I'd like to encourage - with regard to the overall's aim of this Pac board anyway - everybody in this historical time around Pac's demise's 10th anniversary - to specifically show much luv and post up your own personal dedications, tributes, peoms, scripts, paintings, raps, whatever - lets just prove that this month will not be remembered as any other months, I thought about that it would be great to share special Pac stuff among us specifcially in those last weeks before Sept 13th. Lets not have only an anniversary DAY (Spet 13th) but a whole anniversary tribute-MONTH, this will be an even bigger celebration of Pac.
I thought I'd just make a start and re-post the old 'All Eyez On Me' lyric analysis, dedicated to Tupac Shakur and all of us fans.
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....................
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........
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2Pac – Lyric Analysis:
A L L E Y E Z O N M E
[To be honest I had a more or less prejudiced opinion about this album before getting into the lyrics thinking that most of it will be straight about sex and alcohol and other joyful activities in the money-flashing golden-million-dollar-filled Death Row era of ‘Pac. But of course as I realized it’s much more…. The album again has issues even though maybe in a different dose].
As I used to in the past I again want to divide the album’s message or content into different themes. To already reveal them, they are: clear hints at Tupac’s attempts becoming a legend, then the awareness of him being the center of attraction nationwide (that’s why he has named his album that way), sex (that means its whole wide spectrum of associations such as machismo), as usual his sympathy and tributes to elected people, and also the term retaliation, which I’d like to start with first.
As we all know the songs and lyrics and verses off ‘All Eyez On Me’ have been the first after his painful abstinence from the scene due to his incarceration until autumn of 1995 as he was bailed out from Suge Knight. So this means these first words of Pac had to be well-thought, they became Tupac’s first addressing to everyone in the game after almost a year. When the album and its many songs had finally been put on the market in mid-February of 1996 some of the most often addressed became those without names, namely Tupac’s biggest rivals, the ‘cowards’. Tupac’s sureness, him being convinced that it was Biggie and his people behind the shooting on him in November ’95 as well as his whole antipathy towards certain East Coast rappers should have followed later (‘The Don Killuminati..’). To this point of time, however, every time Tupac spoke about the people who set him up , he spoke about ‘cowards’ and it were exactly them he wanted to revenge on. (Ambitionz Az A Ridah, Verse 3, ‘revenge on those niggas that played me, and all tha cowards that was down with it’) ; (When We Ride, Verse 1, ‘Out for revenge on bitch niggas that blasted me’) ; (No More Pain, Verse 1, ‘Make You Motherfuckers Bleed’) etc.
And in those hints one could feel the seriousness behind it: Tupac didn’t mentioned his enemies, those cowards, in a kind of joking mood, he did it like this - “Line up my adversaries, blast on sight” (No More Pain). And also remarkable is the way he tried to terrify them for this: again ‘No More Pain’ “Busters shot me five times, real niggaz don’t die……So cowards fear me” ; (Can’t C Me, Verse 3: “Tell them tricks that shot me, that they missed, Didn’t kill me” ) or ‘Heartz Of Men’, Verse 1 “niggas scary and paralyzed, Nothing more I despise than a liar, and cowards die” ; “I cannot see, how motherfuckres picture living life after a night of fucking around with me” (Ain’t Hard 2 Find) or in ‘Ambitionz Az A Ridah’, Verse 3: “blast me, but they didn’t finish, didn’t diminish my powers, so now I’m back to be a motherfuckin’ menace”. All of those statements strongly remind one on a song which should have been released some time later, called ‘Hit Em Up’: “Who shot me, But, your punks didn't finish, Now, you 'bout to feel the wrath of a menace’ or “Five shots couldn't drop me, I took it and smiled”.
