Volume 12, Number 1. 50 Cent Cover
There's a special feature on Mac Dre (R.I.P.) with interviews by Mac Dre's mom, J. Diggs, Ray Luv and Mac Mall. Decent read.
Ray Luv interview excerpts about Pac:
[...]
Let me start at the beginning. I had a group with Tupac called Strictly Dope. We had recorded a record but we didn't end up releasing it. Tupac went one way and took a deal and I went to Vallejo.
[...]
Mac is like two years older than me and Pac.
[...]
When you were recording with Pac, where were you living?
I was living in Santa Rosa.
Was Pac living in Santa Rosa?
He was living in Santa Rosa and Marin City. He comes from Marin City and I come from in Santa Rosa, West 9th. We always fought with their area. We never really got along but we used to hang out in the same clubs, same bars, same spots. From where I came from I was the biggest rapper. I was the most prominent, the most known. Where Pac was from he was the biggest rapper. So we used to make diss records and send them back and forth to one another. I would hear them dissing me. They would hear us dissing them. And then one day, a lady by the name of Leila Steinburg hooked me and Pac up. She was putting Hip-Hop shows on in the Bay Area but she was really from L.A.. She came to the North Bay to the 707 which was where we was at. She heard Pac and thought he was an incredible rapper. She told him that he had to meet me. It wasn't until we had already hooked up and we started rapping together that we realized that we had been making these diss records about each other. That's how we started and we were together as a group for several years. Then Digital Underground brought us in. We had got offered a deal by the same record label that Digital Underground was on. And he started producing our record. The record company we was with wasn't really prepared to take on a kids group. I had forged my contract. We had other members of the group that were barely eighteen. I think they really kind of held it up, so I left and did my own thing independently.
[...]
When we first meet someone, we never know who he is going to be down the line
Absolutely. I always say that. That's funny you say that. That is one of my sayings and I still feel that way. We don't really know who is who. It's unbelievable what Tupac went on to become.
You probably never expected that when you were working with him.
And a little known fact is that I wrote Tupac's very first single. The first video he ever released, "Trapped", was my song. I had threw it away but he read it, he liked it and he wanted it. Each one of my friends have a gift. Pac's gift was that he had an uncanny ability for recognizing what God blessed you to be in the company of the people that you got.
There's a special feature on Mac Dre (R.I.P.) with interviews by Mac Dre's mom, J. Diggs, Ray Luv and Mac Mall. Decent read.
Ray Luv interview excerpts about Pac:
[...]
Let me start at the beginning. I had a group with Tupac called Strictly Dope. We had recorded a record but we didn't end up releasing it. Tupac went one way and took a deal and I went to Vallejo.
[...]
Mac is like two years older than me and Pac.
[...]
When you were recording with Pac, where were you living?
I was living in Santa Rosa.
Was Pac living in Santa Rosa?
He was living in Santa Rosa and Marin City. He comes from Marin City and I come from in Santa Rosa, West 9th. We always fought with their area. We never really got along but we used to hang out in the same clubs, same bars, same spots. From where I came from I was the biggest rapper. I was the most prominent, the most known. Where Pac was from he was the biggest rapper. So we used to make diss records and send them back and forth to one another. I would hear them dissing me. They would hear us dissing them. And then one day, a lady by the name of Leila Steinburg hooked me and Pac up. She was putting Hip-Hop shows on in the Bay Area but she was really from L.A.. She came to the North Bay to the 707 which was where we was at. She heard Pac and thought he was an incredible rapper. She told him that he had to meet me. It wasn't until we had already hooked up and we started rapping together that we realized that we had been making these diss records about each other. That's how we started and we were together as a group for several years. Then Digital Underground brought us in. We had got offered a deal by the same record label that Digital Underground was on. And he started producing our record. The record company we was with wasn't really prepared to take on a kids group. I had forged my contract. We had other members of the group that were barely eighteen. I think they really kind of held it up, so I left and did my own thing independently.
[...]
When we first meet someone, we never know who he is going to be down the line
Absolutely. I always say that. That's funny you say that. That is one of my sayings and I still feel that way. We don't really know who is who. It's unbelievable what Tupac went on to become.
You probably never expected that when you were working with him.
And a little known fact is that I wrote Tupac's very first single. The first video he ever released, "Trapped", was my song. I had threw it away but he read it, he liked it and he wanted it. Each one of my friends have a gift. Pac's gift was that he had an uncanny ability for recognizing what God blessed you to be in the company of the people that you got.
props
It's cool though.
