60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “California Love”—Tupac

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

Rob Harvilla explores the legacy of Tupac Shakur, one of the most important figures hip-hop ever birthed and a person whose life was defined by contradictions. He breaks down Tupac’s rise in music and Hollywood and his latter-day stint at Death Row Records, including the mega-hit “California Love.” This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Andreas Hale Producer: Justin Sayles Associate Producer: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Emmy Award-winning producer, actor and comedian Larry Wilmore is back on the air, hosting a podcast where he weighs in on the issues of the week and interviews guests in the world of politics, entertainment, culture, sports, and beyond. Check out Larry Wilmore, Black on the Air on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. They are known semi-formally as the Filthy 15. The 15 songs chosen in 1985 by a spry young political activist. agency known as the Parents' Music Resource Center to illustrate the toxic, corrupting, indefensible, outrageously scandalous content of modern pop music. Yes, the much loathed and derided PMRC,

formed by Tipper Gore, wife of Senator Al Gore, and Susan Baker, wife of Treasury Secretary James Baker, alongside Pam Hauer and Sally Nebius, the PMRC. the public enemy, the run DMC of censorship, the funky 4 plus zero, when Netflix screenlights a lavish Oscar bait PMRC biopic, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, the harrowing opening scene will be Tipper Gore, played by Jessica Chastain. She can do anything. Tipper Gore, buying Prince's 1984 blockbuster album Purple Rain for her 11-year-old daughter and then sitting down to enjoy Purple Rain with her 11-year-old.

old daughter until they got to the song, Darling Nikki. Potentially a literal record scratch moment for our friend, Tipper Gore, if only she could reach the record player in time to prevent Prince from singing the next line. What is the most perverse magazine Nikki could be reading in the host? hotel lobby while she's Time, Time Magazine, not even Newsweek, time. The is God dead issue of Time magazine. Yes, from 1966, very old magazines in this hotel lobby, scandalous, indefensible, corrupting.

Tipper watches a little MTV. Yikes. Tipper rounds up some buddies and the PMRC is born in 1985. the PMRC sends a letter to the also much derided recording industry association of America proposing an album rating system to combat all this obscenity

quote exercise voluntary self-restraint perhaps by developing guidelines and or a rating system such as that of the movie industry sure this hypothetical rating system was a little different though sing it with me X for profane or sexually explicit

lyrics B, for violent content, D slash A, for drugs and alcohol, and O, for occult references. What's that spell? Nothing. Terrible rating system. Very poor acronym material. The best I can do is DeVox. Which a moral rock star will be the first to nail all four categories and score a coveted

DeVox rating? The DeVox rating system doesn't catch on for some reason. What does catch on, however, is the list of 15 especially egregious songs the PMRC provides to illustrate how the DeVox system might work the filthy 15. Should we do? Should I? Of course I should. Darling Nikki by Prince. Sugar Walls by Sheena Easton.

Strap on Robbie Baby. No relation. By vanity. Let me put my love into you. By ACDC. Dress you up by Madonna. In My House by Mary Jane Girls and Shebop by Cindy Lopper, all rated X for sex stuff. High and Dry, parentheses Saturday night by Death Leopard and Trashed by Black Sabbath D slash A for drugs and alcohol.

Bastard by Motley Crew and We're Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister V for Violence. We're not going to take it for violence. Tipper Gore had a specific, not fetish, certainly, but let's say a proclivity for misinterpreting Twisted Sister lyrics. Almost done. Eat Me Alive by Judas Priest and Animal, parentheses, Fuck like a Beast by Wasp, X and V for Sex and Violence, impressive. And finally, into the coven by merciful fate and possessed by venom, both O for a cult. you all this? Two reasons. One reason is important. The other reason is that I get to mention Venom, the English thrash metal band Venom, which in turn permits me to mention the compilation of

stage banter from a Venom concert in 1986, a double bill with Black Flag in City Gardens, New Jersey, the famous, the infamous, the beloved, the stupendous Venom banter tape, which while we're listing things is top five all-time funniest shit on the internet. Your souls do the gods rock and roll. This is how the tape starts. This is Kronos, frontman, venom. The joke here, which I do not want to belabor, but the joke here is that it's just the Kronos stage banter with the songs themselves brusquely removed. So you get a lot of this. Well, let's play this at your next Bachelor Party. This shit kills at Bachelor parties.

I know this from personal experience. This is a track. It's called the chanting of the priests. The Ilan, with which Kronos says the word priests. I just picture a Senate hearing with Tibregor sitting there sternly with a frown on her face. And the table's got a microphone and a nameplate and a glass of water and a giant boombox with skulls on the speak. and Kronos is in his full glory, polluting the halls of Congress. There's a venom song called Poison.

Unbelievable. I love this shit so much. The way they show works sometimes is that I arbitrarily pick something on the internet that amuses me, and then I work backward until I've justified talking about it at great length. This is painstaking necessary labor. Here's what. for you. See if you've heard this one before, New Jersey. This song's rated XV, D, slash A, and O for sex, violence, drugs, and alcohol, and the occult. Did you know that Mike Love, Beach Boys, supervillain Mike Love helped fund the PMRC? What the hell, man? Excuse me, Kokomo by the Mike Love led Beach Boys from 88 would have gotten an X and D slash A rating for sure. By and by will defy a little bit of gravity. Fuck out of here. Anyway, this rating

system did not take off. Whereas the Filthy 15 endures. These songs, very few of them substantial hits, though Prince is Prince and Shee Bob did make it to number three in the Hot 100. Shout out Cindy Lopper. Most of these songs are now semi-famous primarily for being part of the Filthy 15. That's what you get. That's a little something called the Streisand effect. Many Barbara Streisand songs might have gotten the O rating for the occult. What's the other reason I brought this up? Oh, right. Did you notice who or really what didn't make the Filthy 15 at all rap music? No rap music.

In 85, NWA straight out of Compton is still three years away, I suppose. L.L. Cool J, Run DMC, Mantronics, Roxanne Chante, and the fat boys are all big in 85, and they're all relatively benign by comparison. Although, PSK, what does it mean by school E?D. from Philadelphia, a foundational text of gangster rap. PSK was 85, though it didn't enjoy purple rain levels of cultural saturation. In any event, I guess Tipper Gore's 11-year-old daughter

wasn't up on School E.D. yet. No, the PMRC did not succeed in its de Vox schemes, nor in its other early schemes. No, record stores will not keep albums with explicit covers behind the counter. No, labels will not print all the song lyrics on the album covers. That seems logistically unfeasible. Whose idea was that?

Pam. That's a Pam idea. I'm just joking. I have no idea what ideas Pam had. No, labels will not, quote, reassess contracts with musicians who engaged in violent or sexually explicit behavior in concert. Yeah, no. Reassess these. The PMRC did get a Senate hearing in 85.

So Frank Zappa famously testified in favor of free expression. So did Twisted Sisters D. Snyder. So did John Denver. But what we got instead, eventually, was the entirely voluntary parental advisory sticker. You know it. You love it. And even now you gravitate toward any album adorned with it. Parental advisory.

Explicit content. It is the stric and effect in its purest, most glorious and amusing form. Teenager Advisory. This shit rules. Buy it. Walmart and it's ilk wouldn't carry, wouldn't sell parental advisory albums, even cooler.

