Feb. 3, 2026
Best Tupac Shakur Tracks: Our Top 5 List Ranked | 50 For 50
Tupac Shakur’s discography defined a generation. In this episode of Top 5, hosts Garrett Gonzales and Mike Joseph tackle the impossible task of narrowing down the legendary Pac’s catalog to just five essential tracks.
The struggle to rank a revolutionary artist often leads to heated debates over commercial hits versus deep-cut lyricism. We break down the cultural impact of anthems like "California Love" and "I Get Around," while weighing them against the emotional gravity of "Dear Mama" and "Keep Your Head Up." By the end of this episode, you’ll have a fresh perspective on Tupac’s versatility and a definitive list to debate with your fellow hip-hop heads.
Key Highlights:
- The sonic evolution of Tupac from Digital Underground to Death Row.
- Why "Dear Mama" remains the gold standard for tribute tracks.
- The debate: Does mainstream success overshadow Pac’s social commentary?
- Garrett and Mike’s personal "Top 5" selections revealed.
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Contact at: GG@BSPNMedia.com
WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_00]: party people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's WG here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you're already a regular listener of 50 for 50, you can skip ahead 30 seconds or so.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to everyone for checking us out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And here is the next episode.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Mike.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've been loving the playlists that you've been putting together.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I, I, is, is, tell me if this word is even a real world, real word.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've called you a mixed tapeologist.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If it's not a new word, it's a word now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's how I'm describing you in the, in these ways.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take it together on 50 for 50.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Net, which are based on our top five, plus other things, I just stop in there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Up in there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we're now doing the one on two poxicore.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We just got finished putting out our episode, our 50 for 50 on all eyes on me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And for me to whittle down a list of songs like I wrote out
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think I wrote out about 15 about 18 songs of pox that I would kind of like put on a list of like these are my favorite pox songs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Whittling it down to five was a little hard, but as I kind of did the exercise, I was like, okay, what actually it is, is these songs are the ones that are most meaningful to me when I hear them today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And this may have been different from when I was 20 when
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[SPEAKER_00]: So let's do our countdown from five to one.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Up to you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You want to start.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You want me to start.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right, song number five for me and my two packs of core top five is the lead single off of his second album.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hollerfie hear me, two puck does not have a great catalog when it comes to like music that I like to work out to music that I'm like lifting weights to or okay in the right mindset to in my younger days play baseball or something except this song this song I want to like
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[SPEAKER_00]: punch through walls when I hear like just the message, the ferocity of this dude and he's a young dude, but he's like lethal like on this song.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I enjoyed so much and still I threw it on the other day and I was like, yeah, it makes me feel the same way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I need to go shadow box or do something because I'm ready.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm alive for me.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's holiday for you here.
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[SPEAKER_02]: um, it is just a poignant song, um, I feel like everybody, whether they have a good relationship with their mother or a complicated relationship with their mother can relate to something in the song, um, and I know that all the mothers out there are appreciated being shouted out as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So, dear mom is just like a very like emotional, like it speaks to who Tupac really
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[SPEAKER_00]: that through a phoenix life.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because as we talked about on the 50 50 episode through two pox childhood, she was not in good shape.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She did clean herself up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, later in her life, which was awesome to see.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When that song came out, I'm sure she was proud.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But do you think
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[SPEAKER_00]: Can I put my business out there, my guy?
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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, how's it?
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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he had done interviews already about her, you know, if any, she core was
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[SPEAKER_02]: something of a, you know, public figure to an extent, you know, to, you know, however many people were, you know, cognizant of the Black Panthers and new, you know, specifics about cases and stuff like that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so, I don't know if it was totally like a situation where he was putting her on blast.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I also feel like they probably had a good enough relationship where they discussed it beforehand.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would imagine so too, but just that line, like if you ever, like on Mother's Day, if you ever wanted to play this song for your mom, I want to take the line even as a crack thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that line where you, you probably press pause on the song before it gets there.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Start, start on the second verse.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right, number four for me is also from his second album.
05:22.816 --> 05:28.492
[SPEAKER_00]: it is still the moment where I kind of saw him as a different thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, not as a different artist necessarily, but as a...
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[SPEAKER_00]: This guy actually kind of understands the world at a different level.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And most of the hip hop that I hear.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that is not to shade some of the more conscious stuff.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Cause there's some very smart hip hop out there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes when I listen to that stuff, I go, yeah, these guys are smart, but do they really understand kind of like the nooks and crannies of society in a sense.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And again, some of this is we're we're thinking of I think about sometimes two-pock aspirationally of like what is the best version of two-pock and I think this song is kind of like this is the best version of two-pock that you were thinking of as an artist.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I agree with you.
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[SPEAKER_02]: My number four is the California Love Remix.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I love the beat.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I love the beat to that song.
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[SPEAKER_02]: fun to park which you didn't get very much like he's not really trying to be like hardcore gangster.
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[SPEAKER_02]: He's just like I'm out on bail smashing chicks living my best life.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's great to be free out of out on bail fresh out of jail California dream and dreaming.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you like the remix better than the single version?
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[SPEAKER_02]: The beat.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So the beat.
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[SPEAKER_02]: of that song is sampled from a song called Intimate Connection by a group called Clear.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's from like 1984.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We had when I was growing up we had that record and it's just such like a smooth beat.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it's just a beat.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The because the version of that came out of the single is more along the style of like the G-Funk era of of what Dr. Dre was doing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I felt
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[SPEAKER_02]: Interesting.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of think the opposite.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think the remix sounds more g fun.
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[SPEAKER_02]: The album version to me sounds more east coast kind of.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Off the list is more aggressive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't listen to the remix.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The one that's on the album.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't listen to that as often as the sing version, but yeah off and also shout out and rest in peace to Roger Troutman.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right, this is three in a row for his second album, which I think in some ways kind of talks about like maybe where my biggest fandom was of his was when I was like 16 17 years old, like because that's how old we were when that album came out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I get around, I get around is so singable as well, which I think is what makes it fun.
