
