Judging by the Filthy 15, the Parental Advisory sticker was not conceived as entirely a rap music thing, but soon the sticker became synonymous with rap music, in my mind, at least, parental advisory, rap music. The sticker went through a few wording

and design changes. At first, Ice T's debut album, Rime Pays from 1986 is often credited as the first rap album with any kind of parental advisory sticker, a worthy inclusion, as Thor might say, in Thor Ragnarok. Rhyme pays as back-to-back-to-back songs called

Sex, Pain and Squeeze the Trigger. That's an X and V rating for sure. More famously, this record also has six in the morning. I'm a self-made monster of the city streets, remotely controlled by hard hip-hop piece, but just living in the city is a serious task. Didn't know what the cops wanted, didn't have time. So there are photos of the Rhyme Pays cover on the internet.

And I'm a little suspicious of this because the parental advisory sticker on the Rhyme Pays cover looks like a giant pink condom floating in the air above iced tea. That can't be a coincidence. Right. Ice T personally designed that sticker. Right. I'm not looking too deeply into this because I'll be heartbroken if that's faked or something. The Parenthood advisory sticker, as you know and love it, the black and white design gleaming. in the lower right hand corner of the album cover.

The first album to proudly carry that design was Two Live Crews Band in the USA. In 1990, I think it's safe to say Two Live Crew earned that honor. And it's remarkable how cool, how enticing the Parental Advisory sticker looks on the band in the USA cover. As American is Apple Pie

and is mouth-watering too. The NWA biopic straight out of Compton from 2015, It took me forever to realize that the straight out of Compton poster uses the parental advisory logo as the font. I was embarrassed when I finally got that. I'd like to think of myself as observant, but I'm selectively observant.

Here's where the PMRC fucked up. If Tipper Gore and the gang met these stickers to serve as a deterrent, the stickers should have been shaped like a fluffy pink bunny or like Al Gore's head or like Alf or something. Now I'm just outright stalling.

Okay, now I'm staring at the cover of Tupacalypse Now, the first Tupac record from 1991. I'm staring at the parental advisory sticker gleaming right above the word now. So enticing. So necessary. You can't imagine this cover without a sticker on the cover. There's a newish Tupac book called Changes, an oral history of Tupac Shakur from 2021 written by Sheldon Pierce.

Friend of the program, Sheldon Pierce. He and I talked about Dr. Dre a while back. But in this book, Sheldon, to the art director for Tupacalypse Now, a guy named Kevin Hosman. Kevin was the art director on NWA's Straight Out of Compton album as well. And Kevin now is critiquing the design of the Tupacalypse Now cover. Tupac Chouer is a new artist, a debut artist with this record, but his name's not really on the cover, though Tupacalyps Now is an excellent pun.

Also, that album title is on the lower third of the album cover, which doesn't work if you're sifting through the racks in a record store. The title should be on the upper third. But Kevin also says he was told the PMRC label. That sells records. Put it big and bold. That logo sells more records than the guy's name. In Tupac's case, Tupacalypse Now is pretty much the last album where that's true.

That's from Tupac's first single called Trapped, a truly startling quantity of Tupac on cop violence. even like the first 15 minutes of the first Tupac record. Now I'm looking at the cover of the second Tupac record, whose title we will here abbreviate as Strictly came out in 1993. Strictly was my personal introduction to Tupac. This cover, one day in high school in the parking lot,

the girl I was dating handed me the cassette. I remember this specifically. That cassette in my hand. The Strictly cover is weirdly beautiful. The lower half of Tupac's body is cartoon lava red. He's standing amid what it looks like an alien green landscape. And the parental advisory sticker is in the lower hand corner and is beautifully incorporated into the design. It's not black and white.

It's see-through. So you can see the alien green behind it. Failed censorship is a crucial part of this tableau. It's mesmerizing. The music, meanwhile, is viciously mesmerizing as well. That's the first track and the first single. Holler if you hear me. Also the title of Michael Eric Dyson's 2001 book about Tupac and also the title of a short-lived Tupac Broadway jukebox musical in 2014. I feel like his delivery of the line, see you when I free you, if not when they shove me in, the charisma, the internal rhyme, the ferocious rhythm, the monumental ease of it. That line is an early indication that you're dealing with a guy who will one day inspire a Broadway jukebox musical. He won't live. to see. Now I'm looking at the cover of Tupac's third album, Me Against the World, from 1995.

Tupac is now so famous that it is no longer necessary to jazz up his album covers with cartoon lava reds and alien greens. A stark, suave, sepia tone photograph of Tupac leaning is all anybody requires now. A normal parental advisory sticker is chilling in the right hand corner. The look on Tupac's face, the smoldering intensity of it, makes the parental advisory sticker superfluous. If I hear the song, Dear Mama, 200,000 more times in my life, and that's cool with me, I will still get a little jolt from this line every single time. I read somewhere about this new zombie video game where the ads were bragging that this game has 400,000 words of dialogue, whereas Anna Karenina, the Tolstoy novel, Anna Karenina has only

350,000 words. This was framed as a positive aspect of this video game. First of all, I don't want to play that fucking game. Second of all, no disrespect to Tolstoy or whatever, but I don't know that Anna Karinina accomplishes in 350,000 words, what Tupac accomplishes there in 14 words. The repetition of the word mama especially now i'm looking at the cover of all eyes on me fourth tupac album 1996 first double cd in rap history or second double cd after dj jazzy jeff and the fresh prince there is some mild dispute second straight tupac album to debut at number one on the billboard album chart eventually went diamond 10 million copies sold in america or five million copies of a double album sold. The cover, Tupac's got the bulging muscles. Classic parental advisory

sticker at his left elbow. He's making a W with his right hand, his middle and indexed fingers pointed at his head. He looks like the most handsome and most famous and most dangerous and most endangered man in America. Last Tupac album released while he was alive. I keep meaning to say, if I said this yet, my name's Rob Arvilla. This is 60 songs that explain the 90s. And this week, we're talking about Tupac's California love. Oh, God. God. The version of California Love on All Eyes on Me is a remix, the original, the one that played on MTV on a loop for three years straight, the Mad Max video version.

The superior version, of course, streaming wise, you can find that on Tupac's greatest hits record. So listen. I have dreaded the Tupac episode of this show for a year, for a calendar year, the weight of it, the emotional, the biographical weight of it, the towering monieselieu. of excellent pre-existing Tupac scholarship. Tupac is arguably the most photographed barn in America while we're getting all literary. That's pretentious.

One of the most famous, the most revere, the most reviled, the most extravagantly mourned rappers, entertainers, humans in recent American history. It's a lot. He's a lot. There's a lot. We're going to get through this together. It might get weird. One might argue that it already has gotten weird.

I got to go to the doctor. I'll be like, what you do to your voice? It's like I did an impression of chronos from Venom on a podcast and blew out my voice. Because Tupac is a lot. Inevitably, we might ignore or briskly sidestep a lot. A few ground rules then, I suppose. Other than right this second, I don't expect a notorious B.I.G. To come up much at all.

Just as when we did a notorious BIG episode, Tupac didn't come up much at all. That's only fair. That feels symmetrical. I don't mean to break the suspense, but I will not be definitively solving Tupac's murder at this time, nor for that matter, will I discuss his death in grueling detail or in any sort of detail whatsoever. I confess that I have very little time or patience or quite frankly emotional bandwidth for the posthumous Tupac industrial complex, the 10,000 thrown-together albums, the hologram, the juke's musical, the movies, the books, the books generally are really good. The NFTs, I assume. Should I Google Tupac NFT? I'm going to regret this.