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[SPEAKER_00]: because it's like the lyrics are so simplistic and they're just on and summary and barbecue and goofy and you get money b so I always think of that song when I think of like what the fun part of his hip-hop career would have been like is like okay it's I get around it was probably so much fun for him.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_02]: My number three is for me against the world.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's old school and that's just a song that pays tribute.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's really history to New York.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Um, it, uh, he kind of does the naming rappers and their popular songs thing.
09:10.287 --> 09:19.504
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, he talks about some very specific New York, like, you know, games that kids played growing up, like, it's very much like for all of the two pop was a West Coast rapper stuff.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody from LA could have made a record like old school.
09:23.150 --> 09:35.254
[SPEAKER_00]: old school was a very like New York centric song you know my fair part of that song was when he shouted out LL because I was like yes of course he's an LL fan I was like everybody's an LL.
09:35.294 --> 09:37.057
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like the thing is probably an LL.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was like it when my favorites like each other you know.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, though I remember reading somewhere that like
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[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, I'd be for two pockets.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I was like, who the hell knows?
09:49.256 --> 09:51.679
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's like, you're not going to be on my beef corner, man.
09:51.739 --> 09:53.841
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to out beef me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So number two for me was California love.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But the single version, the one, you know, the one that was the video version, though the video actually had both versions in it did just depending like, right, there was like a extended cut of the video.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And, but yeah, I mean, California love.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you go anywhere, and there's music, so wedding bar, you hear that California and everyone like they just look up, they kind of look at each other and they just like, okay, we're in for a good time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like this is what it's about.
10:33.396 --> 10:36.880
[SPEAKER_00]: There's, you know, there's not many songs.
10:37.147 --> 10:48.281
[SPEAKER_00]: in the history of music that can make people do that like it's just the jump off of that song is just incredible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, it's you can kind of also tell like it's like one of the things when you hear that song and you look around and you see who's heirs perked up you're like okay cool.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They're cool.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm with them.
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[SPEAKER_02]: How do you know who the real ones are?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Um, my number two is I get around.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I get around came out.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So I graduated high school in 1993 and I get around came out that summer and it was all the stuff that like in my imagination, uh, I saw myself doing hanging out with a bunch of friends have a fun like, you know,
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, but I was not doing that in the summer of night three, so it was aspirational from that respect, but it's just like a fun, like light-hearted party song, very much in more in the vein of digital underground than in the vein of what you knew too pop as.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It really interesting, and I just thought about this as we were talking.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I get around in Big Papa are based on the same song between the sheets by the Isley brothers.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So I wonder if that fact they're in, you know, to any beef as well, what song hit Street first?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I get around came out a year before.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay.
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[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Like a year and a half before Big Papa did.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so, you know, interesting thing there.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's, you know, you throw that on you bring the barbecue gear out.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You go to the beat like it's just one of those like fun summer songs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Shocked G, man.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to put this shirt on the panties.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that's.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And you're right about the simplicity of the lyrics.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Like I know that some of my more.
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[SPEAKER_02]: some of my friends who are like more like hip hop purists, like, you know, this dude can rapies, like some some loose lip sync ships, like whatever.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And that's that's such like a bad rhyme.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, but I don't know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This lip sync ships.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's a trip.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, exactly.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, if you were looking for
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[SPEAKER_02]: top tier lyricism that was not the spot you wanted to go to.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, truthfully, like, I would not consider to pop like a in a tier rapper.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but, you know, headline, I think I planned on a little bit.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he didn't seem to necessarily, like, he wasn't trying to be rock him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He was trying to be, um,
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who in hip hop he was trying to be, but there was this like external thing with who he was portraying.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it was clear, and maybe this gets back to the acting thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like it was clear, there was a distinction, like whatever this thug-life version of him saw.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this is Bishop, and this is me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But being me,
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[SPEAKER_00]: is way more traumatic and I have to think about all of these things in my life that really, really suck, including having to pay for everybody coming out of the woodwork just because I am somewhat of a success and then because of that, having no money.
14:17.414 --> 14:23.882
[SPEAKER_00]: So to get to go into the
14:23.862 --> 14:28.849
[SPEAKER_00]: an escape thing for him, and I completely get it.
14:29.410 --> 14:35.098
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, like if he wanted to be Rick Kim, rock him, I don't think he could have been rock him.
14:35.258 --> 14:46.714
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like if I can't be rock him, I might as well be something that isn't really created yet, that hasn't really existed yet, and in that sense and that vision of that character,
14:46.795 --> 14:56.364
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, he had he could rhyme, but the at the some of the words that he was actually spitting it was kind that was like secondary to how he was saying those things.
14:56.424 --> 14:56.645
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
14:56.745 --> 14:57.005
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: For two puck, you know, as a hip-hop fan to me for two puck, it wasn't necessarily like his rhyme patterns, but the emotion of what he was saying when he was rapping.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's why my number one song to this day is still I'm at etcha.
15:14.437 --> 15:16.880
[SPEAKER_00]: like you couldn't make this up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This man dies.
15:19.764 --> 15:20.765
[SPEAKER_00]: I ain't mad at you.
15:21.526 --> 15:25.551
[SPEAKER_00]: I think comes out the next week as the last single off of that album.
15:26.392 --> 15:37.947
[SPEAKER_00]: In the video, my man comes out of the movie theater or
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[SPEAKER_00]: people who had passed away now, these weren't the best, you know, the best celebrity, you know, remakes of people, but you know, you understood what was going on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And like that coming out, like, you know, he foreshadowed his own death or whatever, whatever, the whatever people want to say, but the fact that that happened,
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[SPEAKER_00]: like it did is insane.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's so eerie.
16:09.963 --> 16:10.243
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
16:10.804 --> 16:11.024
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
16:11.144 --> 16:11.905
[SPEAKER_02]: It is so eerie.
16:12.266 --> 16:20.316
[SPEAKER_02]: I just thinking about, you know, the macabelli album, the eye and magic video, like again, conspiracy theory brain.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But for all of that to have been a coincidence, like it's just a hell of a coincidence.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, before we get to your number one,
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[SPEAKER_00]: I want to mention a couple of songs that I had close.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Brenna's got a baby.
