Original Riot Squad member BYNOE releases his most powerful, inspirational, and influential single to date.
"TUPAC SHAKUR" is the first single off of the up and coming album "GOLD BLOODED." The project takes you on a walk through classic Tupac movies, elements of actual life events, and lets not forget that Far Rockaway, New York edge. The explosive and unexpected word play which shaped this track, musically mirrors the actor’s filmography through Bynoe’s eyes. Take a listen as the sinister piano loops over bone rattling 808’s... Brought to you by the same producers that brought you French Montana’s "Off the Rip". Trakformaz.
Posted by ChasinDatPaper on September 13, 2016 at 8:00am
Videos After The Jump
Tupac Shakur wasn't just a rapper. He was also an actor, poet and a powerful speaker who did everything with an unmatched sense of passion.
Perhaps that's why today, as we remember him on the 20th anniversary of his death at the age of 25, he still remains one of the most influential artists the world has ever known.
Shakur died on September 13, 1996, from injuries suffered in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting as he sat in the passenger seat of of a car driven by Suge Knight, the CEO of his recording home Death Row Records.
His murder remains unsolved, despite investigations and theories put forth by detectives who worked on the case.
Shakur is considered by many to be best rapper ever.
He released four solo studio albums from 1991 to 1996. Because of his incredible work ethic, Shakur, left behind enough material for six posthumous albums to be released.
His hit records include "Brenda's Got a Baby," "Dear Mama,"Changes," "California Love," "I Get Around," "Keep Ya Head Up," "So Many Tears," "How Do u Want It," "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted," "Hail Mary," "I Ain't Mad at Cha," "To Live and Die In L.A.," "Toss It Up," "Hit 'Em Up," Do for Love," "I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto," "Until the End of Time," "Letter 2 My Unborn," "Ghetto Gospel," "Thugs Get Lonely Too" and "Pac's Life."
You can't mention 2Pac's music without talking about his group the Outlawz. Members E.D.I. Mean, Young Noble, Yaki Kadafi, Hussein Fatal, Napoleon, Moozaliny and Kastro were prominent on many of his recordings.
Shakur's acting career began to take off in 1992 with his role as Bishop in the movie "Juice."
He would go on to star in the feature films "Poetic Justice," "Above the Rim," "Bullet," "Gridlock'd" and "Gang Related."
Rest in peace Tupac Shakur. You will forever be remembered.
Check out some of his best music video and listen to some of those who knew him best speaking about working with him below.
Podcaster Taxstone stirred up a hornet's nest Wednesday, May 25, during a Vlad TV interview where he called Tupac Shakur a snitch for what he believes was the late rapper's implication that The Notorious B.I.G. was involved in his 1994 shooting at Quad Studios in New York City.
Tax also included Cam'Ron in the same category.
In 2005 Cam'Ron was shot while driving his blue Lamborghini in Washington, D. C. At the time he and Jay Z weren't on good terms.
The following year Killa released a Hov diss song titled "You Gotta Love It."
"O.K. First off, you a bitch nigga / Only reason I'm doing this / I'mma just name 5 reasons real quick, got a hundred fifty / First - you stole Rocafella from Dame / Second - you stole Kanye from Dame / Third - you stole Rocawear from Dame / Fourth - I seen the nigga throw that diamond up before them shots was fired," Cam rapped.
Tax told Vlad that the reference toRoc-A-Fella Records'diamond logo would make police assume Cam was talking about someone from the label, which would make the Harlem rapper a snitch as well.
Cam soon hopped on Instagram and posted a response video.
"I just woke up and some nigga talking about I'm snitching," Cam says. "Let me explain something to y'all motherfuckers. Snitching is when you have paperwork that you tried to send somebody to jail or you sent somebody to jail. Not what you hear in a rap song. Not what you hear in an interview ... interrogation room. Not on the streets, jail bars. I actually went to jail for not snitching, nigga," Killa continued, "I violated my probation for being in D.C. and didn't tell. So I went to jail on Rikers Island for violating my probation."