Oh, they got NFTs of his jewelry collection. That's, that's, yeah, I regret that. The fucking hologram. Are Dr. Dre and Snoop? Going to bring out the Tupac hologram again during the Super Bowl halftime show? I would rather Maroon 5 play the Super Bowl again than deal with the Tupac hologram again. What do I want? to talk about. That's a fair question. Here's what I want to talk about.

Present Company accepted the third season Chappelle Show sketch about Tupac is the only posthumous Tupac content you'll ever need, whether in the club. And Quest loves the DJ and he says, here's a new Tupac song. And then in the song, it's obvious Tupac is still alive because he's commenting on current events and also antagonizing specific people dancing in the club, including Dave himself. I don't mean to belabor this premise either. taste because that shirt don't match here's a pointer stain on the back what the fuck is that it might be do do some days i'll be going about my business doing my job tending to my children and the whole time there'll be this loop in my head of dave chapelle as tupac Shakur going it might be doo-doo and those are the best days

my most productive my most fatherly days the key to a great tupac impression is the long vowels, the vigor with which you attack those long fowls. I'm not alive. My impression is terrible. Of course, the silliness keeps the darkness at bay. That's the idea anyway. Now, okay, fine. I'm looking at the cover of Tupac's first posthumous album, the Macha Valley record called the Don Columinati, the seven-day theory, also from 1996. All eyes on me came out the day before Valentine's Day in 1996. Tupac was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas on September 7th, 1996. He died of his injuries a week later on September 14th. The Machiavelli record, which of course also debuted at number one, was out two months later in early November,

and plenty of time for holiday shopping. In terms of our public morning, it feels insufficient to say the wound was still fresh. The wound was all there was. The only thing that seemed to Sue thus was Tupac's voice. One of the corneous things about me or one of the most obvious outward expressions of my cornyness is that when I listen to that song, Hail Mary, I instinctively flick my wrist for the church bell sound effect every time as though I am ringing the bell. Bong! It's a very aw, geez, dads listening to rap music again gesture. I'm looking at the cover of this Machiavelli record, which is a painting.

that depicts Tupac Shakur as a crucified Jesus Christ. Below the cross it says, in no way is this portrait and expression of disrespect for Jesus Christ, signed Machiavelli. I can't imagine that disclaimer, mollified, the PMRC enthusiasts, it intended to mollify,

but this cover still exists in polite society, so I guess maybe it worked. The parental advisory logo on this cover is pretty much dead center, covering the crucified Tupac's, private parts. It is the parental advisory logo in its final, definitively contemptuous form. This album cover would be tremendously funny, if not for literally every other aspect of this situation. Crack Magazine interviewed the guy who painted the cover of the Machiavelli record, a guy named Ronald Risky Brent, who said, being in the studio at Tupac, he would speak a lot about feeling like he was being crucified by the media

and being blamed for things that he didn't have any control over. The concept was all his, with the different cities on the cross, showing he was the most hated wherever he would go. His crucifixion was supposed to be a statement about race and what it felt like to be young, rich, and black in America. Risky also says the seven-day theory was originally going to be this underground album. Pock predicted the rise of mixtapes and was only going to sell it at the mom and pop stores. It only turned into a commercial album after he died.

Finally, addressing the rumors that Tupac faked his own death, Risky said, if Pock was still alive, he couldn't have kept quiet all these years. I take a perverse sort of comfort in the fact that unless you grew up hard in very specific pockets of New York City in the 70s, or studied poetry and theater at the Baltimore School for the Arts in the mid-80s, or haunted the nascent rap scene in Marin City in Northern California and the late 80s, 80s. If none of that applied to you, the first time you heard Tupac Shakur's voice was probably on a digital underground song. I just rewatched the video for same song from 1990 by Oakland Legends of the Digital Underground, RIP, Shakshi, a way, khaqi, aka Humpty Hump.

And this video is probably going to be the highlight of my day. Just an enormous heartwarming silliness to this video, even though it features copious amounts of footage from Dan Aykroyds, quite poorly reviewed, 1981 horror comedy, nothing but trouble. Also starring Chevy Chase, John Candy, and Demi Moore, don't get involved. Forget all those other people. Concentrate on a young, unknown, exuberant Tupac Shakur as he raps about clowning around while being playfully carried around

like a king. The first four words of his unprecedented blockbuster rap career are now I clown around. The Tupac story gets so dark, so fast that I am so heartened by the fact that at least he got his first big musical break with a group as sublimely ridiculous as the digital underground. to change now that we became strong. I remain still to say. Why too? Because it's the same song.

Get some fame. People change. Want to live their life's high. Same song, Can't go wrong if I play the nice guy. Yeah, we'll see. Lassane Parish Crooks was born

in Harlem, New York City in 1971. And renamed Tupac Amaru Shakur a year later. Tupac Shakur was the name of an Incan Revolutionary who had a failed revolt against the Spanish occupation

of Peru in the late 18th century. The 20th century. century Tupac's mother, Afini Shakur, was a legendary figure in the Black Panthers who'd spend most of her pregnancy with Tupac in jail and representing herself in court as part of the Panther 21. A group accused of plotting various bombings and other attacks around New York City. That group was acquitted a month and three days before Tupac was born. Afini said, I had to get a court order to get an egg to eat every day. I had to get a court order to get a glass of milk every day.

I lost weight, but he gained weight. Tupac's father, Billy Garland, who was not a factor in his son's life for the first 20 years or so and would not inspire any of Tupac's goofier songs, he was an active member of the Black Panthers as well. That grounding and radical black nationalism is not incidental, is not trivia. It informed, from the moment of his birth, everything Tupac thought and said and did. This was his lineage. This was his destiny. Tupac once said of his mother, she always raised me to think I was the black prince of the revolution. Indeed, when Tupac was 10 years old, a pastor at the house of the Lord Church in Brooklyn asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. And Tupac said, a revolutionary. He wasn't joking and nobody thought he was joking. The pastor told that story at Tupac's funeral. Most of that is according to Rebel for the hell of it, the life of Tupac Shakur, a 1997 biography written by Armand White, the first Tupac biography, I believe.

Yes, that Armand White, the incendiary troll adjacent film critic. He called the Pixar movie Wally Nihilistic. He really loved that Adam Sandler movie, Jack and Jill. He ain't boring. Armand's book does a great job of stressing Tupac's musical and cultural lineage, the daunting and baffling jumble of it. The more politically provocative end of Motown, Gil Scott Heron, the Lost Poet, It's L.L. Cool J, Public Enemy, Morrissey, Lou Reed, Steven Sondheim, Hamlet.

The Shakespeare play Hamlet. It's a lot. It's great. It all matters. Tupac's mother moved the family to Baltimore in the early 80s, and Tupac thrived, studying theater and so forth at the Baltimore School for the Arts. And it broke his heart to leave the Baltimore School for the Arts when his mother moved the family to Northern California in the mid-80s. Afini struggled with drug addiction and struggle. with a rebellious and unmoored teenage Tupac who found a new calling as a rapper. At first he called himself MC New York. He hooked up with a group called the One Nation MCs.