16:37.175 --> 16:38.396
[SPEAKER_00]: Got to mention that.
16:38.796 --> 16:43.121
[SPEAKER_00]: It is iconic in the storytelling for him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So many tears.
16:46.205 --> 16:47.667
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a good one.
16:47.707 --> 16:48.428
[SPEAKER_00]: Megan's world.
16:49.209 --> 16:54.795
[SPEAKER_00]: Just his flow and the huskiness of his voice in that song.
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[SPEAKER_00]: is awesome.
16:56.017 --> 17:19.332
[SPEAKER_00]: Got my mind made up, you know, if you are of the opinion of does the rock him version of Tupac exist, this is kind of where he where you would want to go to from a rhyme capacity for him, you know, it's, you know, again, method man and red man and I think in spectadeck was actually taken off of the song except for the very end of it where they put
17:19.312 --> 17:28.180
[SPEAKER_00]: him at the end, but like this is something where you're like, okay, he can actually be on a song with these other guys.
17:30.122 --> 17:39.711
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the very memorable line, thugged out, forgive me, Janet, where he mentions the Janet Jackson thing, which is kind of a flex, by the way.
17:40.071 --> 17:48.559
[SPEAKER_00]: Like no one else is like hanging out with Janet Jackson, like hip hop at that time.
17:50.041 --> 17:50.502
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
17:50.522 --> 17:54.647
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, that that was like, I think an iron sharpens iron kind of thing.
17:55.788 --> 17:59.834
[SPEAKER_00]: And then of course, how do you want it, which becomes a giant strip club song.
18:00.274 --> 18:00.995
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
18:01.015 --> 18:09.366
[SPEAKER_00]: And then me and my girlfriend, which Jay-Z and Beyonce re-did many years later as did Tony Braxton as did Mariah Carey.
18:13.025 --> 18:31.494
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was a very smart idea with the example of the gun and the girlfriend, you know, as his part, what, you know, the, just the way that he put that story together was very smartly done.
18:31.514 --> 18:34.459
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think memorable for a lot of people.
18:34.895 --> 18:35.956
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, what is your number one?
18:36.957 --> 18:38.719
[SPEAKER_02]: My number one is, keep you head up.
18:39.439 --> 18:44.144
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the first, the first two pock piece.
18:44.344 --> 18:45.906
[SPEAKER_02]: First piece of two pock music I ever bought.
18:46.887 --> 18:48.789
[SPEAKER_02]: I bought the cassette single for keep you head up.
18:49.790 --> 19:01.341
[SPEAKER_02]: And I played that song out just because again, it's such like a, it's an inspirational song, like it's a real song, it's just, you know,
19:03.582 --> 19:04.703
[SPEAKER_02]: You're in a bad place.
19:04.743 --> 19:05.604
[SPEAKER_02]: You put that song on.
19:05.624 --> 19:07.907
[SPEAKER_02]: It gives you like a little bit of motivation to kind of get through the day.
19:08.628 --> 19:13.833
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've always been drawn to and appreciated songs that have that kind of vibe to them.
19:14.574 --> 19:19.540
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, great sample from also a Roger Troutman sample.
19:20.681 --> 19:23.224
[SPEAKER_02]: So shout out again, Roger Troutman.
19:23.284 --> 19:24.966
[SPEAKER_02]: But just like a beautiful song.
19:26.588 --> 19:27.429
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a trivia here.
19:27.449 --> 19:29.691
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what, twopox birth name was?
19:31.004 --> 19:35.069
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, can I do this without going to Wikipedia?
19:35.089 --> 19:37.753
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was the same parish crux.
19:37.813 --> 19:38.013
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
19:38.734 --> 19:39.195
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
19:39.255 --> 19:45.062
[SPEAKER_00]: The reasoning behind that name is in Jeff Proman's book.
19:45.363 --> 19:49.048
[SPEAKER_00]: He explains how a phoenix picked those three names together.
19:49.709 --> 19:54.615
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think originally, she didn't want him to have a birth certificate because she was like,
19:54.595 --> 19:58.519
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want him to be like, findable, essentially, right?
19:58.960 --> 19:59.600
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
19:59.861 --> 20:02.784
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and I think she also did not want to be findable.
20:02.924 --> 20:08.811
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and so then she then changed his name about a month after he was born to what it became.
20:09.211 --> 20:11.433
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, quickly, this will be an easier exercise.
20:11.473 --> 20:18.221
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll only go from to apocalypse now through Macavilly.
20:19.122 --> 20:21.044
[SPEAKER_00]: How would you rank the albums?
20:22.045 --> 20:23.927
[SPEAKER_02]: From to
20:24.481 --> 20:26.883
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so me against the world.
20:28.565 --> 20:29.306
[SPEAKER_02]: All eyes on me.
20:30.587 --> 20:32.569
[SPEAKER_02]: Macavelli strictly to apocalypse now.
20:33.090 --> 20:34.251
[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly what I had.
20:35.232 --> 20:35.712
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
20:36.253 --> 20:50.467
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there was a point where I was like, do I like to apocalypse now better, but then strictly, but then when I went through and I found out that through my favorite two bucks on ever, it's on the same album.
20:51.148 --> 20:53.610
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, me against that album is
20:55.919 --> 20:58.506
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not going to go ahead.
20:58.526 --> 21:01.995
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, as me against the world to me is the only two-pack album you need to have.
21:02.376 --> 21:03.920
[SPEAKER_02]: That is not like a greatest hits.
21:04.281 --> 21:04.943
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
21:05.344 --> 21:11.059
[SPEAKER_00]: The strictly album is very uneven.
21:11.714 --> 21:26.063
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's some talks about like how kind of unfocused he may have been during that time, but he was really bummed out that two apocalypse now did not really gain much traction when it came out.
21:26.103 --> 21:28.508
[SPEAKER_00]: He was changing some things.