Cam's video had the following caption.
"#FactsAndFabric I'm not even gonna say a nigga name.. But I'm wit the shits my nigga.. Get off my dick.. Lol.. And get to da money.. #UfinishOrYouDone and stop try and dis Tupac"
Lil Etois back with a brand new freestyle. This time he rocks with the instrumentals to twoSmif-N-Wessonclassics,"Bucktown"and"Sound Bwoy Bureill."Check them out up top.
Ransom continues to keep heads nodding with regularity as he continues to drop new freestyles. On this latest one he goes in on The Notorious B.I.G's"Kick in the Door" instrumental.
Fabolousreleases his second freestyle in as many weeks. He showed the West Coast love on his"B.A.S."joint. This week he brings it back to the East Coast by dropping verses overJay Z's"You, Me, Him and Her."
Sounds like he's taking shots at 50 Cent and Tatted Up Holly.
And just like that it's back on again. The Diplomats beef with Jay Z dates back to when they were signed to Roc-A-Fella Records. It never sat right with Jay that Dame Dash brought his Harlem homies on board and offered Cam the Vice President spot.
Things reignited wthin the last day when Funkmaster Flex aired Jay out on Hot 97 and spoke about him banning The Diplomats' music from his 40/40 clubs.
Jadakiss, Styles P and Sheek Louch drop off brand new visuals for their fans. The Lox trio release an official music video for their collaboration with Tyler Woods entitled "Horror." This is off of their new EP, The Trinity: 2nd Sermon.
Lil Kim a.k.a. The Queen Bee is on a roll as she releases her third song this week. The Brooklyn, New emcee follows up her "Flawless" remix and "Identity Theft" with a remix of Bobby Shmurda's"Hot Nigga." Download it here http://linkmixes.com/hg41a3n07nqg
Lil Kim is not done going in on her archenemy Nicki Minaj. A couple of days after throwing shots at her rival on Beyonce's"Flawless" remix, the Queen Bee is back, accusing Nicki of "Identity Theft." Listen up top.
Inspired by his wife, Sean Price dusts off the instrumental to Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud's 1987 song "Do the James" and flips it into a new joint entitled "El Raheim" featuring Rim from Da Villins. Download it here https://soundcloud.com/sean-p/el-raheim-feat-rim-from.
G-Unit emcee Young Buck is on "Fye" in his latest release. The track is off of the Buck-hosted mixtape, Traps-N-Trunks 82. Download the song here http://linkmixes.com/z6ziyj1szfmp.
DJ Whoo Kid, Coach PR and DJ Ceasar will release their Wake & Bake Volume 1 mixtape on April 20. One of the tracks featured on the project is "Hydroponic" with Kurupt, B-Real, Wiz Khalifa, Malley Mall and Knotch. Download here http://www.audiomack.com/song/paperchaserdotcom/hydroponic.
Follow Kurupt, B-Real, Wiz Khalifa, Malley Mall, Coach PR, DJ Ceasar and DJ Whoo Kid on Twitter.
Let's begin with a disclaimer: Nas doesn't endorse the following sentence.
But he's the greatest lyricist of all time.
Those words were carefully chosen: "lyricist" over "rapper" or "hip-hop artist;" "greatest" instead of "most successful;" "all time" rather than "today."
Those distinctions are important. Still, Nas isn't buying it.
"It's wayyyyyy, way, way too early in our lives," he said when asked where he fits among history's best MCs. "It's great to put a list together, but don't take it too seriously because your list won't matter 10 years from now or 15 years from now. It'll be a different list."
OK, no lists then; just a strong case for Nas being the best rhymesmith ever, the GOAT, numero uno, and a humble concession that this is but one man's opinion and yours are enthusiastically welcomed below.
With "Life is Good," Nas dropped his ninth No. 1 hip-hop album since 1994. Seven of those have gone platinum, which places him second among rappers only to Jay-Z with 11. (We're not counting compilations or collaborations here, only original solo efforts, and yes, Tupac Shakur had nine, but five were posthumous releases.)