He found his way to the Digital Underground, who took him in first as a backup dancer. But rap stardom, solo rap stardom was his destiny. There was no preventing Tupac Lips now. I'm off them in his knees and I shouted broke, please. Tupacalypse now came out in November 91. That's from a song whose title we will abbreviate as Crooked Ass. You wouldn't call this song Goofy exactly, but there's a version of history when you can revel in the malicious jauntiness of this song,

the NWA samples, the constant cartoonish bursts of gunfire. This song sounds like an ultraviolence Saturday morning cartoon. Unfortunately, in our version of history in April 19, In 1992 in Houston, Texas, a 19-year-old kid named Ronald Ray Howard shot and killed a Texas highway patrolman during a routine traffic stop. And Ronald then claimed in court that he'd have been inspired by the cassette tape in his car's tape deck at the time. Tupacalypse-Novee now. Cut to Vice President Dan Quayle imploring Interscope records to pull Tupacalypse Now from record stores, saying, it has no place in our society. Our buddy Dan Quail predictably has very little to say about the song Brenda's Got a Baby.

I hear Brenda's got a baby, but Brenda's barely got a brink. A damn shame. The girl can hardly spell a name. That's not our problem. That's up to Brenda's family. Well, let me show you how it affects our whole community. Brenda's Got a Baby is the first Tupac song to take full advantage of the duality of Tupac, the viciousness but also the tenderness, the nihilism, but also the empathy, his empathy for black

women in particular. Even saying the duality of Tupac is oversimplifying it, though. Brenda's got a baby can be tender, but it can be harsh too. It could be scolding. Like Tupac says, he shows how a teenage pregnancy can affect a whole community, but not so much how the whole community left Brenda unable to deal with a teenage pregnancy. He feels bad, but he argues it's all Brenda's fault. The way Armand White puts it is, young Tupac's boyishness shows in the moral weight he holds against wayward girls rather than bad boys. Meanwhile on movie what to throw away and what to keep, she wrapped the baby up and threw him in a trash.

I guess he thought she'd get away, wouldn't hear the cross. She didn't realize how much the little baby had an off. Meanwhile, on movie screens, making his Hollywood debut as Bishop, the de facto villain in the 1992 drama juice, Tupac steals the whole movie by playing the ultimate bad boy, a heartless killer with no empathy for anybody whatsoever. I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck about you.

I don't give a fuck about Steele. And I don't give a fuck about Rahim either. I don't give a fuck about myself. I don't give a fuck about myself is the truly chilling line there. Every subsequent Tupac movie, poetic justice opposite Janet Jackson in 93, above the rim in 94, The three movies, Bullet, Gridlocked and Gang Related, released in a 13-month burst after his death, they're all valiant but failed attempts to capture the on-screen potential of Tupac in Juice. You could say that about most movies involving rappers.

As for Dan Quayle, if you want to hear Dan Quayle repeatedly insisting that Tupac's music has no place in our society, all you got to do is listen to the second Tupac album. That's the second track on Strictly from 93. It's called Pock's theme, and it goes on like that for two minutes. Tupac relished in controversy, at least at first. Later, when the civil rights activist C. Dolores Tucker started going after gangster rap as a whole, and Tupac in particular, he had no problem pointing out that her name rhymed with motherfucker, a little bit of notoriety, a manageable amount of political antagonism.

is great for Tupac. Now he's notorious. Now he's the guy with a thug life tattoo. It's great for business and it's invaluable fuel for his anger and his bad boy reputation and his own ceaseless antagonism. The song in this record called Last Words featuring both iced tea and ice cube makes me want to run through a brick wall. The song in this record called The Streets Are Death Row, which samples Ice Cube and that's death row as in the place you go to die, not the record label. that song makes me feel embarrassed for treating this record as a suburban white dad imagines running through a brick wall music you heard him you won't play the nice guy anymore though he does reunite with the digital underground for i get around which is awfully goofy and even gentle for a song about having sex with as many women as possible strictly also as a song keep you head up which is arguably as empathetic toward women as tupac ever got

The U-Chile Child Flip On Keep Your Head Up is an all-timer The duality of Tupac is a huge oversimplification But it's still hard not to see this song As the Fork in the Road Not his commercial peak by a long shot But something akin to his moral peak Yeah, it's an oversimplification

But oversimplifications are all we have to work with now I think it's time to kill for our We're real to our women And if we don't we'll have a little race a baby that will hate the ladies and make the baby The line, I think it's time to kill for our women

Just glides right by you Doesn't it? So apparently another thing I don't much want to talk about Is Tupac in court Tupac's string of legal disasters And the string of calamities That lead us to Tupac's death The Slate podcast slow burn

It a full season on Biggie and Tupac Joel Anderson hosted it And did a fantastic job leading us down that path. My intrepid and only occasionally antagonistic editor, Justin Sales, wrote a great piece for the ringer about Tupac's all eyes on me and all that led to it and resulted from it. It's not that I want to glibly summarize the background here, but I really don't want to wallow in it either. So, a partial history of Tupac in the law.

In 1992, Tupac is involved in a gunfight in Marin City that leads to the shooting death of an innocent bystander, a six-year-old boy. Tupac later settles a wrongful death lawsuit with the boy's family. On Halloween 1993 in Atlanta, Tupac shoots two off-duty police officers, though investigators conclude he was acting in self-defense, and all charges against him are dropped. In November 1993, Tupac is arrested in New York City, following an incident in a hotel room involving a young woman and three other men.

In December 94, following an explosive trial, Tupac is acquitted on some charges, including three counts of sodomy, but convicted of first-degree sexual abuse, and he spends about nine months in prison. He will go to his grave insisting upon his innocence, or rather he will go to his grave insisting that he personally is not guilty of sexual abuse, though he knows that doesn't necessarily make him innocent. In April 95, Vibe Magazine publishes a famous cover story jailhouse interview with Tupac talking to the journalist Kevin Powell. And Tupac says, I know I feel ashamed because I wanted to be accepted and because I didn't want no harm done to me. I didn't say nothing. He also says, this thug life stuff, it was just ignorance. My intentions is always in the right place.

I never killed anybody. I never raped anybody. I never committed no crimes that weren't honorable, that weren't to defend myself. So that's what I'm going to show them. I'm going to show people my true intentions and my true heart. I'm going to show them the man that my mother raised. I'm going to make them all proud. He also says, the addict in Tupac is dead.

The excuse maker in Tupac is dead. The vengeful Tupac is dead. The Tupac that would stand by and let dishonorable things happen is dead. God let me live for me to do something extremely extraordinary. And that's what I have to do. When he says, God let me live, he's referring to the fact that he survived being shot five times partway through his trial during a robbery in November 94 in the lobby of Quad Studios in New York City. Tupac will go to his grave insisting that the notorious B.I.G. and Sean Puffy Combs were involved in that shooting, though both Biggie and Puffy will vehemently deny that.

Doesn't matter. Biggie versus Tupac is on. East Coast versus West Coast is on. We are hurtling toward disaster. The third Tupac album comes out in April 95 and is called Me Against the World. He's not joking and nobody thinks he's joking. It debuts at number one in the Billboard album chart. He's still in prison at the time. Me Against the World has several of Tupac's most vulnerable and sentimental. songs. So many tears where he mourn some of the people he's lost and fears he'll soon be lost himself. Can you get away? Where he's sweet talking a woman in an abusive relationship? And dear mama, of course, where he turns, you are appreciated into maybe the sweetest and most devastating three words any rapper has ever rapped. You all appreciate.