21:29.197 --> 21:47.880
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the actually the story behind me against the world, how that album was put out, it's kind of crazy too, because he was in jail, and so his input as far as how the thing was put together, what goes where, you know, what songs are going to make the cut like was very minimal.
21:48.383 --> 21:58.974
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think he actually asked EDM, maybe to like help him out with that and like go and work with the record label to actually put out the finished version.
21:59.355 --> 22:05.681
[SPEAKER_00]: So he may have even made some actual decisions on, you know, final decisions on what made that album.
22:05.701 --> 22:10.126
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was really interesting to think about how that thing is done while the dude is in jail.
22:10.647 --> 22:11.167
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, yeah.
22:11.788 --> 22:13.750
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, absolutely.
22:13.730 --> 22:14.151
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
22:14.171 --> 22:15.435
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this has been a fun one.
22:16.618 --> 22:22.754
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be back with the next album next week, but we're cooking through this thing, man.
22:22.774 --> 22:24.178
[SPEAKER_00]: 50 for 50 dot net.
22:24.918 --> 22:32.466
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm amazed, by the way, that for such a small number of YouTube subscribers we have.
22:32.626 --> 22:35.129
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, hit that subscribe so we can get those up.
22:35.690 --> 22:47.423
[SPEAKER_00]: But some of these videos are actually, you know, doing decent numbers, including the the short that we put out, we'll put out some more shorts when we have more content that I consider to be kind of like current content.
22:47.923 --> 22:49.185
[SPEAKER_00]: I have some ideas.
22:49.225 --> 22:50.806
[SPEAKER_00]: We just have to find the time to put them together.
22:50.866 --> 22:51.347
[SPEAKER_00]: But
22:51.327 --> 22:54.472
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, all right, that is going to be it.
22:54.973 --> 22:55.994
[SPEAKER_00]: That is going to be it from here.
22:56.055 --> 22:58.939
[SPEAKER_00]: Mike, I appreciate you.
22:59.280 --> 23:03.046
[SPEAKER_00]: You, I hope you have an idea how much I appreciate you.
23:03.186 --> 23:11.119
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you do, but if you don't, I just, you want you to hear it from my mouth that I appreciate you so much.
23:11.339 --> 23:13.042
[SPEAKER_02]: So, well, the feeling is mutual, man.
23:13.142 --> 23:17.689
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like, you know, there's not many people that I can say I've known half my life.
23:19.120 --> 23:45.499
[SPEAKER_00]: or longer that is true yeah thank you internet yes and you know you have been consistent so you know you are very much appreciated by me you know so the feeling is is certainly mutual alright y'all thanks for hanging with us we're going all year long we'll be back next week for Mike I'm double gc when we see
00:07.085 --> 00:07.646
[SPEAKER_00]: party people.
00:07.986 --> 00:08.828
[SPEAKER_00]: It's WG here.
00:09.148 --> 00:14.176
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're already a regular listener of 50 for 50, you can skip ahead 30 seconds or so.
00:14.476 --> 00:20.045
[SPEAKER_00]: But if not, I just wanted to let you know how you can help 50 for 50, get more eyeballs and earballs.
00:20.546 --> 00:23.730
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find everything at 50 for 50.net.
00:24.251 --> 00:31.022
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you subscribe to us via a podcast app like Apple or Spotify, give us a five star review which helps in discovery.
00:31.202 --> 00:34.527
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00:41.184 --> 00:43.009
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks to everyone for checking us out.
00:43.731 --> 00:45.495
[SPEAKER_00]: And here is the next episode.
01:00.612 --> 01:01.094
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Mike.
01:01.234 --> 01:04.165
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been loving the playlists that you've been putting together.
01:04.185 --> 01:08.963
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I, is, is, tell me if this word is even a real world, real word.
01:09.043 --> 01:11.432
[SPEAKER_00]: I've called you a mixed tapeologist.
01:12.610 --> 01:14.292
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's not a new word, it's a word now.
01:14.773 --> 01:15.113
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
01:15.614 --> 01:17.797
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how I'm describing you in the, in these ways.
01:17.837 --> 01:19.960
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take it together on 50 for 50.
01:19.980 --> 01:25.388
[SPEAKER_00]: Net, which are based on our top five, plus other things, I just stop in there.
01:25.448 --> 01:25.888
[SPEAKER_00]: Up in there.
01:26.409 --> 01:28.872
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're now doing the one on two poxicore.
01:28.892 --> 01:34.500
[SPEAKER_00]: We just got finished putting out our episode, our 50 for 50 on all eyes on me.
01:34.480 --> 01:42.887
[SPEAKER_00]: And for me to whittle down a list of songs like I wrote out
01:43.593 --> 01:52.785
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I wrote out about 15 about 18 songs of pox that I would kind of like put on a list of like these are my favorite pox songs.
01:53.606 --> 02:05.921
[SPEAKER_00]: Whittling it down to five was a little hard, but as I kind of did the exercise, I was like, okay, what actually it is, is these songs are the ones that are most meaningful to me when I hear them today.
02:05.981 --> 02:12.790
[SPEAKER_00]: And this may have been different from when I was 20 when
02:12.770 --> 02:16.479
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's do our countdown from five to one.
02:17.862 --> 02:18.243
[SPEAKER_00]: Up to you.
02:18.323 --> 02:18.824
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to start.
02:18.844 --> 02:19.486
[SPEAKER_00]: You want me to start.
02:20.227 --> 02:30.812
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, song number five for me and my two packs of core top five is the lead single off of his second album.
02:31.366 --> 02:59.145
[SPEAKER_00]: Hollerfie hear me, two puck does not have a great catalog when it comes to like music that I like to work out to music that I'm like lifting weights to or okay in the right mindset to in my younger days play baseball or something except this song this song I want to like
02:59.311 --> 03:11.390
[SPEAKER_00]: punch through walls when I hear like just the message, the ferocity of this dude and he's a young dude, but he's like lethal like on this song.
03:11.591 --> 03:16.318
[SPEAKER_00]: I enjoyed so much and still I threw it on the other day and I was like, yeah, it makes me feel the same way.