It also ties Nas with Snoop Dogg or Snoop Lion or whatever his name is, and it puts the Queens native one plaque ahead of Eminem, Too Short, OutKast and LL Cool J, all of whom belong in the greatest-ever discussion, as well.
Hold on, you say? OutKast is not a solo act? And if they're included, why not the Beastie Boys, who also have six platinum records?
Agreed, but dissect OutKast into the individual components of Big Boi and André 3000, and you have two of the most technically deft rhymers to bless the mic. (Another disclaimer: This article's author is an ATLien.)
From 1994's "Southernplayalisticcadillacmuzik" to 2003's "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below," OutKast owned most hip-hop rivals, but since then -- barring the "Idlewild" soundtrack -- they've fallen off considerably: Big Boi has put out a pair of tepidly received solo efforts, André a few razor commercials.
While commercial success is important to the equation -- and the sole reason the brilliant Talib Kweli and Pharoahe Monch aren't included in the debate -- it's only one variable.
This debate, if you will, isn't so much about who can move the most rump in a club, but rather, if we were delivered back to 1800, who could hold their own with Coleridge and Wordsworth. It's why we're arguing lyricists and not artists.
The big 4-0
In a genre not known for the longevity of its luminaries, making it 10, 15, 20 years means you're a survivor -- and you survive only if people keep buying your music.
Unlike his aforementioned brethren in the Multiplatinum Club, Nas has done that without a platinum single. Not "Street Dreams." Not "Nas is Like." Not "Made You Look." Not one.
It means his fans want the entire package, the album as a complete work of art -- an endangered concept in the days of iTunes and Spotify.
Given the occasional knocks on Nas' production, it's got to be the lyrical wizardry that keep folks coming back, right? As he turns 40 this year -- sorry if that makes "Illmatic" fans feel old -- he's adapted to every sea change in rap and weathered every label, right or wrong, affixed to him.
"I've been called everything. Gangsta rap. I've been called conscious rap. You know, everything. Whoever feels like calling it whatever they want to call it, that's on them," he said.
Asked how he could be called socially responsible in one breath and a glorifier of violence in the next, Nas said he's not responsible for such tags.
"Don't blame me; blame our wonderful country, America. And you can't even blame America. It's life. Blame life. I talk about life, and I make universal music with an American style -- and that's what I do," he said. "I know one thing: People put too many labels on music."
Strange thing is, Nas didn't know he wanted to be a rapper when he was young, he said.
"There wasn't a lot of things that I wanted to do where African-Americans were achieving what we achieve today because it just wasn't allowed, funny enough to say," said the son of jazz cornet player Olu Dara. "I was trying to figure out, should I become a screenplay writer? Should I be a movie director? Should I make music for theater? I was thinking in the arts, anything that had to do with the arts. Of course, I never had a job in my life, and so I was just this dude that was hanging out -- a vagabond, if you will, in New York."
That's when Large Professor noticed his lyrical skills. A member of Main Source, Xtra P put him on the track "Live at the Barbeque."The song, funky in its own right, is considered a classic today because it introduced the nation to a phenom from Queensbridge Houses named Nasir Jones.
'A street dude with morals'
QB's Finest remembers well when he first heard himself spit, "Street's disciple, my raps are trifle/I shoot slugs from my brain just like a rifle."
He was in his old neighborhood late at night, and he heard the radio playing from a car on the corner. Some older guys were standing around, "doing their thing, talking and kicking it," Nas recalled.
"As I'm walking by, 'Live at the Barbeque' comes on, and I'm like 'Ohhh!' And I stopped, and I was like, 'Wow, this can't be real. This can't be real. This is me,'" he said. "I'm trying to let them know that's me. And they're kind of like, 'Cool,' and go back to their conversation. But it didn't matter. I was so caught up to hear myself on the radio for the first time; I was in heaven."
That was the summer of 1991. Nas was 17. By contrast, Kendrick Lamar, one of hip-hop's hottest new artists, had just turned 4.