Tupac spent most of 1995 in New York's Clinton Correctional Facility, aka Dan Amora. In October 95, Shug Knight, fearsome co-owner of L.A.'s death row records, posts the $1.4 million bond to get Tupac out of jail. Tupac signs to death row, a smaller label owned by what is already his label, owned by Interscope Records,

but death row feels like another planet. Handwritten contract, three albums. He flies from New York to L.A., touches down in L.A. and goes straight to the studio to start making all eyes on me. And really also these seemingly millions of songs that comprise the thousands of albums that come out after All Eyes on Me, after he's gone. He starts with the song, Ambitions as a Rider, Track 1, Disc 1, and this is how I think you have to hear all two plus hours of All Eyes on Me alone. He's rapping like he's been shot out of a canon. He's rapping with a world historical vengeance. Forget what he told Vibe Magazine.

The vengeful Tupac isn't dead. The vengeful Tupac is increasingly all that's left. The triumph of all eyes on me is that vengeful Tupac can coexist so gracefully with commercial peak Tupac. Put any of the 27 songs on this record on repeat for 48 hours and I'll be into it. The hooks on this record are outrageous. Man, put how do you want it? on repeat for a week.

Casey and Jojo on the hook. Put All About You on repeat for a week. It's super gross as a collection of words, but this song only proves that Nate Dog can make anything sound appealing. Tupac also at this point can make any collection of words sound colossally appealing, like the brightest and sweetest pop hook you ever heard. There were seemingly dozens of phenomenal producers in his orbit at one time or another. Johnny J, Das Dillinger,

Shock G, Easy Mo B, but give me a whole album of Tupac rapping over DJ Quick beats. Give me hearts of men on repeat for 48 hours. Even hit him up, the B side to how do you want it, the high and low point of the biggie Tupac fuse? the general consensus, most vicious diss track in hip-hop history.

Even Hit Him Up sounds like a number one pop hit, no matter how ugly Tupac sounds from the jump. The viral video that puts Hit Him Up over scenes from Barney and Friends. Barney and Friends, the Kid Show, about the Purple Dinosaur. That's a great video. I have many interests that aren't sophomoric. I like sophisticated things as well. It's just that those are private.

I don't tell you about those. You ever think of that? But I'll tell you the song on all eyes on me that stops me dead in my tracks every time. To my mind, it's the single ugliest song of the decade or the ugliest song I have dealt with while sorting through 58 songs from the 90s and counting. It's called Wonder Why They Call You Bitch. I have a vivid and terrible memory of standing in the hallway of my college dorm room, maybe junior year. And this song is blasting from this dude's room, a generally chill and genial dude. And this dude's girlfriend bursts out of the room and walks off upset.

And of course, I have no idea why. And even in the moment, I don't speculate beyond a feeling like this song physically drove her from the room. This is a song ostensibly in which Tupac is explaining that not. all women are bitches, just some women. And it's about those women. But really, it's also a Tupac song about a single mother that ends with him noting that she died of AIDS. And then he does the chorus again. Michael Eric Dyson in his book about Tupac, holler if you hear me, he writes, and while he could howl in deplorable misogyny, Tupac wasn't an uncomplicated sexist. He wavered between Pians to black women and ugly justification.

of their degraded standing, or between Baby Don't Cry, a posthumous sequel of sorts to keep your head up, and wonder why they call you bitch. As Tupac saluted and scolded black women, he channeled warring tendencies in black life that have hardly subsided. Even his flaws have traction and the potential to instruct. They are, after all, the flaws of a larger society, and not just the fleeting preoccupations of a lone, man. End quote. Has it occurred to you that for whatever reason I also don't want to talk about the Tupac song, California Love? This episode is already by far the longest episode of this show and we haven't even really gotten to California Love. I am torn apparently between a desire to give you

some modest percentage of the full context behind California Love and the more powerful desire to protect California Love from that context, from the tragedies that led into. it and the tragedies that will almost immediately follow it. This is emphatically not one of these deals where I argue that California love is secretly a sad and tragic song. The whole point is that despite everything it isn't. California loves a song of unity and ecstasy and victory and camaraderie. Even if all of that lasts only for the length of the song itself, even if none of that unity and ecstasy and victory and camaraderie ever really existed. It is a gorgeous and permanent Mirage. Start with the first guy who wraps on it.

Now let me welcome everybody to the Wild Wild West, a state that's untouchable like Elliot Ness. The track gets your eardrum like a slug to your chest. Like a best for your Jimmy in the city of set. Dr. Dre, as you might be aware, produced California love and produced the living hell out of it, the Joe Cocker piano riff sample, the Roger Troutman hook. But the fact that Dre wraps first and Tupac doesn't wrap it all for the first two plus minutes bolsters the argument that this was supposed to be a Dr. Dre song. Double XL Magazine did an oral history of all eyes on me and an engineer named Tommy D.

said that Shug Knight basically forced Dr. Dre to put Tupac on this song and then make it the lead single of Tupac's record. Tommy D. D says, fuck it. I can say it. Dre didn't want anything to do with that record. Drey, in fact, produced only one other song on All Eyes on Me out of 27 total, that being Can't See Me.

Dr. Dre will be leaving Death Row very soon to start his own label, Aftermath, which will find its own success. That other famous Vibe magazine cover, the Death Row issue from February 96 with Dr. Dre, Tupac, Pock's new label mate, Snoop Dog, and their overlord Shug Knight. That is Death Row's peak, followed instantly by Death Row's violent and irreversible decline. Drey gone. Snoop gone. Shug in jail.

Tupac dead. California Love is the moment when all of that is imminent, but none of that in this moment is true. And that dream is still alive when you listen to it now. Tupac is still ecstatically alive when you listen to it now. And that apparently is just about all I have to say about California love. To belabor the argument for this song's greatness any further is to do it a disservice. You need to know the story behind this song. And then while the song's playing, you need to forget all of it. Give me love. I'm so glad Dave Chappelle, snuck that in there. Yeah, maybe you don't need to know any of this. You don't really need to know anything to gravitate toward California love and have it levitate you forever. Even better if you already did know all of this, even if you're still, if you're forever and mourning,

this song will still levitate you now and levitate you forever. you can be grateful that you know Tupac or know about Tupac. Everything you know, the good, the bad, the world historically ugly. You can be even more grateful that for the space of a perfect pop song, at least, you can also forget. Our guest today is Andreas Hale, the senior editor of Combat Sports at Sporting News Magazine, co-host of the podcast, The Corner and Wrestling with Stereotypes, and the co-creator of the upcoming animated series,

our heroes rock. Andreas, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate it, man. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. So Andreas, you have written about being in Las Vegas the night Tupac was shot on September 7th, 1996, and then being on the set of the Tupac biopic from 2017, All Eyes on Me, when they shot the scene where Tupac is shot in Las Vegas. And both parts of this story are just wild to me. Do you mind if I ask you like 200 questions. Go for it, man. I'm here. I'm here for it.

Okay. How old were you in 1996, first of all? 17. 17. Where were you living at the time? I was living in a place, I believe, maybe about a couple miles from the strip in Las Vegas. Oh, okay. So you're right there.

