This is part six of Inside Pulse Music’s groundbreaking 10-part series on the impact and influence of Tupac Shakur.
Coyotes…vultures…Afeni Shakur…Suge Knight. All have been known to feast on the carrion of that which was once alive. Every year since Tupac Shakur’s death, a new release of previously unheard material has found its way to the shelves of record stores everywhere.
Seven years after the release of his first posthumous album, Tupac’s LPs still are capable of spending months near the top of the Billboard charts. But, are these albums worthy of the sales figures they do? More importantly, does the message of these albums hold up well over time? And, what about Pac’s legacy? Does this gradual flood of so much material adversely affect it?
What follows in a brief synopsis of every major Tupac release from 1997 through his latest album in 2002, along with many of the little known stories behind each one.
R U Still Down… [remember me]
History: Immediately following Tupac’s death in 1996, a conflict over who controlled his music began. Embattled Death Row CEO Suge Knight, facing a likely prison term for violating his parole, claimed ownership of the masters and accused his “best friend” Tupac of owing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the label in the form of loans, cars, jewelry and houses.
Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, who seemingly had no input during her son’s professional career, suddenly stepped forward and stated that the entire Tupac catalog belonged to her. Lawsuits and counter suits flew back and forth with no sign of a compromise in sight. During this legal dispute, Afeni wisely understood that it could be long and protracted.
With the seed money of some longtime family friends, Afeni created Amaru Records, which borrowed on her son’s middle name. Shortly after the birth of this new company, Afeni and her investors came to terms with Tupac’s first record label on the transfer of the master tapes (both released and unreleased) of everything he commercially recorded from 1991 to 1994.
On November 25, 1997, the sixth Tupac album was released.
The Album: Many fans didn’t know what to initially make of this release. As much of the rap world was still feeding into the silly “staged death” theories, the streets were being flooded with unauthorized bootlegs of unreleased Tupac’s work. The first of these Tupac “cut-and-paste” efforts was rough and unpolished, but not without a deserved hit or two.
Do For Love is bogged down by its lightweight, pop music approach, but it’s such a departure from many of the tracks that embodied his last few months that this criticism can be overlooked. I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto was the other big single. The inspiring glow from this one has dulled a bit, since it seems all of his posthumous records contain some variation of this subject matter, often with some of the exact same lyrics.
Fans of angry Pac will enjoy cuts like Open Fire and Hellrazor. Primarily, because they sound exactly like the raging caricature that Pac turned into during much of his Death Row tenure. That’s not a bad thing, per se, as long as volume is your vice. Inexplicably, the annoying “voice distorted” Pac returns on a few cuts like When I Get Free. Doesn’t Afeni know there was a reason that this unlistenable gimmick was dropped after his second studio album?
The 411: R U Still Down is a collection of outtakes from a time when Tupac was still evolving as a rapper. There’s a little too much “money, ho, kill” on here to give this much of a recommendation. Rating: 4.5/10
2Pac: Greatest Hits
History: A new day had dawned at Death Row Records. After spending five years on top of the rap world, the label was still reeling from the loss of their distribution deal with Interscope in 1996. To say nothing of the founding talent that abandoned the sinking ship after CEO Suge Knight went to jail.
Throughout most of 1997 and 1998, Death Row actively sought to replace the artists who were leaving with the next generation of gangsta rap. Apparently, imitation was the sincerest form of flattery. Somehow…somewhere, they dug up a knockoff of Snoop Dogg, named “Top Dogg”. Gritty female lyricist, The Lady of Rage, was swapped out with the anonymous “VK”. And, most infamously, a Texas based rapper whose stage name was similar to an African King changed his moniker to “Tha Realest” and changed up his flow, inflection and cadence to match that of Tupac.
In addition, Death Row settled their long-running feud with Afeni Shakur. Afeni obtained the rights to her son’s catalog, while Death Row retained limited distribution privileges and limited creative input. The first product of this uneasy alliance was the long awaited Greatest Hits double LP.
On November 24, 1998, the seventh Tupac album was released.
The Album: This is the highest selling “greatest hits” album for a rapper for two reasons: One, it preceded the whole file-sharing/ripping craze. Two, it’s a nearly perfect sampling of all the things that fans loved about Tupac.
There are 21 previously heard tracks and four “new” ones that each have a backstory of their own. Troublesome ’96 was rumored to be the first single off of the Makaveli album. A clean version was put together and sent out to radio stations in California, but at the last second it was pulled. Changes is a maudlin little track that leans on a Puffy-like sample of a Bruce Hornsby hit.