There may be 21 years between his first 26 bars on wax and his latest LP, but that doesn't mean "Life is Good" is geriatric rap, even if Spin magazine prescribed it "for the 40-and-over crowd." Nas said he was "humbled" by the review, though his shows seem to be packed with 20-somethings.
"It's important for me to give an honest opinion on the way the world has changed. I feel like it's just who I am today," he said. "To answer your earlier question, why I'm still around, it's because honesty is the best policy. 'The truth shall set you free,' in the words of the great Aunt Esther from 'Sanford and Son.' ... And I think that's where Spin is wrong. It's not for 40-year-olds. It's just for people who know what's up" (One more disclaimer: The author didn't ask, "Why are you still around?" in a snarky way.)
Which brings us back to the debate. Nas' 40th birthday in September will put him in the company of elite survivors, though only a few of hip-hop's quadragenarians can legitimately challenge him for title of best lyricist.
You've got DJ Quik, Sean Price, Tech N9ne and Doom -- all talented rhymers, but no Nases. There's also Common, E-40, Ice Cube, Busta Rhymes, Scarface, Slick Rick and Q-Tip -- again, a poetic bunch who've been in the game for more than a minute -- but none is Nas.
Big Daddy Kane, Rakim and Kool G Rap, all 44, were game changers, trailblazers even, but their catalogs get thinner the deeper you move into the '90s.
Ghostface Killah and Raekwon made their marks on hip-hop and still do today, but they enjoyed more successes as members of the Wu-Tang Clan.
In fact, despite the well-warranted accolades heaped upon these five, there's only one platinum plaque among them: Ghost's "Ironman." (The forever-dope "Paid in Full" doesn't count. Sorry, solo efforts only.)
Dr. Dre, 47, and Snoop Dogg, 41, have long enjoyed broad appeal, from college campuses to Compton corners, but neither is known for the complexity of his content or rhyme schemes. Their production is always extraordinary, and they know how to make heads nod, but lyrically? It's more fun than prophetic.
'Exercise till the microphone dies'
Which brings us to the top five, the professors emeritus. Out of respect for Nas' aversion to lists, let's handle them in no particular order.
Eminem is a beast. As Nas points out, the list will be different in 10 years, and Slim Shady may be atop it, but in 2013 you can't challenge Nas if you dropped your first LP in 1999.
Then there's Pac and Biggie -- and the point where the debate might venture into hurting someone's feelings.
Makaveli dropped six albums, four of them platinum, between 1991 and 1996 before he was gunned down in Las Vegas. The Notorious B.I.G. put out his first record in 1994 and was slain in Los Angeles weeks before his second release, "Life After Death," in 1997.
Both have successful releases after their killings, but their life spans, tragically, were too brief, and for that reason -- and that reason only -- it's unfair to put them up against a man with two decades in the game.
Nas still believes Pac and Biggie are "two of the greatest who've ever done it," and it's not because they died. Big L died. Guru died. Big Pun, Eazy-E and Ol' Dirty Bastard died, but they didn't leave the same legacy.
"I just think Biggie was something else. He was the Hitchcock of this thing, man. He told you a story. There was a seriousness that came with it that can't compare with nothing," Nas said.
He wishes the pair hadn't been taken in their mid-20s, he said, because they "would be at the top of the game" today, and they would've pushed him.
"I'd probably be better if they were still around," he said. "I think I'd be a lot better."
"To leave us with that kind of music at that young age is exceptional. There's no other word to say," he said. "They were bigger than all of us, even today -- their music, their sound, their topics. The way the world listened to them was a lot bigger than I would even say myself and the rest of us ... I don't think today we've made an official impact that those guys were just starting to make."
Watch the throne
... And then there was one: Jay-Z, a man who spent the late 1990s and early 2000s also pushing Nas, and his buttons, during their quest to rock Biggie Smalls' "King of New York" crown.