Now even if I just said that Tupac didn’t really expressed his anger on Biggie and Co. that much in ‘All Eyez On Me’ yet, there is this one song which probably had impressed me most out of all lyrics of that album, namely ‘Holla At Me’. Now only to admit it shortly – I never was aware of what this song is really about until I read and not listened to those words: now even though many will claim ‘Hit Em Up’ to be Tupac’s most vicious and greatest hit at Biggie I must say that this song is probably even more impressive to me as far as him getting on Biggie is concerned. Not only because he simply addresses him in that song but because he does it already on this album , to that time. So for everyone including me who thought “All Eyes On Me” hasn’t much to do with Biggie, should be proven wrong. So let’s go into the lyric: Tupac made no clue about his feelings on his former buddy, “If it was up to you, I’d be dead now” ; “How could you do me like that?”, “I lost respect for you nigga” all prove to whom Tupac’s attack was dedicated .
One must add that ‘Holla At Me’ belongs to the best-flowing lyrics ever spit by Tupac Shakur, every criticism ever put upon his lyrical ability should be re-thought after hearing that song, I think. Awesome production, marvelous rhymes. What a flow.
As retaliation leads up to a position being observed and watched what so ever, I come to the album’s next theme: “All Eyes On Me” , the album wasn’t named that way in vain. What it means is that Tupac was aware of the fact that everything he does now would be heavily observed, criticized and to some part adored-or-imitated by others. “The feds is watchin’, niggas plotten’ to get me” in the self-titled song is only one proof of that. In ‘Picture Me Rollin’’ he says “the federalies wanna see me dead, niggas put prices on my head”, in ‘How Do You Want It’ he makes clear “they wanna censor me, they rather see me in a cell, livin’ in hell”. All those expressions indicate the danger Tupac was in, the complexity his status has adopted meanwhile. As he puts it himself “Fresh out of jail, life's hell for a black celebrity” ! All this has later contributed to Tupac ‘being in the news every day’ (Source: Welcome To Death Row DVD), and to Tupac’s non-ability to live stress-free and easy. There have in fact been all eyes on him when he re-entered the stage at the end of 1995, and this should also finally convince all the haters around the world claiming Tupac only got the status and popularity he has now from being dead. That’s biased,that's bullshit.
A status and reputation like Tupac Shakur’s only legends posses. And here we go with the third theme of my lyric analysis of “All Eyes On Me”. Tupac must have been amazed himself by all that he went through, by his ‘reincarnation’ (‘Ambitionz As A Ridah’). So he also made no secret about that in his lyrics, too. Look at his statements given early in the beginning of 1996 if not earlier (recording sessions for an album, as we all know, normally begin within months before its release date): “A legend in my own rhymes” (Tradin War Stories), “When I die I wanna be a living legend” (No More Pain), “Shit I’m legendary” (Heartz Of Men). I mean, think a while about it, let these words go over your tongue, ‘when-I-die-I-wanna-be-a-living-legend’ now all the alive rumors hype aside, this man must have known what’s going on, how the future will be with or without him. And when eventually mentioning alive theories, then please only allow me to add this one: I know it’s not new anyway but the thought of it , the imagination of it is something special every time you read it: “I heard a rumor I died, murdered in cold blood dramatized, pictures of me in my final stage, you know mama cried, but that was fiction, some coward got the story twisted, like I no longer existed, mysteriously missing” …I mean I don’t want to get anybody to get it twisted, I’m not encouraging anybody to make money off a dead person, but only picture, try to imagine this track not having been released on this album but instead on something like ‘Until The End Of Time’ in 2001, when people might have not known that those recordings are from the same era (1995-96), or try to imagine in your eyes having this song released in September 2003 with this lyric – I think I don’t need to loose any more words for what I’m hinting at.
There is one theme about this double album which is maybe not predominant over the whole album but it surely is one of the main topics and most likely presented in a way in which it isn’t in any other Tupac album: sexuality and erotic, alcohol and pleasure.
Well, before getting into any examples one must not forget that when ‘Pac was on Tha Row he had opportunities and possibilities to all kinds of things, to every kind of materialism which he probably only dreamed of years ago (and also only ago when still being in jail) partying with his partly-even-not-adult-grown homeboyz, with dozens of women, even with original porn stars. If you are on a company that has already sold millions of copies and is predominant in the game once for its artistic roster and second for its wealth, that means if you’re given anything you want as far as it is purchasable, then it is kind of hard to ignore or reject its sweet concomitants and joyful opportunities.
