AEOM is 25 tomorrow

[Pittsey]

Hard to believe.... But... He would have been 50 in June and it will the 25th anniversary of his death in September. That is crazy...

 

[yak pac fatal]

Greatest track 1 of all time

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Greatest track 1 of all time

I won't deny it.

 

[Preach]

That is crazy. When I first heard a 2Pac song, he would have been like 28.

 

[Rukas]

AEOM and Makaveli have really aged well.

 

[masta247]

AEOM and Makaveli have really aged well.

That's what I thought as well. 2pac's early albums were clearly a sign of their time and sound very old-school. MATW sounds like solid 90s music to me. But AEOM and Makaveli, despite being recorded just a year after MATW, sound simply like good music over 25 years later. Most songs on these have a timeless vibe to them.

It's also crazy to me that 2pac's music career lasted just five years, and he progressed so much within such a short time period. I wish I could see an alternative universe in which 2pac is alive. There are very few "what-ifs" that I'm more curious about than seeing 2pac and what he'd have done over those 30 years instead of just 5. Knowing this guy it.. could have been anything between peacefully retired to the most charismatic leader of nations, and almost an infinite number of possibilities in between. I'm yet to meet a 25-year old with a combination of as much drive, charisma/personality and emotional intelligence regardless of what they're doing.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Pac had such great ideas. I think he would have evolved into something greater than an entertainer. You only have to remember his beginnings and early influences with Afeni being an activist to see which direction he may have been heading in especially with the audience that Pac had, and the world events that have been happening over time. Pac would have used his platform for a greater purpose.

 

[dilla]

It's crazy to think I bought AEOM Remastered in 2003 or 04, just 7 years after his death. It has since been 17 years since I bought that album, almost twice the amount of time since his death at that time.

I only got in to hip hop around that 2002ish era and that was 6 years since his death.

I don't know if it's controversial to say so or not but that was my favorite album of his. The other ones were OK but AOEM was something I could listen to without skipping many tracks.

 

[Rukas]

I’m old and jaded enough now to understand that the Tupac we all knew could have only ended up one way, dead. There really was no other option I feel. Just how and when.

I always had a little resentment towards Afeni for switching him off but I understand it now.

 

[Da_Funk]

It's pretty amazing how much time has passed. I remember my friend introducing me to 2pac when we were 13, which led me down a rabbit hole which would include spending countless hours on 2pac board.

It's hard to believe how much time has passed since then. That would have been 2003-2004

 

[k69atie]

Fuck I feel old this is crazy

 

[masta247]

I remember getting seriously into 2pac when "Greatest Hits" came out. I thought "Changes" was his biggest song as it was on MTV all the time. My first middle school girlfriend lent me the CD and I never gave it back (eventually she was ok with it), had it playing on repeat, almost 24/7. After "Changes" I had "How long will they mourn me" as my huge first big favorite.

Even though it was just two or three years after he died, even at that time it felt to me as he was always "the rapper who died", as ridiculous as it sounds. Feels stupid it was so recent at that point, and it's been almost 25 years now.

 

[Da_Funk]

The first song I seriously got into was Catchin Feelings off of Better Dayz for whatever reason. After that, it was Running [OG]. I didn't even understand the concept of OG 2pac songs at the time. I used spend hours trolling Kazaa looking for 2pac mixes.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

The first song I seriously got into was Catchin Feelings off of Better Dayz for whatever reason. After that, it was Running [OG]. I didn't even understand the concept of OG 2pac songs at the time. I used spend hours trolling Kazaa looking for 2pac mixes.

Do you remember the fake 2Pac diss to Eminem that people thought was real?

 

[yak pac fatal]

Do you remember the fake 2Pac diss to Eminem that people thought was real?

And this one lol

 

[Jokerman]

That reminds me, I say this at work all the time: "You bitch-ass niggas." (I work with a bunch of white women.)

 

[THEV1LL4N]

And this one lol

I'd never heard this one before.

 

[yak pac fatal]

I'd never heard this one before.

For real? I remember someone edited and saved only Tha Realest's verse and sold it only ebay for over a $100 claiming it was a new Pac song lol

 

[dilla]

And this one lol

I actually asked about The Realest within the past year. I couldn't remember his name but I remembered the beat for Witness the Realest for the first time since the year it dropped and had to find the name of the artist. I think Fat Joe was on that one, too. It was a sick beat and the Pac resemblance was uncanny and I kind of subconsciously accepted it as being a Pac song.

Looks like the folks around my age got in to Pac around the same time I did; I assumed most of you guys were old enough to go out and purchase Pac's earlier albums like Me Against the World as they released, or soon after. But people's first experiences with it were in the early-2000s, well after his death.

Now that Masta mentioned it, Changes was all over the radio in 98 or 99 or so and I used to listen to Hits radio station in Chicago at that time. Didn't know it was Pac and didn't care for the song much at the time, but I knew the beat and the chorus. Same with California Love. I think that was the Summer of 99 for me when I heard it on the radio. Wasn't it used for that Wild Wild West movie with Will Smith?

 

[masta247]

Omg I used to chat with Tha Realest on Myspace. I also managed to get a shoutout from Yukmouth on my profile, or one of the photos, or something, but it was public. I was a kid harassing them for info about 2pac lmao. Those early social media days were awesome. To be fair they're not big celebrities and are likely to respond if you reached out to them today, not sure about Yuk as he's a Bay Area legend but not super in the spotlight so who knows.

Tha Realest's "Fuck Dre" was actually a very solid diss track that aged horribly badly in all possible ways. Ah the simple days of making an entire song calling someone gay and laughing at Dre, Eminem and Snoop and mocking them for turning their backs on "bulletproof" Deathrow.