Let's not bother with the details of their long-snuffed beef or who said what about whom on what album (though, let's face it, Nas' Ginsu verses on "Ether" made Jay's "Takeover" and "Super Ugly" sound a little nanny-nanny-boo-boo. Jigga himself called "Ether" an inescapable "figure-four leg lock").
But it's interesting to note what happened once their ugly rivalry was quashed.
Jay-Z had been named president of Def Jam Records, one of the most powerful posts in hip-hop. Jay-Z could have gone Mortal Kombat and finished Nas. He could've at least used his clout to make life unpleasant for the man who once called him gay, arguably the worst accusation you can levy in the macho world of hip-hop.
What did he do instead? He signed Nas and made a guest appearance on his first Def Jam album.
Or as Hova put it in a 2006 interview with MTV, "I didn't sign Nas; I partnered with Nas. You can't sign an artist of Nas' stature. You can only partner with him. ... Like I said, it's always been a level of respect there. I, for not one second, ever said I don't believe that he's one of the best lyricists ever."
Here is where that "lyricist" v. "hip-hop artist" distinction becomes important.
Jay-Z said it best himself: He's not a businessman; he's a business, man. When you consider 11 of his albums have sold at least a million copies -- seven of those 2 million or more -- as have his four collaborations, two with R. Kelly and one each with Linkin Park and Kanye West, it's as if Hova is King Midas, but with platinum.
He's a hit maker extraordinaire, maybe the world's best, but that doesn't translate to best lyricist. Jay-Z acknowledged as much on"Moment of Clarity" when he rhymed, "If skills sold, truth be told/I'd probably be, lyrically, Talib Kweli."
Even in dissing Nas on "Takeover," he explained why he had sampled Nas' lyrics on "Dead Presidents": "So yeah, I sampled your voice; you was using it wrong/you made it a hot line; I made it a hot song."
And that, friends, is the crux of the debate: hot lines vs. hot songs. No one would deny Hova his dap, but it seems he has said, in both word and action, that it's tough to top Nas.
'Nasty, Nas the Esco to Escobar'
So, who's up next? A&Rs have sought the next great MC since Afrika Bambaataa dropped "Planet Rock."
Nas was once dubbed the next Rakim. Rick Ross has been called the next Biggie (Last disclaimer: not by this author). Kendrick Lamar has been called the next Pac. Everyone from 50 Cent to Lupe Fiasco to J. Cole has been labeled the next Nas.
Who does Nastradamus foresee filling his shoes? He doesn't like that question any more than he likes lists.
"There was never a next Rakim. There's only one Rakim, and you can compare people to me, which is a great honor to me, but those guys are really on their path to becoming great Kendricks and greater Lupes," he said. "I think it took years after 'Illmatic,' after my first record, before people started to get used to me and started to get into what I was all about and what the Nas story was."
Nas' brilliance may lie in his ability to keep adapting that story through the years, whether it's from the days when he "dropped out of Cooley High/gassed up by a cokehead cutie pie" or lessons learned as father to his teen daughter, Destiny: "She heard stories of her daddy thuggin'/so if her husband is a gangster, can't be mad, I love him."
He's been the hustling street kid known as Nasty Nas and the jeweled-up don named Escobar after the world's most famous drug lord.
He's been the thug, the black righteous militant, the philosopher, so it's not really weird that he has such broad appeal when he's just as likely to allude to Tony Montana as he is Huey P. Newton or Ivan Van Sertima in his rhymes.
Nas declined to say whether he'd still be rapping in 20 years, though he did offer an assessment on what hip-hop might look like two decades from now.
"It's always going to be youthful expression. It's always going to be a good time. It's always going to be poetry, in the vein of Langston Hughes. At the same time, it's entertaining and party and fun likeLuther Campbell," he said, "but it's always going to just be the youth expressing themselves over the sounds that move people in the best way."
Kind of fitting he referenced a Harlem Renaissance poet and 2 Live Crew in that answer.
Who is the greatest lyricist ever in your opinion?
As was the case with Tupac Shakur, a sex tape has emerged involving late West Coast singer Nate Dogg according to TMZ.