What I want to say is that all of Pac’s homey’s including himself made use of all the luxury they were allowed to live in. This meant they were constantly in contact with the most erotic women of America’s West Coast, they could party as long as they wanted and have fun and sex whenever they wanted. This explains why, for example, official video shoots to freshly recorded songs end up in xrated-and-limitless sexual engagement (How do you want it?). ‘Them cats were ballin’ and drinkin’ wherever U go’ to adopt the appropriate register. And this, of course, is reflected in the lyrics as well. The song ‘Check Out Time’, for example, gives, in my opinion, a brilliant example for how these Death Row artists or friends around Tupac and, of course, himself, too, were living. Waking up realizing ‘oh shit, it’s twelve o’ clock,..‘tell the valet bring the benz around’… It’s the day after one of those many near endless nights of ‘Alize and Hennessey’, of partying. The excesses going down in these nights also haven’t been hidden in lyrics, although I don’t like to get into them now since I think anyone can imagine what they are. Anyway, you find Tupac rapping like ‘I’m addicted to pretty bitches’ (‘Skandalousz’). But what you can’t deny is that whenever Tupac is rapping about sex, you find some really creative expressions, which is due to his ability of writing. He is narrating in a way like “tryin’ to relocate between your legs” (Rather Be Ya Nigga), “about to fuck tha very taste out your mouth” (Run Tha Streetz), “Addicted to the heat of her tongue” (Skandalousz) – all of those descriptions make clear what a passionate person Tupac is, also in a sexual sense.
For further sexually-orientated verses just check the full lyric to ‘Ratha Be Ya Nigga’ or ‘How Do You Want It ?’…and oh, I forgot, ‘What’z Ya Phone #’ (if you read its outro, the telephone conversation between Tupac and some woman, you will be amazed).
Now I’d like to come to the next and last bigger-explained theme of the album. This time it’s a theme you find in most of Tupac’s hits. It is his sympathy for brothers and sisters. The whole song ‘Life Goes On’ shows Pac’s bulletproof love for Kato as he is reminiscing at his past with him. The same he does in the beautifully produced and performed ‘I Ain’t Mad At Cha’ – those songs make you think Tupac is really the top persona for narrating about a friend, for reminiscing, for showing love to someone close to him. Dedicating and making tributes is something which accompanies and characterizes Tupac in almost all of his albums, look at ‘How Long Will They Mourn Me’, ‘Pour Out A Little Liquor’ or ‘Keep Ya Head Up’. All of them are an addressing to someone very special who Pac feels sorry for or who he is missing. To go a bit deeper into the latter, ‘All Eyez On Me’ , too, does have his female-dedicated song of Tupac ! There you go with ‘Wonda Why They Call U Bitch’, which is, if you look further into the text and neglect the song's title, a kind of ‘All Eyez On Me’s correspondence to ‘Baby Don’t Cry’ or ‘Mama’s Jus A Lil Girl’! Because here too, he shows that he feels sorry for a woman which is caught up in the mix. He tells the story of a woman who uses giving sex in order to see some cash or to put it in Tupac’s creative words “got your legs up tryin’ to get rich” and who ends up pregnant and abandoned, left alone. Here Tupac’s words again reveal his sympathy for the female: “Let the ghetto get the best of you, baby that’s a shame” ; “you headin’ to his car for some sex, I pass by can’t hold back tears inside, cause Lord knows, for years I tried”. As we know and as Tupac himself points it out in the outro, the song is directed against C.Deloris Tucker due to her lack of understanding the male-female correlation between Blacks.
Well, there are many more aspects worth talking about when analyzing this album’s content, but forgive me for breaking up here. What is still worth mentioning at least in a sentence is Tupac’s fight against racism and law together with his homey from the Bay, 4 Tay, in “Only God Can Judge Me” . This serious song is simultaneously one of the very few songs, which have this depressive touch which we know only too well from so many other Tupac songs and albums (look at the last album before A.E.O.M. !) – here ‘Pac wonders “what’s the use of tryin’, everybody’s dyin’“.
