My Album Project: Me Against the World by 2Pac (1995, Interscope Records)

WHY I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO THIS ARTIST/ALBUM

I was lucky enough to be a teenager during what has been called "the golden age of hip-hop" during the late 80s. And thanks to the influence of a guy I went to high school with named Sheldon Street, I became a fan of a diverse group of bands like Public Enemy, Ice-T, Run DMC, N.W.A, Boogie Down Productions, and Beastie Boys. But as the kid of Filipino immigrants, growing up in Irish-Italian-Portuguese neighbourhoods in Brampton, Ontario, and listening to rock music, I was pretty far-removed from what the emcees on those records were rhyming about. I was more attracted to the rappers' voices, and the beats and samples that were being used by the DJs. This is why by the time the 90s came along, as rap had became very mainstream, I still got into bands like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. But by about 1993, the subgenre of gangsta rap – which N.W.A had pioneered in California just a few years earlier – had become more and more prevalent. The bling, the guns, and the bitches of the “Thug Life” that Tupac (I refuse to write his name out as 2Pac) and his contemporaries glorified in the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry was of no interest to me, and I tuned out rap and hip hop music for the following decade or so.

WHAT I KNEW ABOUT THE ALBUM BEFORE THIS PROJECT

The only track I had heard of at all was "Dear Mama" and even then, I didn't know much about it. I used to hear it on music television. I had also heard “So Many Tears” a few times, but can not place the circumstances.
As a trivia geek, I knew that Me Against the World was the first album to ever reach #1 on the Billboard 200 while the artist was imprisoned.

AFTER A WEEK OF DIGESTING THIS ALBUM

Warning: If you plan on listening to Tupac Shakur for seven days straight, do not be shocked if you end up swearing like a truck driver, writing Thug Life on your stomach with a Sharpie, and doing stuff like this (the link does not feature a Tupac track, but I think it illustrates my point quite nicely.)
I guess I'd always known this, but Tupac Shakur is a motherfucker, which, in jazz and hip hop lingo, is perhaps the highest compliment that can be bestowed upon anyone. His voice is smooth as ice; the timbre of his baritone and the way he enunciates every word commands instant respect. He is what every Alpha Male, bad-ass rapper should aspire to be.
As I said before, what endears me to hip hop music will always be the beats and quality of the samples. And Me Against the World does not disappoint. While I still can not relate to much of the lyrical content (i.e: AK47s, crack fiends, drive-bys, etc.), many of the tracks are anthemic and could probably stand up to someone else's voice rhyming on top of them. Samples are borrowed from Snoop Dogg, Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Kool and the Gang, Issac Hayes, and Minnie Ripperton. Not too bad.
The whole point of My Album Project is to pique interest in artists/records/subgenres that I would not listen to on a regular basis. Me Against the World has succeeded, as I have already begun checking out Tupac's back-catalogue of work.

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