The 5-minute tape is being shopped to various porn outlets without any offers being made so far. Hopefully a buyer won't surface and Nate can rest in peace.
DJ Kay Slay brings the Outlawz and Lil Cease together to remember the legacies of two of the best that ever did it, Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. "Bury The Hatchet" is the latest video from Kay Slay's upcoming album Rhyme or Die which will be released in 2012.
Los Angeles (CNN) -- A task force made up of local and federal law enforcement agencies is actively pursuing leads into the 1997 slaying of hip hop artist Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G., according to two sources familiar with the investigation.
According to one law enforcement source, the investigation into the 13-year-old unsolved case was "reinvigorated" months ago as a result of new information, but the source would not elaborate further because of the ongoing investigation that includes the Los Angeles Police Department, L.A. County District Attorney's Office and the FBI.
On March 9, 1997, Wallace, 24, was shot and killed while riding in a Suburban that was driving away from a music industry party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles police said a lone gunman in a Chevy Impala pulled alongside the Suburban and opened fire on Wallace, who was in the passenger seat. Witnesses described the suspect as being an African-American man wearing a suit and bow tie.
The main theory behind shooting was payback in a so-called rap war between East and West Coast hip hop artists and their record companies -- Bad Boy Entertainment in New York, which represented Wallace, and Death Row Records, headed by Marion "Suge" Knight, in Los Angeles.
Six months earlier in Las Vegas, a gunman opened fire on a car driven by Knight, killing one of his top artists Tupac Shakur. That murder remains unsolved also.
"East Coast was Biggie, West Coast was Tupac," Wallace's mother Voletta Wallace told a filmmaker in the 2002 documentary "Biggie and Tupac."
"Come on now, you're messing with lives here and that's exactly what happened. Two lives were lost as a result of what? Stupidity?" Voletta Wallace told the filmmaker.
Retired Los Angeles Police Detective Russell Poole, who worked on the Wallace case, told CNN that he believes Knight was behind the murder, even though the Death Row Records' boss was serving time on a probation violation at the time.
Russell Poole
"Suge Knight ordered the hit," Poole said, adding that he believes it was arranged by Reggie Wright Jr., who headed security for Death Row Records.
Reggie Wright Jr. told CNN he had nothing to do with the murder, and Knight has repeatedly said he had nothing to do with the crime. Poole said he retired early from the LAPD, in part, because he was thwarted in following leads in the Wallace case involving police officers, some of whom worked off-duty for Death Row Records.
"I think I was getting too close to the truth," Poole said. "I think they feared that the truth would be a scandal."
One of the officers Poole said was involved is David Mack, a rogue policeman tied to the LAPD Rampart Scandal, who was sent to prison for robbing a bank in 1997, the same year Wallace was killed.
David Mack
Poole said Mack owned the same type of car driven by the gunman who shot Wallace, and Poole said a friend of Mack's resembles a police sketch of the shooter.
CNN was unable to reach Mack for comment, but when allegations of his involvement in Wallace' slaying originally surfaced more than a decade ago, his criminal defense attorney Donald Re called the claims ridiculous.
Poole also assisted Wallace's family in their wrongful death lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department alleging a cover-up in the investigation.
Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks was the chief of police when Poole was investigating, and he told CNN the accusations about a police cover-up are "absurd."
"We would have never ignored a lead that could have helped us solve that murder," Parks said.
Perry Sanders, Voletta Wallace's attorney, told CNN the family's lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2002, was put on hold in April after Los Angeles police said turning over evidence from the case would interfere with a beefed up investigation.
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02. From The Bottom (Prod. by Cy Fyre)
03. Dream Big (Prod. by A-One)
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07. I Can’t Complain (feat. Stormey) (Prod. by Lexx Lucazi)
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18. Facedown (feat. DJ XRated) (Prod. by BandGeeks)
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22. Immortals (feat. GLC) (Prod. by Tha Formula)Outlawz still out here grindingDownload HereRead more…
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