03:16.338 --> 03:20.605
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to go shadow box or do something because I'm ready.
03:20.765 --> 03:22.047
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm alive for me.
03:22.067 --> 03:26.314
[SPEAKER_02]: It's holiday for you here.
03:26.480 --> 03:44.921
[SPEAKER_02]: um, it is just a poignant song, um, I feel like everybody, whether they have a good relationship with their mother or a complicated relationship with their mother can relate to something in the song, um, and I know that all the mothers out there are appreciated being shouted out as well.
03:45.381 --> 03:53.871
[SPEAKER_02]: So, dear mom is just like a very like emotional, like it speaks to who Tupac really
03:54.357 --> 03:56.821
[SPEAKER_00]: that through a phoenix life.
03:57.341 --> 04:03.771
[SPEAKER_00]: Because as we talked about on the 50 50 episode through two pox childhood, she was not in good shape.
04:04.192 --> 04:04.512
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
04:04.532 --> 04:06.295
[SPEAKER_00]: She did clean herself up.
04:06.735 --> 04:10.301
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, later in her life, which was awesome to see.
04:12.504 --> 04:17.131
[SPEAKER_00]: When that song came out, I'm sure she was proud.
04:17.732 --> 04:19.875
[SPEAKER_00]: But do you think
04:20.767 --> 04:22.635
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I put my business out there, my guy?
04:22.655 --> 04:24.161
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, how's it?
04:24.181 --> 04:29.241
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he had done interviews already about her, you know, if any, she core was
04:30.993 --> 04:44.069
[SPEAKER_02]: something of a, you know, public figure to an extent, you know, to, you know, however many people were, you know, cognizant of the Black Panthers and new, you know, specifics about cases and stuff like that.
04:44.930 --> 04:49.656
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so, I don't know if it was totally like a situation where he was putting her on blast.
04:50.297 --> 04:54.402
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I also feel like they probably had a good enough relationship where they discussed it beforehand.
04:54.837 --> 05:05.229
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I would imagine so too, but just that line, like if you ever, like on Mother's Day, if you ever wanted to play this song for your mom, I want to take the line even as a crack thing.
05:05.249 --> 05:10.776
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that line where you, you probably press pause on the song before it gets there.
05:10.976 --> 05:14.280
[SPEAKER_02]: Start, start on the second verse.
05:14.300 --> 05:22.009
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, number four for me is also from his second album.
05:22.816 --> 05:28.492
[SPEAKER_00]: it is still the moment where I kind of saw him as a different thing.
05:30.317 --> 05:36.454
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, not as a different artist necessarily, but as a...
05:37.700 --> 05:43.568
[SPEAKER_00]: This guy actually kind of understands the world at a different level.
05:44.730 --> 05:46.993
[SPEAKER_00]: And most of the hip hop that I hear.
05:47.334 --> 05:50.899
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is not to shade some of the more conscious stuff.
05:50.939 --> 05:53.162
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause there's some very smart hip hop out there.
05:53.642 --> 06:05.479
[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes when I listen to that stuff, I go, yeah, these guys are smart, but do they really understand kind of like the nooks and crannies of society in a sense.
06:05.459 --> 06:20.496
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, some of this is we're we're thinking of I think about sometimes two-pock aspirationally of like what is the best version of two-pock and I think this song is kind of like this is the best version of two-pock that you were thinking of as an artist.
06:22.178 --> 06:22.718
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree with you.
06:23.659 --> 06:28.625
[SPEAKER_02]: My number four is the California Love Remix.
06:28.645 --> 06:29.306
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the beat.
06:29.546 --> 06:34.251
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the beat to that song.
06:35.513 --> 06:41.701
[SPEAKER_02]: fun to park which you didn't get very much like he's not really trying to be like hardcore gangster.
06:42.021 --> 06:49.350
[SPEAKER_02]: He's just like I'm out on bail smashing chicks living my best life.
06:49.651 --> 06:56.940
[SPEAKER_00]: It's great to be free out of out on bail fresh out of jail California dream and dreaming.
06:57.360 --> 07:00.124
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you like the remix better than the single version?
07:00.564 --> 07:00.925
[SPEAKER_02]: The beat.
07:02.166 --> 07:03.428
[SPEAKER_02]: So the beat.
07:03.408 --> 07:07.253
[SPEAKER_02]: of that song is sampled from a song called Intimate Connection by a group called Clear.
07:08.014 --> 07:09.536
[SPEAKER_02]: It's from like 1984.
07:09.997 --> 07:15.745
[SPEAKER_02]: We had when I was growing up we had that record and it's just such like a smooth beat.
07:18.548 --> 07:19.910
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it's just a beat.
07:20.211 --> 07:29.303
[SPEAKER_00]: The because the version of that came out of the single is more along the style of like the G-Funk era of of what Dr. Dre was doing.
07:29.343 --> 07:30.124
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt
07:30.745 --> 07:31.266
[SPEAKER_02]: Interesting.
07:31.306 --> 07:32.327
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of think the opposite.
07:32.568 --> 07:34.210
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the remix sounds more g fun.
07:34.330 --> 07:38.055
[SPEAKER_02]: The album version to me sounds more east coast kind of.
07:42.401 --> 07:43.723
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.
07:44.444 --> 07:47.768
[SPEAKER_00]: Off the list is more aggressive.
07:47.788 --> 07:49.571
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't listen to the remix.
07:49.671 --> 07:50.993
[SPEAKER_00]: The one that's on the album.
07:51.093 --> 07:57.562
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't listen to that as often as the sing version, but yeah off and also shout out and rest in peace to Roger Troutman.
07:57.782 --> 07:58.423
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
07:59.804 --> 08:18.349
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, this is three in a row for his second album, which I think in some ways kind of talks about like maybe where my biggest fandom was of his was when I was like 16 17 years old, like because that's how old we were when that album came out.
08:18.369 --> 08:26.520
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get around, I get around is so singable as well, which I think is what makes it fun.