This is not a road trip per se. This is not a road trip. This is my home. So Vegas is my home. Went to high school out here. So it was like Mike Tyson fights were a regular occurrence for us. Of course. As a kid, you know, you can't get into anywhere because the strip is 21 and over, obviously.

But as kids, when Tyson fights, you want to just go out and see all the celebrities. And you go to the gym, you look around and, you know, you see who shows up. And that was our plan every time Tyson fought. It just so happened to be this particular night, the whole situation with Tupac transpired, which was the night that he got shot and he died several days later. Yeah, so this is Tyson, Bruce Seldon, right? That was the fight. Okay.

How big a Tupac fan? you at that point? Like, what did he mean to you going into that night? Man, I was a huge Tupac fan. And interestingly enough, because, you know, my music tastes are all rooted in East Coast like Wu-Tang and everything else. But I just, something about Tupac spoke to me as a kid, especially around Tupac Cnau, and Stricken for My Niggas and Me Against the World, and then him acting as Bishop and Juice. I was just drawn to him in his passion for the art and his his passion for the people and how complicated he was. So I was a huge Tupac fan at the time.

Even though at that time with him going to death row, I wasn't a fan of that move. I really didn't like it. Like I said, I was a big East Coast guy. I was a big big fan. So when I see one of my favorite rappers going to the other side, I was like, whoa, wait, what's going on here? Did you grow up in Vegas? How did you first become an East Coast guy primarily?

So I was born in New York, but I moved to Vegas when I was, about eight or nine. And my uncle used to bring me Ron G., DJ Duwob mixtapes. And so, you know, I used to listen, Tony Touch. So I was the only kid that had like this access to all these mixtap. It was before there was social media. So of course, yeah. Music was still very regional. And you had to get your music in New York in Manhattan was where my uncle would get them and bring them back to me. So when I heard Nas for the first time and I used to pick up the source magazine, I used to wear Tim's and everybody made fun of me because everybody else was wearing chucks and house shoes.

But I loved East Coast hip-hop because I just loved the focus on lyricism. Yeah. So I think that's probably a common story that, like, Tupac was the first rapper outside New York that got a lot of, like, rap fans. Like, it was the charisma for you that drew you to Tupac initially,

right from the beginning, right, from Tupacalypse now, from Juice. I mean, that's right at the beginning. Yeah, and I mean, you look at a rapper who made a song called Brenda's Got a Baby, And as a kid, I was like, who's rapping about stuff like this? Or keep your head up. You know, keep your head up and I get around. It's like, this guy has just multiple personalities, but it just shows how complex people are.

You know, you can't put them in one box. So I really love that about Tupac. Yeah. Okay. I want to come back to that. But okay, you're at, you're out. You're in the orbit of the Tyson fight. And I, if I'm reading this, right, you physically passed Tupac in the, you physically passed Tupac in the,

MGM Grand Casino, like right after he'd attacked Orlando Anderson, like the famous scuffle involving both Tupac and Shug Knight, like immediately before Tupac was shot. Like, when did you realize that it was actually him that you'd passed? So it's interesting because we get to the casino and there's always a bunch of people going around. It was like a smaller size freaknik at the MGM. So you have just a ton of celebrities of people running around. But we saw a scuffle. It seemed like place but that was kind of a common occurrence because Mike Tyson prices brought everybody out but we saw somebody get escorted out

and one of my boys said that's Tupac and I remember saying though and I was like that ain't no damn Tupac and I just continued about my day. And it wasn't until because again there's no social media the cell phones there's no camera phones it wasn't until a day later and when

we found that the Tupac got shot then we realized it put things together and my friends got on the phone and we were like yo that was that was Tupac that was leaving And my boy was like, yo, I told you that was Tupac. That is bragging rights for life, unfortunately. So did you go from there? Like, you wound up at one point at Club 662 where Tupac and Shug were headed when the shooting happened.

Like, obviously you couldn't go in at 17, but were you outside it? Like, what was the atmosphere like? Well, on this particular night, we didn't make it to Club 662 because of the shooting. Right. Okay. You know, again, we wanted to go parking lot pimping. We wanted to go stand in the parking line to see all the celebrities that were coming in and out of the club. So we left, and I remember we parked across the street from the MGM, I believe at the New York, New York.

Okay. We decided to, you know, after everything happened, the fight was over in minutes, obviously, because that was the damn. You know, as kids, you knew Tyson was going to be done quick. So everybody jumps in their cars before the fight starts ahead of the strip. So we decided, you know, we was like, oh, let's go to Club 662 and just stand outside. So we're walking through our cars and we see sirens going past, like police, police cars. Again, no idea what's going on. And we get in our cars and we're going up Las Vegas Boulevard.

We're making a ride on Flamingo. And there's a blockade there. And the cops are redirecting traffic. And if you know, if anybody's been to Vegas, the Las Vegas strip is super congested on fight night. Well, sure. Yeah. You can't get anywhere. And it was just taking us forever to get through this traffic.

And then we get up Flamingo and the cops are like, turn around. You got to go a different way. And at that point, we're like, you know what? forget it, we're just going to go home. It was just too much to deal with. And then, like, lo and behold, all this stuff is Tupac related. We find, I found out the next day when I was, I went to work.

I worked at a grocery store. And we had beepers. And somebody, my friend pains me. So I got to my, got to the pay phone, put some money in. And I called him and he said, hey, listen to the radio. Tupac got shot where we were at last night when we were trying to go Flamingo to Sixth is two. And that's when we just figured it out.

It was like Tupac was there. to if I got shot and we were in the atmosphere of all this. That's just so wild. I think it's hard to explain to a young person now, like what that experience was like with no social media, that you could be right there as all these like momentous, like historical things are happening. I have absolutely no idea, you know, until 24 hours later. That's just so wild to me that you were right there, but you didn't know it because how would

you know it? No, not a clue. You don't think anybody's going to get shot, especially not a celebrity life. Tupac. And even still, when Tupac got shot, the funny thing was, is that he had already been shot before. So on the phone, we're like, oh, he'll get through it. He'll be fine. That was a prevailing thought. But yeah, you're completely oblivious to what's going on because there's no way to look on your phone and say, oh, yeah, somebody else has a picture with this person. You're just going off of somebody else's eyes telling you what they saw. And it was a week later,

I think, when he died? Like, when did you hear that? And like, you're still in Las Vegas. Like, Is there anything local happening that tips you off to that? Or do you just sort of find out the way everybody does via MTV or whatever at that point? I was at work at the grocery store when he passed away. So in the week that went by, my friends in high school, people were trying to figure out how to go to the hospital. Because the high school, I went to valleys not too far from the hospital that Tupac was at. But there was so many people stationed outside the hospital provisions that we never could make it down. And plus we were in school.

And our parents were just like, you got to come home. But the day that we found out, I was at work. I got another page and, you know, my boy, it was choked up. And he was like, Tupac. Tupac is dead. And I was like, yeah, right. Right, right. Because usually you think, you know, if somebody gets shot, they die either on the spot or a day later, seven days later.

A week later. Pretty insane. So it just all of that was just, it was really harrowing. It was, it was, and to be in the city because Vegas, yeah, obviously now we have the Raiders. You know, we're growing. We have the Aces. We got the Golden Knights. But back then, we had nothing.

