Amazing Breakdown of "Against All Oddz" (NEW INFO)

Found it on Reddit by someone

I find this really interesting....

The excerpt for All Eyez On Me from my upcoming Tupac listener's guide that I posted in last week's essential thread was relatively successful. I therefore thought it might be a good idea to share an entry for a specific song on Throwback Thursday. I have a strong feeling that few of you are interested in this or will see this, but I hope that those of you who do will learn something from it. Feel free to ask me any questions relating to the song or its content in this thread. Here's the draft of my entry for "AGAINST ALL ODDS:

"The realest shit [Tupac] ever wrote," "Against All Odds" is one of the most infamous diss tracks Tupac recorded in the midst of his war against Bad Boy Records and East Coast artists like NaS and Mobb Deep. It is also the most revealing - Tupac pulls no punches as he expounds on his beefs and identifies the people he believed were responsible for his sexual assault charge in 1993 and the armed robbery he survived at New York's Quad Recording Studios in 1994.
"Against All Odds" was recorded at Can-Am Studios one night in the late summer of 1996. At the beginning of the session, Tupac spoke briefly with producer Hurt-M-Badd regarding the type of beat he wanted. "I need a war song. I wanna go to war," he instructed before leaving the room. About an hour later he returned to listen to what Hurt had come up with. "It's aight. You know what it needs? This bassline," he said before playing Cameo's "The Skin I'm In." Hurt quickly replaced the bassline and Tupac smiled, "This is it!" He went in the booth and energetically recorded his vocals, kicking over the music stand and hitting the microphone. "Uh-oh, here we go again," Hurt recalled thinking upon hearing Tupac's reckless verses.

Tupac opens "Against All Odds" like a general at war - "21 gun salute - dressed in fatigues, black jeans, and boots / I disappeared in the crowd, all you seen was troops." He wastes no time in dropping rhetorical bombs on his rap industry enemies, taking shots at NaS for biting, alluding to Dr. Dre's alleged homosexuality, and dismissing Mobb Deep, all within his first few bars:
"This little nigga named NaS think he live like me / Talk about he left the hospital, took five like me / You livin' fantasies, nigga, I reject your deposit / We shook Dre's punk ass, now we out of the closet / Mobb Deep wonder why a nigga blowed them out / Next time grown folks talkin', nigga, close your mouth."
Tupac then sets his sights on Bad Boy's CEO, Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, for failing to respond to Death Row CEO Suge Knight's offer to stage a pay-per-view boxing event featuring bouts between Bad Boy and Death Row artists ("Let's be honest, you a punk or you would see me with gloves"). He refers to an August 1995 Vibe magazine interview Combs gave in response to Tupac's jailhouse proclamation that "Thug Life to me is dead" ("Remember that shit you said in Vibe about me being a thug?"). In that interview, Combs taunted Tupac, exhorting, "if you gonna be a motherfuckin' thug, you gots to live and die a thug . . . There ain't no jumpin' in and out of thugism." Tupac also reveals that he is not being entirely candid in his first verse, suggesting there are skeletons in Puffy's closet he would later reveal ("You can tell the people you roll with whatever you want / But you and I know what's going on"), which he does toward the end of the song ("Puffy gettin' robbed like a bitch"). He saves the first verse's cheapest shot for last, comparing old school rappers who criticized him (like De La Soul) to washed-up boxer Larry Holmes ("All you old rappers tryin' to advance / It's all over now, take it like a man / Niggas lookin' like Larry Holmes, flabby and sick / Tryin' to player hate on my shit, you eat a fat dick").
In his second verse, Tupac moves his crosshairs from industry enemies to the people he believed were responsible for his sexual assault charge and the Quad Studios ambush. He accuses "Haitian Jack" (Jacques Agnant), his co-defendant in the sexual assault case, of being a government informant and promises revenge against "Jimmy Henchman" (James Rosemond), the drug dealer / music manager who ordered the Quad Studios robbery. Tupac vows to "destroy everything [his enemies] touch," suggesting that his beef with Bad Boy may have been a proxy war directed at New York gangsters who were backing Puffy's label. He closes his bold second verse by emphasizing the seriousness of his threats via an allusion to the Mob Pirus, the Blood gang Suge Knight was affiliated with ("Fuck the rap game / Nigga, this M-O-B! / So believe me, we enemies").