08:26.500 --> 08:50.348
[SPEAKER_00]: because it's like the lyrics are so simplistic and they're just on and summary and barbecue and goofy and you get money b so I always think of that song when I think of like what the fun part of his hip-hop career would have been like is like okay it's I get around it was probably so much fun for him.
08:50.463 --> 08:50.744
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
08:51.588 --> 08:54.742
[SPEAKER_02]: My number three is for me against the world.
08:54.983 --> 08:59.342
[SPEAKER_02]: It's old school and that's just a song that pays tribute.
09:00.470 --> 09:01.772
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really history to New York.
09:02.033 --> 09:02.874
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
09:02.894 --> 09:09.506
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, it, uh, he kind of does the naming rappers and their popular songs thing.
09:10.287 --> 09:19.504
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, he talks about some very specific New York, like, you know, games that kids played growing up, like, it's very much like for all of the two pop was a West Coast rapper stuff.
09:19.984 --> 09:23.170
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody from LA could have made a record like old school.
09:23.150 --> 09:35.254
[SPEAKER_00]: old school was a very like New York centric song you know my fair part of that song was when he shouted out LL because I was like yes of course he's an LL fan I was like everybody's an LL.
09:35.294 --> 09:37.057
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like the thing is probably an LL.
09:37.839 --> 09:40.103
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like it when my favorites like each other you know.
09:40.143 --> 09:43.470
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, though I remember reading somewhere that like
09:44.210 --> 09:45.512
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, I'd be for two pockets.
09:47.574 --> 09:49.036
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I was like, who the hell knows?
09:49.256 --> 09:51.679
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's like, you're not going to be on my beef corner, man.
09:51.739 --> 09:53.841
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to out beef me.
09:54.402 --> 09:54.983
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
09:55.043 --> 09:57.025
[SPEAKER_00]: So number two for me was California love.
09:57.946 --> 10:09.300
[SPEAKER_00]: But the single version, the one, you know, the one that was the video version, though the video actually had both versions in it did just depending like, right, there was like a extended cut of the video.
10:09.360 --> 10:12.023
[SPEAKER_00]: And, but yeah, I mean, California love.
10:13.353 --> 10:31.294
[SPEAKER_00]: If you go anywhere, and there's music, so wedding bar, you hear that California and everyone like they just look up, they kind of look at each other and they just like, okay, we're in for a good time.
10:31.514 --> 10:33.056
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this is what it's about.
10:33.396 --> 10:36.880
[SPEAKER_00]: There's, you know, there's not many songs.
10:37.147 --> 10:48.281
[SPEAKER_00]: in the history of music that can make people do that like it's just the jump off of that song is just incredible.
10:49.142 --> 10:58.815
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, it's you can kind of also tell like it's like one of the things when you hear that song and you look around and you see who's heirs perked up you're like okay cool.
10:58.835 --> 11:00.197
[SPEAKER_00]: They're cool.
11:00.217 --> 11:00.677
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm with them.
11:01.058 --> 11:02.199
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you know who the real ones are?
11:02.219 --> 11:02.800
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
11:03.590 --> 11:05.753
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, my number two is I get around.
11:06.494 --> 11:08.136
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I get around came out.
11:08.457 --> 11:24.079
[SPEAKER_02]: So I graduated high school in 1993 and I get around came out that summer and it was all the stuff that like in my imagination, uh, I saw myself doing hanging out with a bunch of friends have a fun like, you know,
11:24.228 --> 11:42.329
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, but I was not doing that in the summer of night three, so it was aspirational from that respect, but it's just like a fun, like light-hearted party song, very much in more in the vein of digital underground than in the vein of what you knew too pop as.
11:44.993 --> 11:47.856
[SPEAKER_02]: It really interesting, and I just thought about this as we were talking.
11:49.017 --> 11:54.962
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I get around in Big Papa are based on the same song between the sheets by the Isley brothers.
11:55.562 --> 11:55.863
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
11:55.883 --> 11:57.944
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.
11:57.965 --> 12:07.573
[SPEAKER_02]: So I wonder if that fact they're in, you know, to any beef as well, what song hit Street first?
12:08.333 --> 12:09.634
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I get around came out a year before.
12:09.654 --> 12:10.255
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay.
12:10.435 --> 12:10.775
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
12:10.795 --> 12:10.995
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Like a year and a half before Big Papa did.
12:12.817 --> 12:12.917
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so, you know, interesting thing there.
12:19.392 --> 12:24.779
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, you know, you throw that on you bring the barbecue gear out.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You go to the beat like it's just one of those like fun summer songs.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Shocked G, man.
12:29.645 --> 12:31.086
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to put this shirt on the panties.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that's.
12:33.349 --> 12:36.914
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're right about the simplicity of the lyrics.
12:36.934 --> 12:40.438
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I know that some of my more.
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[SPEAKER_02]: some of my friends who are like more like hip hop purists, like, you know, this dude can rapies, like some some loose lip sync ships, like whatever.
12:50.236 --> 12:53.019
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's that's such like a bad rhyme.
12:53.039 --> 12:55.842
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, but I don't know.
12:55.862 --> 12:57.284
[SPEAKER_00]: This lip sync ships.
12:57.564 --> 12:58.205
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a trip.
12:59.307 --> 12:59.507
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
12:59.627 --> 13:00.368
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, exactly.
13:00.468 --> 13:03.912
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, if you were looking for
13:05.410 --> 13:09.474
[SPEAKER_02]: top tier lyricism that was not the spot you wanted to go to.
13:09.814 --> 13:15.440
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, truthfully, like, I would not consider to pop like a in a tier rapper.
13:16.541 --> 13:20.405
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but, you know, headline, I think I planned on a little bit.
13:21.326 --> 13:27.352
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he didn't seem to necessarily, like, he wasn't trying to be rock him.
13:28.193 --> 13:28.553
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
13:28.573 --> 13:32.177
[SPEAKER_00]: He was trying to be, um,
13:32.765 --> 13:40.694
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who in hip hop he was trying to be, but there was this like external thing with who he was portraying.