What else do we got ? “Got My Mind Made Up” is a lyrical firework represented of the East’s and West’s hottest rappers, each of the five MC’s in here boasts with his own rhyme-skills: the unique internal rhyming from Kurupt, the smooth flow from Daz, the complex rhyme schemes from Redman & Method Man, and the catching voice from Pac. What a tight connection – a track for rap history, 5 times greatness!
‘All Eyez On Me’ also represents the introduction of other new cats, Pac’s homeys. There we have the brandnew Outlaw Immortalz click, which seems to be indeed brandnew as the same dudes also appear still under their other, former artist name, Dramacydal, somewhere else on the album. And also put into the album are Tupac’s homey’s from ‘da Bay’, The Click and Co, who surely are thankful to Pac till this day that he let them be part of that LP which made history. We have a whole label family partying on this album: Michel’le singing the chorus to “Run Tha Streetz”, Danny Boy serving with one marvelous refrain after the other, Dr Dre producing and joining the hit album’s hit single (although there have been as many hit singles as in probably no other record). All of them contributed to what, till this day, is seen as the best sounding album in hip hop, and such an accomplishment of course has to be linked to the producers, of whom the two main cats are (and they can be proud of it) Johnny J and Daz Dillinger. Both marked their place in history of rap with ‘All Eyez On Me’.
To sum up, ‘All Eyez On Me’ is a party album, it has got probably the strongest production team ever on an album. It is full of power and talents, precision and coordination. Rarely you see some sad moments or depressive and destructing moments or argumentations I it , which could be seen as the counterpart to a LP like ‘Me Against The World’, I think.
For the end we naturally want to let him speak again. Tupac says on the album some next thing which fascinated me: “I died and came back…..CONVINCED THAT THIS IS MY YEAR, LIKE I’M THE CHOSEN MAN” – well, was he, yes, he undoubtedly was. 1996 will always be remembered as the year of Tupac Shakur. As the year he dropped this phenomenon album, hit dozens of charts worldwide, became the best selling artist of the WHOLE rap game (Death Row was quite a bit in front of Bad Boy and their artists as well as any other record label), and also the year where he sparked off a whole culture of crazy, fascinated fans speculating about his deadly September week, which holds on til this day.
It’s been 10 Years now, Pac we love you and we love ‘All Eyez On Me’. All Eyes On You, man.
© MT
view in nice HTML
@ http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=9B0C3ABE42EFB4EB
I thought I'd just make a start and re-post the old 'All Eyez On Me' lyric analysis, dedicated to Tupac Shakur and all of us fans.
.....
.........
...........
....................
..........
........
....
2Pac – Lyric Analysis:
A L L E Y E Z O N M E
written by Michael Tomala [To be honest I had a more or less prejudiced opinion about this album before getting into the lyrics thinking that most of it will be straight about sex and alcohol and other joyful activities in the money-flashing golden-million-dollar-filled Death Row era of ‘Pac. But of course as I realized it’s much more…. The album again has issues even though maybe in a different dose].
As I used to in the past I again want to divide the album’s message or content into different themes. To already reveal them, they are: clear hints at Tupac’s attempts becoming a legend, then the awareness of him being the center of attraction nationwide (that’s why he has named his album that way), sex (that means its whole wide spectrum of associations such as machismo), as usual his sympathy and tributes to elected people, and also the term retaliation, which I’d like to start with first.
As we all know the songs and lyrics and verses off ‘All Eyez On Me’ have been the first after his painful abstinence from the scene due to his incarceration until autumn of 1995 as he was bailed out from Suge Knight. So this means these first words of Pac had to be well-thought, they became Tupac’s first addressing to everyone in the game after almost a year. When the album and its many songs had finally been put on the market in mid-February of 1996 some of the most often addressed became those without names, namely Tupac’s biggest rivals, the ‘cowards’. Tupac’s sureness, him being convinced that it was Biggie and his people behind the shooting on him in November ’95 as well as his whole antipathy towards certain East Coast rappers should have followed later (‘The Don Killuminati..’). To this point of time, however, every time Tupac spoke about the people who set him up , he spoke about ‘cowards’ and it were exactly them he wanted to revenge on. (Ambitionz Az A Ridah, Verse 3, ‘revenge on those niggas that played me, and all tha cowards that was down with it’) ; (When We Ride, Verse 1, ‘Out for revenge on bitch niggas that blasted me’) ; (No More Pain, Verse 1, ‘Make You Motherfuckers Bleed’) etc.