Tupac shifts his focus back to rap adversaries on his third verse, hurling insults at Puffy and his former friend, Randy "Stretch" Walker, a producer/rapper who was with Tupac in the Quad Studios elevator when he was attacked. By the time "Against All Odds" was recorded, Stretch was already dead, gunned down in Queens on the one year anniversary of the Quad Studios robbery. While Tupac denied any involvement in Stretch's murder ("Switched sides / Guess his new friends wanted him dead"), Greg Kading, the former LAPD lead investigator of The Notorious B.I.G.'s murder, has related reports that Stretch's killer was a hit man flown into New York from Los Angeles, suggesting that the timing of Stretch's death may not have been a coincidence. Like Tupac's, Stretch's killer has never been apprehended.
Tupac ends his third and final verse with a venomous tirade against New York rapper NaS, who he accuses of various hip hop crimes. According to Tupac, NaS is an impostor who stole rap legend Rakim's lyrical style ("you heard 'My Melody' . . . tryin' to sound like Rakim") and plagiarized Tupac's life story ("read about my life in the papers . . . now you want to live my life"). Behind this public hatred was a private admiration. Tupac was a huge fan of NaS' debut album, Illmatic, and was inspired to write "Me and My Girlfriend" after hearing NaS' "I Gave You Power," an anthropomorphic first-person narrative told through the "eyes" of a handgun. He made peace with NaS in New York's Bryant Park on September 4, 1996 and even listened to NaS' sophomore album, It Was Written, as he made his fateful trip to Las Vegas for the Tyson-Seldon fight three days later. According to Suge Knight, Tupac intended to remove the NaS disses from the Makaveli album but died before he could do so. In a magazine interview after Tupac's death, NaS admitted crying when he first heard "Against All Odds."

"Against All Odds" is one of the most unsettling songs in Tupac's catalogue. Few songs in hip hop history so recklessly blur the lines between rap music and the street. What repercussions Tupac would have suffered for recording it will never be known (he rhymes in the third verse that he'll "probably be murdered for that shit that [he] said") - he was killed before it was released in November 1996. Nevertheless, "Against All Odds" remains the greatest narrative of the East Coast - West Coast war on wax and is strong evidence of Tupac's obsession with revenge in the last year of his life.

Rare 2pac Interview! (Responds to Biggie's "Who Shot Ya", Alludes to Smashing Faith, EAST VS WEST, AND MORE!!!)

This is a rare classic from the The VIBE Q: Raw And Uncut book, just wondering if anyone has seen this before. My first time hearing about it was the other day. Has some pretty good info for those who have not read it before.

http://www.vibe.com/article/v-vintag...terviews-tupac

Excerpts:

And you have a single with Faith, I understand.

[laughter] Yeah, sure do.

What’s that called?

“Wonder Why They Call You Bitch?”

How did you hook up with Biggie’s wife, given all this stuff that’s going on?

We met in the club and bumped it. Me and Faith don’t have no problems.

What about the rumors about you and Faith spending time outside the studio?

You mean the rumor that I fucked her? Heh heh heh

Is there anything you wanna add? Cause this is getting real deep.

I wanna add that, man… I want niggas in New York to not feed into this shit.

What about niggas on the West Coast?

They not feedin’ in, they about their money and shit. I’m talking about the east coast. Cause I love a lot of niggas out there. I love a lot of people out there. I got a lot of support from New York when I was in jail. That’s really important to me that New York don’t think I’m trippin’ on you. This is just something that’s been in me for a long time. They just dissing us. I can’t take it no more. But I love all my fans, all the people that supported me and everybody that’s down for me. People like Freddie Foxx stayed down for me. And people like Latifah and Treach. And I heard that Smif-N-Wessun gave me some love on they album. I got nothing but love for them. But see people like Mobb Deep? Stupid “Thug Life we still living it.” That’s what gonna start this whole new… When you see this Outlaw Immortalz shit, that’s what started it. Biggie and them being in VIBE talking all that shit. Stretch… All them people. That’s what started all this.

This Outlaw Immortalz is off the hook, kid. Off the hook. There’s a song on there called “Hit em Up” that’s gonna be one of the most talked about… You remember like Ice Cube’s “No Vaseline”? “Hit em Up”’s gonna be like that. It’s coming out a couple months after my album. On my record label and Death Row.