There was no culture in Vegas. There was nothing that anybody knew except for the strip. And now this was the moment that redefined Vegas culture, especially amongst the hip-hop community. Yeah. What was that like the next Tyson fight, I guess? Or like, what were the tangible results of that for Vegas just being around, even as a 17-year-old? You know, I don't think it didn't feel like a lot of change. You just saw a lot more security.

But, you know, growing up in Vegas, especially being a black kid, It was very interesting because we didn't have a ton of culture, but we had a lot of black people. And it was like, that was the moment that a lot of us realized, like, wow, like there's something here. And now you're also in the midst of these East Coast, West Coast nonsense. And Vegas was like the bastard stepchild of Los Angeles. You had a lot of kids who swore they were from L.A. even though they won. But it just, you just can feel like the culture is starting to shift. And Vegas now had an identity.

And there were people that were taking pride and being from Vegas. because that's where Tupac got shot. Wow, that's wild. Because they loved Tupac or because they hated Tupac? I don't know because they love Tupac. I mean, the iteration for Tupac in Las Vegas was undeniable. How did it change, you know, the aftermath,

the first few weeks, months, years after his death, did it change the way that you heard his music or what you thought about it? You know, did you love him more his music at that point? It was complicated because I wasn't, unlike other people, I wasn't the biggest fan of all eyes of me. I thought it was a great album. But I thought it was an album that put, like me against the world was a man that was really battling his demons,

very introspective and still was about societal issues. Whereas all eyes on me was very focused on one thing, which was passion and angle. And it felt like, I don't want to say it wasn't his album, but it felt like you could, death row was really had their hands on what that album was going to sound like. Of course, yeah. And the anger that was in that album,

I was like, it felt like that wasn't Tupac. It felt like that was somebody who was being guided into something else. So after his passing, and obviously McAvelli the 70th theory comes out,

it made everything different because people that weren't huge fans of Tupac were like looking and digging for things in his music to, you know, to call him a prophet or saying that, you know, he prophesies his death. And it kind of rubbed me the wrong way because I was a Tupac fan

because before it was cool to be a Tupac fan, you know, but now it was. like cool to be a Tupac fan because now you're seeing between the big issue and Tupac, it was like people were picking size and I just never straddled that fence. I was a Tupac fan. I love Thug Life Tupac. I love like I said, Stryker from my niggas Tupac. Tupac now. I love the levity that Tupac brought to me against the world. It was just that was the two Puck I like in his passing. I felt like a lot of people miss that part of him.

Right, right. Yeah. You don't get a lot of I get around style vibes from all eyes on me going forward. The posthumous albums, like, did you have a lot of time for those? Like, even beyond Machiavelli, like there's been so many of them. Like, it feels like the quality would be diminishing, you know, just logically, the more they put out. Like, do you go to those every time they come out? Or did you sort of get off that train at some point? No, I wasn't a big fan. I feel like I only like to hear the music that an artist intends to put out. And I feel like once an artist passes away, there's a reason why certain songs came out. And it doesn't mean those songs weren't great. It just means it needed to be released the way that he wanted to

release them. So a lot of those songs that came out after his death, or a lot of those albums, some of them weren't mixed properly. Some of them just weren't really good. So, I mean, I'm not saying they were bad. It just wasn't what I thought Tupac would have wanted. So I passed on a lot of those. I just wasn't a big fan of the posseumous releases and especially the slew of them that came out because we all know he was a recording animal. Like he spent so much time in the studio, but that doesn't mean he wanted every single one of those songs to come out. Of course, especially death row. Like when I picture that whole era, it says, you know, the stories of him bouncing between studios and everything. And that's the way all eyes was. But just this idea that he built up a

catalog of like hundreds of songs, you know, that could just be released, you know, every year or so after his death. It's just such a sad image to me. And I think you're exactly right. Even someone in like prints, you know, like there's just such a huge difference. Like, this is what they wanted versus we're just guessing what they wanted. But we'd like, to make some money, so we're putting this out. How did you find yourself on the set of this movie? Did you go specifically on assignment to be like I was there at the time and now I'm back and like, what was that cathartic?

Was that traumatic? Like, how are you feeling as a human in that moment watching Tupac get shot over and over on camera? You know, I never would have guessed it in a million years. You know, the nights of Tupac got shot, I never thought it would be a part of my life, you know, moving forward. You know, you figure it eventually be a cool story to tell, right? But I end up becoming a music journalist, and I've covered the culture for many, many years.

And at the time, I got a phone call from a friend of mine in the industry. It was like, hey, Benny Booms in town, and they're filming all eyes on me. And we was trying to find somebody to be on set. And we thought of you. They didn't have, they had no idea. Oh, they didn't even know you'd been there. They had no clue. And it was just an assignment.

And I ended up doing a profile piece for Evody magazine. scene and the Ozzy story that I wrote later was just kind of like, I don't think anybody knows that I was there. Like, this is me seeing this happen all over again. So, you know, when I arrived on set and I talked to Benny and I talked to Ediamin was there and I explained it, I was like, guys, I was here. I was in this area this night. Obviously, I didn't see this, but I was like a couple blocks away when this happened.

So this is insane. And to watch it happen over and over, because shooting the scene where he's getting shot. And I'm watching it over and over and over. And I'm like, this is, this is nuts. This is, it was completely surreal to me. We was, I think we shot until three, four in the morning and completely, completely surreal to me. Was it like a bad feeling? Like, I, that would trip me out.

I think I would have a lot of trouble until four in the morning, just sort of reliving, like, this horrible moment. Even if you didn't realize it in the moment, what it was. You know, I didn't take it bad. You know, I was, I had, I spent more. time looking at Edie I mean because he was there. Right. And he was in the movie, right? Like they put him, that's wild. He plays himself. So as I'm watching.

20 years later. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's one thing for me because I didn't see the shooting. It's another thing for the man who watched one of his best friends die in front of him. Right. Take a role as himself over 20 years later to do the same scene again. That trip me out. Like watching that and then talking to Edy after that, I was just like, I don't know how you could do this. And for him, it was cathartic. Because for him, he felt like, you know, so much time is passing. Yes, it's hard to do. But the emotions came back. But, you know, he felt like he had to do it. I mean, obviously, you don't expect to be cast in a role where you have to watch your friend die again. So, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't difficult for me. It was just kind of,

it was a trip. It was kind of like an out-abody experience where it's like, I can't believe I'm watching this. Yeah. I find that the older, I get the less interest that I am in Biggie versus Tupac, you know, when I'm listening to one, I don't think at all about the other. Like, I don't compare them. I have this impulse just to set that whole part of the story aside altogether and just let

each of them stand totally alone. Does that make sense? Is that how you sort of listen to them now? Yes, I don't, you know, I hated the beef. I thought, you know, even though I would later eventually write for like Vibe magazine a few places. I hated what Vibe did with that story. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. So I've stripped it away And even songs like hit them up. I know people love this song. I hate that song. It's just really difficult for me to listen to. And I felt like these are two artists whose deaths really shook up the industry. And I don't need to revisit any bad blood between the two. I didn't even watch.

I think there was a series about the investigation. And I was like, I can't watch this. That's right. Like, yeah, FX, I think. Yeah. So I could care less about that. I just wanted to remember the great music that they made. In terms of Tupac, what could have been.

