Last year, Power 106’s VinRican started the series Wax Only, where he takes classic hip-hop albums and mixes them side-by-side with the tracks they sample. So far, he has looked at Mobb Deep’s Infamous, Jay-Z’s The Blueprint, Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle, Dr. Dre’s Chronic, A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders, as well as J Dilla’s music and heaps more. Check out the YouTube channel here.
In February this year, Tupac’s All Eyez On Me turned 20-years-old. All Eyez On Me is one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time and was rap’s first double LP. It encapsulated everything we knew and loved about the legendary Tupac, and features my favourite of his songs, I Ain’t Mad At Cha (why this album is so great lyrically is a different story for a different time).
In VinRican’s video below, he takes us on a journey through how some of the album’s tracks got their sound. He mixes the sampled song with Tupac’s songs, like Joeski Love’s Pee-Wee’s Dance with Ambitionz Az a Ridah; Cameo’s Candy with All About You; Bootsy’s Rubber Band’s I’d Rather Be With You with Rather Be Ya N****; and The O’Jays‘ Brandy with Life Goes On.
Hearing the records in their original form gives Tupac fans an insight into how the records were produced and shows the depth of musicality that producers such as Dr. Dre, Daz, DJ Quik, and Johnny J had in order to produce these classic tracks.
Now that Tupac has been immortalised yet again by the comparison of his sampled tracks with his actual songs, I can safely say that, for this classic album, “Life goes on”.
Image: ambrosiaforheads.com