What’s your label called?

Euthanasia Records.

Why that title?

I fell in love with that word. I feel like that’s me. I’m gonna die, I just wanna die without pain. I don’t wanna die, but if I gotta go I wanna go without pain.

Want me to tell you my verse to that? It go. Awww maaaaan…

[rapping a capella]

(LYRICS TO WHAT BECAME THE 1ST VERSION OF "HIT EM UP")



Niggas talk plenty shit

So many tricks

I fucked your bitch

Cause I’m true to this



Witness the heat

You talk bad about a nigga

When I get blasted

Hope you made a little money

While the fun lasted.



Heard they call you Big Poppa

Nigga, how you figure?

Cause to me you’ll always be

A phony fat nigga



I can’t be copied

You can wear the Versace

Nigga you runnin’ or what?

Scared as fuck

For the gun to bust



Now niggas duck

I got a list of player haters to fade

You bitch niggas getting blowed away…



You cross-eyed down syndrome crack baby

Now you and Puffy is toughies?

Now that’s crazy

I got your ass in my sights

Niggas dying tonight

We screaming “West side for life”



I can’t wait to see you niggas in traffic

Cause we gonna hit em up

When you see me you better bust

Nigga I hit em up



[to the melody of Junior M.A.F.I.A. “Players’ Anthem”]

Grab your Glocks when you see Tupac

Call the cops when you call Tupac

Who shot me but you punks didn’t finish

Now you about to feel the wrath of a menace

Nigga I hit em up

Don’t you think that’s gonna make it worse?

 LL and Pac both dated Kidada Jones. Rumors were they beefed it because of her. With LL making subliminal (in true new york fashion) disses such as "Who Shot Ya?", "Who Do U Love?" and "Phenomenon" 2pac was instructed by Quincy Jones himself to leave LL out of any diss songs. Pac still dissed LL on "Lil Homiez", "4 My Niggaz (He v.s. She), and "If They Love Their Kidz"

That’s hip hop. Niggas been talking shit all while I was in jail. “Who Shot Ya?” L.L. got a song “I Shot Ya.” Even if it ain’t about me, nigga, you should be like, I’m not putting it out cause he might think it’s about him.

So you think Biggie’s song “Who Shot Ya” was about you?

It came out too quick. It was just tasteless. So if he think “Hit Em Up” is about him, hey, whatever.

You mention their names in there. They didn’t mention your name in “Who Shot Ya?”

I ain’t no punk. I ain’t gonna hide behind the facts.

Who do you think shot you a year ago?

I know, but it ain’t nothing to speak on.

But you know who did it?

They know who did it.

They who?

The people who shot me. The people who had me shot. Everybody that know, know. But I ain’t worried about that. Peace on earth. I got a whole new clique, those niggas in Jersey. So I’m not gangbanging against the east side. I got niggas from the east side in my clique dissin’ Biggie just as hard as me. It’s niggas out there that he done wrong. As far as Da Brat, she’s opening her mouth getting into some shit she don’t want to be involved with. I wanna be the peacemaker, Kev. I wanna tell everybody to just stop.

When I talked to you before, you said “It’s gonna get deep.” What did you mean by that?

It’s gonna get deep, man, because… um, what the east is doing. They think it’s… I understand it. I’m from there. It’s really like unifying the east coast. Because it was really like, in a slump. But they’re doing it wrong. Cause they’re using the west coast as a rallying cry. And they making it look like we are the perpetrators of this big east coast / west coast thing. They never had no problems. They could come out here and perform and we clap. We go out there and niggas is booing. That Source Awards, that’s what start it. Not start it, but that Source Awards is what put it to a new level. They was booing. Me personally being from both coasts, but I represent the west coast, I think that’s disrespectful.

What about Suge making that comment about Puffy at the Source Awards. Wasn’t that kinda disrespectful?

No that’s not disrespectful. That’s his opinion and that’s real. All he was doing was saying if they tired of having a manager shake his ass in their video. We don’t do like that on the Row. That’s real.

But can’t that contribute to the whole east / west thing?

Not as much as it does when y’all niggas goin’ on the radio: It ain’t about west coat, it’s all about N.Y. Boo hoo hoo. Fuck the west, we the best. We started it. All them other niggas… I be listening! Suge has got the heart to say it in front of you. All these other muthafuckas been saying it behind our backs.