And in those hints one could feel the seriousness behind it: Tupac didn’t mentioned his enemies, those cowards, in a kind of joking mood, he did it like this - “Line up my adversaries, blast on sight” (No More Pain). And also remarkable is the way he tried to terrify them for this: again ‘No More Pain’ “Busters shot me five times, real niggaz don’t die……So cowards fear me” ; (Can’t C Me, Verse 3: “Tell them tricks that shot me, that they missed, Didn’t kill me” ) or ‘Heartz Of Men’, Verse 1 “niggas scary and paralyzed, Nothing more I despise than a liar, and cowards die” ; “I cannot see, how motherfuckres picture living life after a night of fucking around with me” (Ain’t Hard 2 Find) or in ‘Ambitionz Az A Ridah’, Verse 3: “blast me, but they didn’t finish, didn’t diminish my powers, so now I’m back to be a motherfuckin’ menace”. All of those statements strongly remind one on a song which should have been released some time later, called ‘Hit Em Up’: “Who shot me, But, your punks didn't finish, Now, you 'bout to feel the wrath of a menace’ or “Five shots couldn't drop me, I took it and smiled”.
Now even if I just said that Tupac didn’t really expressed his anger on Biggie and Co. that much in ‘All Eyez On Me’ yet, there is this one song which probably had impressed me most out of all lyrics of that album, namely ‘Holla At Me’. Now only to admit it shortly – I never was aware of what this song is really about until I read and not listened to those words: now even though many will claim ‘Hit Em Up’ to be Tupac’s most vicious and greatest hit at Biggie I must say that this song is probably even more impressive to me as far as him getting on Biggie is concerned. Not only because he simply addresses him in that song but because he does it already on this album , to that time. So for everyone including me who thought “All Eyes On Me” hasn’t much to do with Biggie, should be proven wrong. So let’s go into the lyric: Tupac made no clue about his feelings on his former buddy, “If it was up to you, I’d be dead now” ; “How could you do me like that?”, “I lost respect for you nigga” all prove to whom Tupac’s attack was dedicated .
One must add that ‘Holla At Me’ belongs to the best-flowing lyrics ever spit by Tupac Shakur, every criticism ever put upon his lyrical ability should be re-thought after hearing that song, I think. Awesome production, marvelous rhymes. What a flow.
As retaliation leads up to a position being observed and watched what so ever, I come to the album’s next theme: “All Eyes On Me” , the album wasn’t named that way in vain. What it means is that Tupac was aware of the fact that everything he does now would be heavily observed, criticized and to some part adored-or-imitated by others. “The feds is watchin’, niggas plotten’ to get me” in the self-titled song is only one proof of that. In ‘Picture Me Rollin’’ he says “the federalies wanna see me dead, niggas put prices on my head”, in ‘How Do You Want It’ he makes clear “they wanna censor me, they rather see me in a cell, livin’ in hell”. All those expressions indicate the danger Tupac was in, the complexity his status has adopted meanwhile. As he puts it himself “Fresh out of jail, life's hell for a black celebrity” ! All this has later contributed to Tupac ‘being in the news every day’ (Source: Welcome To Death Row DVD), and to Tupac’s non-ability to live stress-free and easy. There have in fact been all eyes on him when he re-entered the stage at the end of 1995, and this should also finally convince all the haters around the world claiming Tupac only got the status and popularity he has now from being dead. That’s biased,that's bullshit.