I thought there was so much that was left on the table through his passing because he was a guy that, to me, I didn't see him being a rapper for very long. I thought he was going to fully transition into activism. I think that's what he thought as well, yeah. And a movie star. Yes, after this all lies on, you know, I joke with my friends all the time. And I, you know, I'm sorry, Will Smith, but I felt like, you know, Tupac passed away. And I was like, Will Smith benefited from Tupac's passing in some weird roundabout way because I always felt that Tupac would have been. that actor. I always feel like

Tupper would have been that artist and you know even the Jada Pinkett stuff like who knows what would have been? Oh wow. Wow. You're right because they went Baltimore. They had met at the school in Baltimore. Okay. So now I'm thinking about every Will Smith movie from 1990s

like Independence Day. Everything's the same except Tupac. Yeah. It could have been Tupac. It's very weird to think about but I just felt like Tupac, his trajectory he wasn't even close to peaking as an artist, as a full-flage artist. Yeah. You've tweeted quite a few times, actually, that your all-time favorite Tupac song

might actually be pain from the above-the-rim soundtrack. And I don't think it was on the CD or like it wasn't streaming. Like, it was a pretty recent, like, adding it back on. I'm like, what is it about that song in particular? I mean, it's, I mean, the production, I mean, you know, Tupac's passion, you know, and the lyrics. I mean, it was just one of the, you know, of those songs when I saw above the rim, it just hit me so hard because I was like, wow, this is a,

it's just an incredible song. And then it was, and I, you know, as an underground hip hop, it when you find something that nobody else could listen to at the time, and especially with that song being like only, I believe it was cassette, only it was a CD only. I can't remember. That's right. And I would play it and people like, yo, what is that? And I was like, you know, just paying by Tupac. And I remember him performing in Arsenio Hall as well. Oh, wow. Okay. It just always became, it was that and so many tears of my two favorite two. songs. And it's just, I just love, when Tupac is super introspective and when Tupac talks about

things like death, the way that he does it is unlike any other rapper that came before him or after him. I mean, so many rappers have taken from him, but I don't think we've ever heard an artist as prolific in his passion as Tupac. What is it about those songs? Because I, Justin Sayles, our editor, I think that so many tears is his favorite Tupac song as well. Like, what is it that he does with that song. You know, you hear a lot of rap songs about death, about mourning. But I agree with you that there's a different quality to the way Tupac does it. Like, how would you articulate, like, what it is, what he brings to a song like that that

nobody else does? Well, when I talk about passion, it has to do with how he enunciates and how he stretches his words and how, because anybody can write a great song, but how do you say those words? And I think very few can enunciate the way the Tupac does. And when you listen to songs like so many tears, you can hear the pain in his voice. You know, when he talks about Cato being deceased. And you can hear that he doesn't want to be in this situation. Like, there's a lot of rappers who write great songs.

But sometimes you feel like they're rapping them out of the moment. They're rapping them in hindsight. Whereas I feel like Tupac is in the moment when he makes these songs, where he's reliving these moments in front of it. And you can hear it in his voice as somebody who's present, where others aren't necessarily present. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I was surprised to see that Ambitions as a writer, I think it's his most streamed song on Spotify. Like, what is your favorite high profile Tupac hit? And do you have like a least favorite high profile Tupac?

Like, you're tired of hearing it already. Well, Dear Mom is my favorite high profile Tupac. Yeah. It's the greatest Mother's Day song ever. I mean, come on. It is the greatest Mother's Day song ever. And as the years past, it still gets better because you listen to somebody who just truly We loved his mother and rap about it with the way that he did.

Again, nobody else was doing that at the time. And Paco's on point. My least favorite of the high profile, people are going to hate me for this, California love. Oh, my God. Is that just overplayed or what is it? Yeah. It's, again, I'm not the biggest fan of All Lives on Me album. It's very strange for me to listen that song with him and Dre.

And then, you know, how much he started to hate Dre or talked about Dre afterwards. This is the end. Yeah. God, I just, it was played to death. And it became like this anthem for the West Coast. And I was just like, I hate this song. I hate the song. I just, I just don't like it.

You loved pain first and you hated California love first. That's very impressive. Hated, Haiti, California. Oh. Okay. As someone who covers MMA wrestling, boxing, the like, like, how often are fighters coming out to, Tupac songs. Has that become more or less common?

Jesus. That's what we do. It's like, yo, I got to find a song. It's like, oh, ambitions of a ride of because it feels like that's what I should be walking out to before I kick some ass. And it's just at a point, at some point, you're just like, God damn, do you guys even listen to these? Like, Tupac, it's just really cool to walk out to Tupac. Yeah, yeah. Is that the consensus one, the best one the most often? Yeah, it's like, strangely enough, between. Tupac and like Nipsey. It's like artists come out to them all the time.

And I feel like there are some artists that truly love Tupac. There's some artists that truly love Nipsey. But I feel like it's a lot of just go-to. It's like, ah, I want to get the crowd going, right? Right, right. Look, Yorai Fabor, when he fought in the U.S.C and W.C. He used to always come out to California love. He was a Northern Cal kid.

And it became his interest music. And that's the only time I actually like California Club was when Your Out of Favre came out to it. Because it emphasizes his love for his son. city and state. It was sincere to you. Other people, it just doesn't. It's just like, this is cool. This sounds like an ass kick the song.

And I'm like, no, thanks. You're not living it. Not at all. Not at all. Obviously now the majority of active fighters were probably too young to experience Tupac in real time. How do you think young people perceive Tupac now? Like, do they get Tupac if that's the right way to put it?

No, man. It's kind of like having kids today go back and watch the Guyfather. Because they'll go back and they won't appreciate it. Marlon Brando's performance like they should or they won't appreciate the themes and especially Godfather too with De Niro. I think some people looking like, oh, that's just old, right? The quality of the film is old. And people listen to Tupac's production, like, for instance, against the world with like Easy Moabee. And I think a lot of people are like, well, he wasn't that great of a rapper.

I hear that a lot. How do you respond to that when you hear that? I don't. It just makes my head hurt. That's right. It's just like when people argue about, you know, LeBron, versus Jordan, right, because the game has changed so much. And it was like, oh, or they talk about Jerry Rice and he said, well,

his 40 time, he would have got smoked by these cornerbacks in the NFL. I was like, you didn't watch them in the moment. You're not understanding what you're seeing. It's the same with Tupac, who was changing the culture of hip-hop. It's like there's a lot of kids don't appreciate that now. But there are those that do. It's like when I go back and listen to Stevie Wonder, and I'm saying, look, this guy was a genius at a very young age.

And there's other people that don't understand the genius. Stevie Wonder because he wasn't there in the moment. But I think Tupac is one of those artists that gets so much praise that there's a certain generation of youth that buck against that praise because it's like he can't be that good. It's impossible, but he was.

Yeah, it's just rebelling against your parents at this point to insist that Tupac couldn't have played in today's NBA. That's disturbing. I'm glad that you're strong enough to not respond to that argument when people make the argument. It's very big of you. There'll be a lot of fights.

Andreas, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for talking. We really appreciate it. No problem. Thank you. Thanks very much for our guest this week. Andreas Hale. Thanks as always to our producers, Devin Ronaldo and Justin Sales.

Thanks very much to you for listening. And now without further ado, here's Tupac with California love. We'll see you next week.