13:40.814 --> 13:44.138
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was clear, and maybe this gets back to the acting thing.
13:45.139 --> 13:52.267
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it was clear, there was a distinction, like whatever this thug-life version of him saw.
13:52.307 --> 13:55.650
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this is Bishop, and this is me.
13:56.171 --> 13:58.013
[SPEAKER_00]: But being me,
13:58.330 --> 14:17.094
[SPEAKER_00]: is way more traumatic and I have to think about all of these things in my life that really, really suck, including having to pay for everybody coming out of the woodwork just because I am somewhat of a success and then because of that, having no money.
14:17.414 --> 14:23.882
[SPEAKER_00]: So to get to go into the
14:23.862 --> 14:28.849
[SPEAKER_00]: an escape thing for him, and I completely get it.
14:29.410 --> 14:35.098
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, like if he wanted to be Rick Kim, rock him, I don't think he could have been rock him.
14:35.258 --> 14:46.714
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like if I can't be rock him, I might as well be something that isn't really created yet, that hasn't really existed yet, and in that sense and that vision of that character,
14:46.795 --> 14:56.364
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, he had he could rhyme, but the at the some of the words that he was actually spitting it was kind that was like secondary to how he was saying those things.
14:56.424 --> 14:56.645
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
14:56.745 --> 14:57.005
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
14:57.125 --> 15:06.734
[SPEAKER_02]: For two puck, you know, as a hip-hop fan to me for two puck, it wasn't necessarily like his rhyme patterns, but the emotion of what he was saying when he was rapping.
15:07.435 --> 15:07.816
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
15:07.836 --> 15:13.461
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's why my number one song to this day is still I'm at etcha.
15:14.437 --> 15:16.880
[SPEAKER_00]: like you couldn't make this up.
15:17.120 --> 15:18.422
[SPEAKER_00]: This man dies.
15:19.764 --> 15:20.765
[SPEAKER_00]: I ain't mad at you.
15:21.526 --> 15:25.551
[SPEAKER_00]: I think comes out the next week as the last single off of that album.
15:26.392 --> 15:37.947
[SPEAKER_00]: In the video, my man comes out of the movie theater or
15:38.399 --> 15:50.771
[SPEAKER_00]: people who had passed away now, these weren't the best, you know, the best celebrity, you know, remakes of people, but you know, you understood what was going on.
15:51.392 --> 15:51.972
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
15:51.992 --> 16:05.065
[SPEAKER_00]: And like that coming out, like, you know, he foreshadowed his own death or whatever, whatever, the whatever people want to say, but the fact that that happened,
16:06.378 --> 16:08.561
[SPEAKER_00]: like it did is insane.
16:08.621 --> 16:09.862
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's so eerie.
16:09.963 --> 16:10.243
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
16:10.804 --> 16:11.024
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
16:11.144 --> 16:11.905
[SPEAKER_02]: It is so eerie.
16:12.266 --> 16:20.316
[SPEAKER_02]: I just thinking about, you know, the macabelli album, the eye and magic video, like again, conspiracy theory brain.
16:22.238 --> 16:27.245
[SPEAKER_02]: But for all of that to have been a coincidence, like it's just a hell of a coincidence.
16:28.266 --> 16:30.529
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, before we get to your number one,
16:31.488 --> 16:34.852
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to mention a couple of songs that I had close.
16:35.513 --> 16:35.893
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
16:36.434 --> 16:37.155
[SPEAKER_00]: Brenna's got a baby.
16:37.175 --> 16:38.396
[SPEAKER_00]: Got to mention that.
16:38.796 --> 16:43.121
[SPEAKER_00]: It is iconic in the storytelling for him.
16:44.763 --> 16:45.805
[SPEAKER_00]: So many tears.
16:46.205 --> 16:47.667
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a good one.
16:47.707 --> 16:48.428
[SPEAKER_00]: Megan's world.
16:49.209 --> 16:54.795
[SPEAKER_00]: Just his flow and the huskiness of his voice in that song.
16:54.775 --> 16:55.957
[SPEAKER_00]: is awesome.
16:56.017 --> 17:19.332
[SPEAKER_00]: Got my mind made up, you know, if you are of the opinion of does the rock him version of Tupac exist, this is kind of where he where you would want to go to from a rhyme capacity for him, you know, it's, you know, again, method man and red man and I think in spectadeck was actually taken off of the song except for the very end of it where they put
17:19.312 --> 17:28.180
[SPEAKER_00]: him at the end, but like this is something where you're like, okay, he can actually be on a song with these other guys.
17:30.122 --> 17:39.711
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the very memorable line, thugged out, forgive me, Janet, where he mentions the Janet Jackson thing, which is kind of a flex, by the way.
17:40.071 --> 17:48.559
[SPEAKER_00]: Like no one else is like hanging out with Janet Jackson, like hip hop at that time.
17:50.041 --> 17:50.502
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
17:50.522 --> 17:54.647
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, that that was like, I think an iron sharpens iron kind of thing.
17:55.788 --> 17:59.834
[SPEAKER_00]: And then of course, how do you want it, which becomes a giant strip club song.
18:00.274 --> 18:00.995
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
18:01.015 --> 18:09.366
[SPEAKER_00]: And then me and my girlfriend, which Jay-Z and Beyonce re-did many years later as did Tony Braxton as did Mariah Carey.
18:13.025 --> 18:31.494
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was a very smart idea with the example of the gun and the girlfriend, you know, as his part, what, you know, the, just the way that he put that story together was very smartly done.
18:31.514 --> 18:34.459
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think memorable for a lot of people.
18:34.895 --> 18:35.956
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, what is your number one?
18:36.957 --> 18:38.719
[SPEAKER_02]: My number one is, keep you head up.
18:39.439 --> 18:44.144
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the first, the first two pock piece.
18:44.344 --> 18:45.906
[SPEAKER_02]: First piece of two pock music I ever bought.
18:46.887 --> 18:48.789
[SPEAKER_02]: I bought the cassette single for keep you head up.