A status and reputation like Tupac Shakur’s only legends posses. And here we go with the third theme of my lyric analysis of “All Eyes On Me”. Tupac must have been amazed himself by all that he went through, by his ‘reincarnation’ (‘Ambitionz As A Ridah’). So he also made no secret about that in his lyrics, too. Look at his statements given early in the beginning of 1996 if not earlier (recording sessions for an album, as we all know, normally begin within months before its release date): “A legend in my own rhymes” (Tradin War Stories), “When I die I wanna be a living legend” (No More Pain), “Shit I’m legendary” (Heartz Of Men). I mean, think a while about it, let these words go over your tongue, ‘when-I-die-I-wanna-be-a-living-legend’ now all the alive rumors hype aside, this man must have known what’s going on, how the future will be with or without him. And when eventually mentioning alive theories, then please only allow me to add this one: I know it’s not new anyway but the thought of it , the imagination of it is something special every time you read it: “I heard a rumor I died, murdered in cold blood dramatized, pictures of me in my final stage, you know mama cried, but that was fiction, some coward got the story twisted, like I no longer existed, mysteriously missing” …I mean I don’t want to get anybody to get it twisted, I’m not encouraging anybody to make money off a dead person, but only picture, try to imagine this track not having been released on this album but instead on something like ‘Until The End Of Time’ in 2001, when people might have not known that those recordings are from the same era (1995-96), or try to imagine in your eyes having this song released in September 2003 with this lyric – I think I don’t need to loose any more words for what I’m hinting at.
There is one theme about this double album which is maybe not predominant over the whole album but it surely is one of the main topics and most likely presented in a way in which it isn’t in any other Tupac album: sexuality and erotic, alcohol and pleasure.
Well, before getting into any examples one must not forget that when ‘Pac was on Tha Row he had opportunities and possibilities to all kinds of things, to every kind of materialism which he probably only dreamed of years ago (and also only ago when still being in jail) partying with his partly-even-not-adult-grown homeboyz, with dozens of women, even with original porn stars. If you are on a company that has already sold millions of copies and is predominant in the game once for its artistic roster and second for its wealth, that means if you’re given anything you want as far as it is purchasable, then it is kind of hard to ignore or reject its sweet concomitants and joyful opportunities.
What I want to say is that all of Pac’s homey’s including himself made use of all the luxury they were allowed to live in. This meant they were constantly in contact with the most erotic women of America’s West Coast, they could party as long as they wanted and have fun and sex whenever they wanted. This explains why, for example, official video shoots to freshly recorded songs end up in xrated-and-limitless sexual engagement (How do you want it?). ‘Them cats were ballin’ and drinkin’ wherever U go’ to adopt the appropriate register. And this, of course, is reflected in the lyrics as well. The song ‘Check Out Time’, for example, gives, in my opinion, a brilliant example for how these Death Row artists or friends around Tupac and, of course, himself, too, were living. Waking up realizing ‘oh shit, it’s twelve o’ clock,..‘tell the valet bring the benz around’… It’s the day after one of those many near endless nights of ‘Alize and Hennessey’, of partying. The excesses going down in these nights also haven’t been hidden in lyrics, although I don’t like to get into them now since I think anyone can imagine what they are. Anyway, you find Tupac rapping like ‘I’m addicted to pretty bitches’ (‘Skandalousz’). But what you can’t deny is that whenever Tupac is rapping about sex, you find some really creative expressions, which is due to his ability of writing. He is narrating in a way like “tryin’ to relocate between your legs” (Rather Be Ya Nigga), “about to fuck tha very taste out your mouth” (Run Tha Streetz), “Addicted to the heat of her tongue” (Skandalousz) – all of those descriptions make clear what a passionate person Tupac is, also in a sexual sense.
For further sexually-orientated verses just check the full lyric to ‘Ratha Be Ya Nigga’ or ‘How Do You Want It ?’…and oh, I forgot, ‘What’z Ya Phone #’ (if you read its outro, the telephone conversation between Tupac and some woman, you will be amazed).