God Bless The Dead attempts to further the “is he dead or not” argument, as Pac shows love to Biggie Smalls with a heartfelt “rest in peace” shoutout. Of course, he is talking about another Biggie Smalls and not The Notorious B.I.G. Finally, the legend of Unconditional Love, which was reportedly written for MC Hammer during his brief stay on the label.
The 411: Personally, I would’ve found a way to include If I Die 2Nite on here, but otherwise, you won’t find a more comprehensive collection of Pac’s finest work.
Still I Rise
History: The peace between Death Row Records and Afeni Shakur didn’t last long. After the two sides collaborated on the Greatest Hits album, they couldn’t decide on how to handle the next Tupac release. Afeni wanted to drop a “tribute” album, with other rappers performing Pac’s biggest hits. Death Row preferred another double disc featuring the material that was originally intended for an album by Pac’s prot駩s, The Outlawz.
Unfortunately for Afeni, and perhaps fortunately for the fans, many of the big names that she wanted for the tribute album, such as Madonna, either couldn’t fit the work into their schedules or wouldn’t do it for the price that Afeni was reportedly willing to pay for them (nothing).
She then turned her attention to The Outlawz project that Death Row had first proposed. Everything was Kool & The Gang until Afeni ordered that any and all disses that appeared in the original recordings be removed. Death Row was shocked, as they had hung their hat on vacuous diss tracks for years and took Afeni and Amaru Entertainment to court in order to “preserve the integrity” of every cut.
The two sides eventually settled, but not before Still I Rise (under the name of “2Pac + Outlawz”) dropped without either company’s logo appearing on the album cover or in any of the advertising.
On December 21, 1999, the eighth Tupac album was released.
The Album: This CD is almost universally despised by Tupac fans as Afeni got her way and cleaned up the disses. These “fans” couldn’t be more wrong as this is easily the best of his post-Makaveli albums. Admittedly, that’s probably not saying a whole lot, but this release could also stand up well against some of the work he released while alive.
The opener, Letter to the President is a harsh, but occasionally well-reasoned retort to the policies of then-President Bill Clinton. Hell 4 A Hustler and the title track feature solid production and a spin on the hopelessness theme that still sounds fresh and relevant.
Even cuts like the first single, Baby Don’t Cry and Teardrops & Closed Caskets manage to drip with sincere emotion even though the subject matter has been covered before. Tupac is featured enough on each track (save for the last one) that The Outlawz don’t get a chance to gum up the works, either. To their credit, they manage to stay within themselves and stay out of Pac’s way.
The 411: Sorry, kids…I like this album. Yeah, it’s about three tracks too long and ends up grinding to the end, but compared to what would follow, this is as close to the “real” Tupac that we’d ever hear again. Rating: 7.5/10
The Rose That Grew From Concrete
History: One of the biggest goals that Afeni Shakur has had since her son’s death is to extend his reach beyond the young, urban demographic. Her most marketable means of achieving this goal were contained in dozens of crudely scrawled poems that Tupac wrote in the early ’90s.
In 1999, Afeni secured a publishing deal and that fall, The Rose That Grew From Concrete was released in bookstores across the country. Amaru Entertainment somehow convinced the higher-ups in the offices of Interscope to provide worldwide distribution for the companion soundtrack, which featured interpretations of Tupac’s poems by friends, family and celebrities.
On November 21, 2000…please, no one considers this a Tupac album.
The Album: Pretentiously titled “Volume One”, this was a horribly executed concept on nearly every level. Now, I should disclose that I was briefly an English major in college and spent many hours reviewing and analyzing the work of the greatest poets who ever lived. Tupac wasn’t even in their solar system.
C-Level has-been TV star and professional Shakur groupie, Jasmine Guy appears for all of 36 seconds on Tears of a Teenage Mother, while Theo from The Cosby Show gets all funky n’ soulful on Lady Liberty Needs Glasses. It’s more out-of-work talent in the form of Danny Glover on the laughably overproduced A River That Flows Forever.
There is a decent Outlawz track buried in here (In The Event of My Demise) and Wake Me When I’m Free has a nice African flavor and some powerful voices that overinflate the importance of the material, but it still makes for a good listen.
The 411: Afeni seems to be the only person on earth who thinks “Tupac, the Poet” will sell. This CD deservedly flopped and even hardcore fans should avoid this at all costs. Rating: 1.0/10
Until The End Of Time
History: During the summer of 2000, the Death Row Records website ran an advertisement for the next Tupac release. It was scheduled to be an unprecedented four disc set of previously unreleased material with a working title of Cleaning Out The Vault. There were even rumors that the packaging would be designed to look like an actual safe.