18:49.790 --> 19:01.341
[SPEAKER_02]: And I played that song out just because again, it's such like a, it's an inspirational song, like it's a real song, it's just, you know,
19:03.582 --> 19:04.703
[SPEAKER_02]: You're in a bad place.
19:04.743 --> 19:05.604
[SPEAKER_02]: You put that song on.
19:05.624 --> 19:07.907
[SPEAKER_02]: It gives you like a little bit of motivation to kind of get through the day.
19:08.628 --> 19:13.833
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've always been drawn to and appreciated songs that have that kind of vibe to them.
19:14.574 --> 19:19.540
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, great sample from also a Roger Troutman sample.
19:20.681 --> 19:23.224
[SPEAKER_02]: So shout out again, Roger Troutman.
19:23.284 --> 19:24.966
[SPEAKER_02]: But just like a beautiful song.
19:26.588 --> 19:27.429
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a trivia here.
19:27.449 --> 19:29.691
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what, twopox birth name was?
19:31.004 --> 19:35.069
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, can I do this without going to Wikipedia?
19:35.089 --> 19:37.753
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was the same parish crux.
19:37.813 --> 19:38.013
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
19:38.734 --> 19:39.195
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
19:39.255 --> 19:45.062
[SPEAKER_00]: The reasoning behind that name is in Jeff Proman's book.
19:45.363 --> 19:49.048
[SPEAKER_00]: He explains how a phoenix picked those three names together.
19:49.709 --> 19:54.615
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think originally, she didn't want him to have a birth certificate because she was like,
19:54.595 --> 19:58.519
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want him to be like, findable, essentially, right?
19:58.960 --> 19:59.600
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
19:59.861 --> 20:02.784
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and I think she also did not want to be findable.
20:02.924 --> 20:08.811
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and so then she then changed his name about a month after he was born to what it became.
20:09.211 --> 20:11.433
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, quickly, this will be an easier exercise.
20:11.473 --> 20:18.221
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll only go from to apocalypse now through Macavilly.
20:19.122 --> 20:21.044
[SPEAKER_00]: How would you rank the albums?
20:22.045 --> 20:23.927
[SPEAKER_02]: From to
20:24.481 --> 20:26.883
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so me against the world.
20:28.565 --> 20:29.306
[SPEAKER_02]: All eyes on me.
20:30.587 --> 20:32.569
[SPEAKER_02]: Macavelli strictly to apocalypse now.
20:33.090 --> 20:34.251
[SPEAKER_00]: This is exactly what I had.
20:35.232 --> 20:35.712
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
20:36.253 --> 20:50.467
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there was a point where I was like, do I like to apocalypse now better, but then strictly, but then when I went through and I found out that through my favorite two bucks on ever, it's on the same album.
20:51.148 --> 20:53.610
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, me against that album is
20:55.919 --> 20:58.506
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not going to go ahead.
20:58.526 --> 21:01.995
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, as me against the world to me is the only two-pack album you need to have.
21:02.376 --> 21:03.920
[SPEAKER_02]: That is not like a greatest hits.
21:04.281 --> 21:04.943
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
21:05.344 --> 21:11.059
[SPEAKER_00]: The strictly album is very uneven.
21:11.714 --> 21:26.063
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's some talks about like how kind of unfocused he may have been during that time, but he was really bummed out that two apocalypse now did not really gain much traction when it came out.
21:26.103 --> 21:28.508
[SPEAKER_00]: He was changing some things.
21:29.197 --> 21:47.880
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the actually the story behind me against the world, how that album was put out, it's kind of crazy too, because he was in jail, and so his input as far as how the thing was put together, what goes where, you know, what songs are going to make the cut like was very minimal.
21:48.383 --> 21:58.974
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think he actually asked EDM, maybe to like help him out with that and like go and work with the record label to actually put out the finished version.
21:59.355 --> 22:05.681
[SPEAKER_00]: So he may have even made some actual decisions on, you know, final decisions on what made that album.
22:05.701 --> 22:10.126
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was really interesting to think about how that thing is done while the dude is in jail.
22:10.647 --> 22:11.167
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, yeah.
22:11.788 --> 22:13.750
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, absolutely.
22:13.730 --> 22:14.151
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
22:14.171 --> 22:15.435
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this has been a fun one.
22:16.618 --> 22:22.754
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be back with the next album next week, but we're cooking through this thing, man.
22:22.774 --> 22:24.178
[SPEAKER_00]: 50 for 50 dot net.
22:24.918 --> 22:32.466
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm amazed, by the way, that for such a small number of YouTube subscribers we have.
22:32.626 --> 22:35.129
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, hit that subscribe so we can get those up.
22:35.690 --> 22:47.423
[SPEAKER_00]: But some of these videos are actually, you know, doing decent numbers, including the the short that we put out, we'll put out some more shorts when we have more content that I consider to be kind of like current content.
22:47.923 --> 22:49.185
[SPEAKER_00]: I have some ideas.
22:49.225 --> 22:50.806
[SPEAKER_00]: We just have to find the time to put them together.
22:50.866 --> 22:51.347
[SPEAKER_00]: But
22:51.327 --> 22:54.472
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, all right, that is going to be it.
22:54.973 --> 22:55.994
[SPEAKER_00]: That is going to be it from here.
22:56.055 --> 22:58.939
[SPEAKER_00]: Mike, I appreciate you.
22:59.280 --> 23:03.046
[SPEAKER_00]: You, I hope you have an idea how much I appreciate you.
23:03.186 --> 23:11.119
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you do, but if you don't, I just, you want you to hear it from my mouth that I appreciate you so much.
23:11.339 --> 23:13.042
[SPEAKER_02]: So, well, the feeling is mutual, man.
23:13.142 --> 23:17.689
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like, you know, there's not many people that I can say I've known half my life.
23:19.120 --> 23:45.499
[SPEAKER_00]: or longer that is true yeah thank you internet yes and you know you have been consistent so you know you are very much appreciated by me you know so the feeling is is certainly mutual alright y'all thanks for hanging with us we're going all year long we'll be back next week for Mike I'm double gc when we see