Now I’d like to come to the next and last bigger-explained theme of the album. This time it’s a theme you find in most of Tupac’s hits. It is his sympathy for brothers and sisters. The whole song ‘Life Goes On’ shows Pac’s bulletproof love for Kato as he is reminiscing at his past with him. The same he does in the beautifully produced and performed ‘I Ain’t Mad At Cha’ – those songs make you think Tupac is really the top persona for narrating about a friend, for reminiscing, for showing love to someone close to him. Dedicating and making tributes is something which accompanies and characterizes Tupac in almost all of his albums, look at ‘How Long Will They Mourn Me’, ‘Pour Out A Little Liquor’ or ‘Keep Ya Head Up’. All of them are an addressing to someone very special who Pac feels sorry for or who he is missing. To go a bit deeper into the latter, ‘All Eyez On Me’ , too, does have his female-dedicated song of Tupac ! There you go with ‘Wonda Why They Call U Bitch’, which is, if you look further into the text and neglect the song's title, a kind of ‘All Eyez On Me’s correspondence to ‘Baby Don’t Cry’ or ‘Mama’s Jus A Lil Girl’! Because here too, he shows that he feels sorry for a woman which is caught up in the mix. He tells the story of a woman who uses giving sex in order to see some cash or to put it in Tupac’s creative words “got your legs up tryin’ to get rich” and who ends up pregnant and abandoned, left alone. Here Tupac’s words again reveal his sympathy for the female: “Let the ghetto get the best of you, baby that’s a shame” ; “you headin’ to his car for some sex, I pass by can’t hold back tears inside, cause Lord knows, for years I tried”. As we know and as Tupac himself points it out in the outro, the song is directed against C.Deloris Tucker due to her lack of understanding the male-female correlation between Blacks.
Well, there are many more aspects worth talking about when analyzing this album’s content, but forgive me for breaking up here. What is still worth mentioning at least in a sentence is Tupac’s fight against racism and law together with his homey from the Bay, 4 Tay, in “Only God Can Judge Me” . This serious song is simultaneously one of the very few songs, which have this depressive touch which we know only too well from so many other Tupac songs and albums (look at the last album before A.E.O.M. !) – here ‘Pac wonders “what’s the use of tryin’, everybody’s dyin’“.
What else do we got ? “Got My Mind Made Up” is a lyrical firework represented of the East’s and West’s hottest rappers, each of the five MC’s in here boasts with his own rhyme-skills: the unique internal rhyming from Kurupt, the smooth flow from Daz, the complex rhyme schemes from Redman & Method Man, and the catching voice from Pac. What a tight connection – a track for rap history, 5 times greatness!
‘All Eyez On Me’ also represents the introduction of other new cats, Pac’s homeys. There we have the brandnew Outlaw Immortalz click, which seems to be indeed brandnew as the same dudes also appear still under their other, former artist name, Dramacydal, somewhere else on the album. And also put into the album are Tupac’s homey’s from ‘da Bay’, The Click and Co, who surely are thankful to Pac till this day that he let them be part of that LP which made history. We have a whole label family partying on this album: Michel’le singing the chorus to “Run Tha Streetz”, Danny Boy serving with one marvelous refrain after the other, Dr Dre producing and joining the hit album’s hit single (although there have been as many hit singles as in probably no other record). All of them contributed to what, till this day, is seen as the best sounding album in hip hop, and such an accomplishment of course has to be linked to the producers, of whom the two main cats are (and they can be proud of it) Johnny J and Daz Dillinger. Both marked their place in history of rap with ‘All Eyez On Me’.
To sum up, ‘All Eyez On Me’ is a party album, it has got probably the strongest production team ever on an album. It is full of power and talents, precision and coordination. Rarely you see some sad moments or depressive and destructing moments or argumentations I it , which could be seen as the counterpart to a LP like ‘Me Against The World’, I think.
For the end we naturally want to let him speak again. Tupac says on the album some next thing which fascinated me: “I died and came back…..CONVINCED THAT THIS IS MY YEAR, LIKE I’M THE CHOSEN MAN” – well, was he, yes, he undoubtedly was. 1996 will always be remembered as the year of Tupac Shakur. As the year he dropped this phenomenon album, hit dozens of charts worldwide, became the best selling artist of the WHOLE rap game (Death Row was quite a bit in front of Bad Boy and their artists as well as any other record label), and also the year where he sparked off a whole culture of crazy, fascinated fans speculating about his deadly September week, which holds on til this day.
It’s been 10 Years now, Pac we love you and we love ‘All Eyez On Me’. All Eyes On You, man.
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