2pac Sings??? LOL (MORE NEW MUSIC)

In the midst of recent mass murders of blacks in America, the timing of this is impeccable!
In a newly leaked interlude, 2pac seems to be speaking to a 2015 America (truly, nothing has changed) IMO, this is the kind of music message blacks need right now. There is too much pandering to a culture outside of our own...to the point of identity loss. America has got us all questioning their "care" for black life. Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Ezell Ford, Johnathan Ferrell (who crashed his car and went door to door for help, only to be shot and killed for looking like a robber) the list goes on....are these sacrifices in vain? anyway....back to business.

check it.

2pac - Ain't Nuthin' Wrong (Interlude)

ILL-V - LIVE @ 2ND ANNUAL SAMHAIN SPLURGE

Originally recorded on Oct 25, 2014.

Here are some vids from the 2nd Annual Samhain Splurge, an H.I. Arizona event in which Ill-V, Immortal Assassins, and others performed..
There is still some footage out there, though I got everything i was able to.

SONG LIST

1.Burn The World (Produced By Z-$trike)
2.She's A Serial Killa (Produced By Z-$trike)
3.Laura Palmer (Produced By Wicked Sick)
4.Dead To Me (Produced By Wicked Sick) [only have a few seconds of this..full vid soon]
5.My Own Devil (Produced By Z-$trike)

All of which are featured on her new self-titled album, with HighlyInTalkSickHated/The Thoro Organization as the executive producers

(NOTE) There are a few more songs which Ill-V performed that night. they will go in a separate post, as i could not upload them to youtube because of copyright issues.


Burn The World

She's A Serial Killa

Laura Palmer

My Own Devil

2pac - Rearview II

Here's a reversal of everyone's idea. The newly leaked Studio Acapella (albeit some layers) of "Starin At The World Thru My Rearview" has got everyone in a mix frenzy. Let it be known that the old CG pella is gonna be needed in hopes of making a full mix.

This seems to be only the "high" layers of EDI MEAN and 2pac. kadafi's verse seems intact (might have to listen again) but instead of mixing the "Grab The Mic (rearview II) " vocals to the regular version, i decided to do the opposite!!

check it.

in order to finish this, imma need a CG/CPU pella of the original "Starin At The World Thru My Rearview" so i can have pac sounding a lil better lol.

E-MoneyBags - The Gospel (UNTAGGED)

A lil somethin from a tape I'm putting together! I've always heard about this album called "The Gospel" from E, even DJ KAY SLAY shouted it out in his E-MoneyBags tribute tape....but i guess it never materialized.


So fuck it lol. I started putting together my own version of The Gospel with confirmed tracks and some guesswork. I'm also putting together a 2pac & E-MoneyBags tape, but The Gospel has a little more dedication because all the research it took to find and acquire songs.


I tried to hit up Majesty from Live Squad, but he's a busy dude. Anyway, check the first single..which was the final song he recorded (supposedly).


alotta edit work here to remove DJ Kay Slay's constant screaming lol
no hate but damn....niggas tryna bump a song tho. (don't trip slay, im thankful lol)

2pac - This Ain't Livin (Finally Uncensored)

As of recent we've ALL probably heard the OG version of "This Ain't Livin'"... but back in 2001, we heard the retail version first and were like WTFbro. Johnny J swore up and down (until his death) that he had nothing to do with the editing of lyrics on the UTEOT album. In any case, the album was shipped in an edited state and even with one of 2pac's verses OFF-BAR!!! (Everything They Owe -Explicit Version).

Pretty much, the album was hindered by the removal of references to Death Row Records and its artists. "This Ain't Livin" has 1 edit for each verse, and there was a great deal of time before we were finally able to hear what Pac actually said. Some people claimed he said "Devil" or "Biggie Smalls" both of which sounded out of place. Some edits are still on youtube inserted with words many fans speculated to be the missing vocals.

So finally, i went to youtube and took the CPU PELLA of the OG version and made my own edit.
its a close to the retail as possible through the magic of EQing lol. (Thanks Evil Pimp for teaching me this shit)

check it.

With songs like "Everything They Owe" and "LastOnesLeft" already being re-edited to their original form, the only song left to fix is the elusive "My Closest Roaddogz"