It was hoped that this project would be in stores just before the Christmas shopping season and that the spirit of retail would entice consumers to fork over $40 for the album. The holidays came and went without anything new from Tupac, until an announcement in early 2001 regarding a change of plans. The four-disc set would be broken up into two separate two-disc releases, with the first, Until The End of Time, to hit store shelves around Easter.
On March 27, 2001, the ninth Tupac album was released.
The Album: The first cracks in the Tupac foundation were beginning to show. Although this outing starts out promisingly enough with the aggressive Ballad of a Dead Soulja, the balance of Disc One is a car wreck of played out themes and watered down material. All Out and Breathin’ once again feature Tupac on the warpath, with his Outlaw associates playing the roles of ventriloquist dummies. The remixes to Thug N U and F*ck Friends both do a grave disservice to the originals, while the butchering of Lil’ Homies from the bootlegged version borders on criminal. The worst is saved for the title cut which samples Mister Mister for its cornball hook.
Disc 2 isn’t much better, but it is an improvement over the first. The highlights include an ode to his boys on My Closest Road Dogz, the longtime mix tape favorite When Thugz Cry and the cynical This Ain’t Livin’. Former Death Row bottom-feeders Above The Law and the late Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes appear on separate cuts and bring them both down from mediocre to awful.
Even “awful” is too good a word to describe the ear-stabbing production on the remix to N*ggaz Nature. And can anyone explain why the insidious Wendy Williams diss track, Why U Turn On Me made the cut? It’s an absolute embarrassment to Tupac’s memory and this version edits Williams’ name out to make it sound even more low-rent than it is.
The 411: There is just barely enough material here to make three-quarters of a decent album. Over half the tracks should never have seen the light of day and the inclusion of so many members of Death Row’s third string cheapens every track they’re on. Rating: 3.5/10
Better Dayz
History: By the fall of 2002, the rap game was decided different from the one that Tupac left behind. A white rapper from Detroit was the industry’s biggest seller. Gold teeth and speech impediments allowed spitters from the South and Midwest to get their foot in the door and move millions of units. And Pac had finally squashed his long-running beef with Jay-Z and Nas.
OK…that’s not entirely true. I guess you could say that the beef was squashed for him. Jay-Z met with recently paroled Death Row CEO Suge Knight to request the use of Me & My Girlfriend for Jigga’s upcoming album. Knight agreed, but demanded that, in addition to financial consideration, Jay-Z agree to contribute a song to a future Death Row project. A few weeks later, Jay-Z was exchanging verses with Beyoncé ¯ver a beat that once belonged to his enemy.
Nas met with Afeni Shakur earlier that year regarding the possibility of laying down a few bars in collaboration with Tupac. The Queens rapper enthusiastically agreed and was featured prominently in the heavy-handed ad campaign that would follow.
On November 26, 2002, the tenth Tupac album was released.
The Album: This is another inconsistent double album, but fortunately it’s a shade better than the last one. Thugz Mansion was a nice, neutral choice for the first single and might be the only time you’ll ever hear Nas outclassed on the mic. The first disc boasts a few grotesque guilty pleasures like Still Ballin’, F*** Em All and When We Ride On Our Enemies. The rest ranges from above average (Street Fame) to previously recycled (Late Night).
The second disc starts off with the powerful My Block, which is the best solo Tupac track that’s dropped in years. Another highlight is the taste of the legendary One Nation project that was never completed. Military Minds guest stars Buckshot and the Coco Brothers and it’s easy to see why this unfinished LP is still talked about so reverently.
Sadly, much of the remaining cuts are just filler like the Fair Xchange remix or pandering tripe like I’ll Never Call U Bitch Again.
The 411: Here’s hoping that this is the last of the releases from the so-called Makaveli era. If you own a copy of either of the Tupac LPs from 1996, then you’ve heard all the material here already. For diehards only. Rating: 4.5/10
The continued exploitation of Tupac Shakur’s catalog produces millions in sales every year, so there’s no reason to assume that the end is anywhere in sight. At some point in time, in the not-too-distant future, those who are profiting the most from Shakur will reach a point when there’s no more flesh left on the bones of the carcass.
Even coyotes and vultures move on, eventually.
Next, in Part VII of Countdown to Resurrection, a critical review of the just released soundtrack to the Resurrection documentary.
