On this date in 1992, Paramount Pictures presented the highly anticipated hood flick Juice, which stars a still rising rap star by the name of Tupac Shakur, who plays a crooked crimie from Uptown by the name of “Bishop”.
His co-star, Omar Epps(Higher Learning, In Too Deep), plays a local DJ with industry potential named “GQ”, alongside Jermaine “Huggy” Hopkins(Lean On Me) and Khalil Kain, who all form a loosely knit crew of truants who are headed in the wrong direction.
This movie was very instrumental in bringing Hip Hop artists onto the silver screen, with cameo appearances from Treach of Naughty By Nature, Queen Latifah, EPMD’s DJ Scratch and Special Ed. Juice also helped to introduce the soundtrack as a way to market movies for larger budgets.
For those who never took notice, it wasn’t until after ‘Pac made everyone love to hate his character Bishop that Shakur’s run-ins with the law became more frequent and his “Thug Life” persona became more noticeable and for its own intent, purposeful. Many will say that it was life imitating art. Some will say that this was the real Tupac; he was just being filmed.
West Coast rapper Snoop Dogg is always with the jokes. The hip-hop veteran went online this week to share an epic Tupac Shakur meme directed toward unemployed men all around the world. Look and comment below!
Her best friend/assistant Kelsey Nicole, and another friend were in the back twerking as Meg rapped her lyrics. “Why you wanna play with me you know I’m undefeated? / A real hot girl know how to keep her nigga heated / You say you want respect well treat me how you wanna be treated / You told me keep it real but you don’t practice what you preachin’” She switched up the tempo and started spitting fast on the beat. “You want me to blow ya phone up and come lookin’ for ya til I find ya / You really want me to whoop the hoe that you fckin with if I find her / Btch you ain’t that busy I don’t give a f*ck what you don’t got time for / You look me in my eyes I know you lying man, that’s fraud bra.”
She then bend over and showed us exactly what we wanted to see before the thirty second video cut off.
This upcoming single samples Tupac Shakur’s “I’d Rather Be Ya N.i.g.g.a.” Megan Thee Stallion has shown her love for old school Hip Hop, and we’ll probably hear this cut on her debut album.
Lifetime aired a limited series titled Hopelessly in Love on January 4th which gives an in-depth look at famous, tumultuous relationships in the past. The show kicked off with a BTS look at TLC rapper Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes’ relationship with football star, Andre Rison in the 90s.
According to the documentary, Lisa and Rison were in an “on and off relationship” and used to break up for months. Rison admitted that Lisa was in love with Tupac and even called him “her soulmate.” Rison said, “if Tupac was willing to go there, then Lisa would have definitely dated [him].”
However, the documentary puts the rumors to rest and confirms that the late emcees didn’t sleep with each other. Andre “knew how Lisa felt about Pac,” but “Lisa would always deny that she slept with Pac, and I still didn’t believe it,” another interviewee insists that “Tupac told Lisa in the very beginning, ‘Never let me sleep with you,’ and they stood by that.”
A bombshell that was dropped during the doc was that Left Eye slept with Suge Knight. She was reportedly devastated after Pac’s death in 1996, called her wedding off with Andre, and wanted to split from her girl group to follow her own creative direction. That’s when she linked up with Suge and the Death Row Records CEO confirms that they had more than a professional relationship. “…it was a sexual relationship, I had major love for her…I cared for her,” he revealed. Andre confirms that Lisa “had relations with Suge…and that’s just messy.”
On this date in 1996, Death Row Records, led by then CEO Suge Knight, dropped an exclusive Christmas project for the holiday season. Sadly, this album was released just shy of three months after the tragic shooting death of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas.
The album featured all of Death Row’s favorite acts including Michel’le, who at the time was involved with Knight, Snoop Dogg and The Dogg Pound, Nate Dogg, Danny Boy and several other up and coming artists on the label. The star-studded line-up rehashed many Christmas soul classics and carols including “Silver Bells,” “Frosty Thee Snowman,” and “White Christmas.” With 200K in sales, the virtually unheard of album didn’t do too bad. The best part was that it was reportedly all for charity.
Salute to the entire Death Row for releasing this under the radar Hip-Hop classic!
On this date in 1995, Death Row Records released one of the label’s most successful singles featuring Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur and Zapp frontman, the late Roger Troutman aptly titled “California Love” from ‘Pac’s All Eyez On Me LP.
As Tupac’s first single as a Death Row artist and as a free man after his 1994 rape conviction, California Love dropped during the height of the the East Coast/West Coast rivalry and helped to propel Death Row to the top of the Hip Hop food chain, featuring the game’s hottest rapper and the most sought after producer. The B-side to the Jodeci powered “How Do U Want It?” posted up in the Billboard pole position for a solid two weeks and ‘Pac was posthumously nominated for Grammys in the Best Rap Solo Performance and Best Rap Performance By a Duo or Group categories.
“Only In Cali where we riot not rally, to live and die/ In L.A., we wearing Chucks, not Ballys(yeah, that’s right)..”
Salute to the late, great Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Suge Knight, the entire Death Row staff, the legend Roger Troutman and everyone involved with this smash single that will forever live in Hip Hop history.
Today in 1970 in “Illtown” New Jersey, the king of “OPP”, better known as Treach, was born. For those who don’t know, Treach was the front man for the New Jersey rap collective Naughty By Nature. Born Anthony Criss in East Orange, New Jersey, Treach got his musical start in his hometown. He, Vin Rock, and DJ Kay Gee came together as the group New Style and released an album called Independent Leaders in 1989. Treach and Naughty by Nature saw the majority of their success with their 1991 single “O.P.P”. This song featured a sample from The Jackson 5’s “ABC” and debuted at #6 on the Billboard 200 chart making it one of the most popular cross over songs in rap history. The success of this single opened the doors for Treach to venture into other elements of Hip Hop culture in the 90s. Starting with a guest appearance in the 1992 cult classic Juice, Treach began the next wave of his career as an actor. His biggest role came in 194 when he starred as “A-1” in Jason’s Lyric.
In honor of his birthday, we have put together a list of the six degrees of success that put Treach in the room with other influential voices in Hip Hop and popular culture.
1. Sandra ‘Pepa’ Denton-First on this list is “Pepa” of the legendary Salt N Pepa. From 1998 to 2001, the two were joined together in holy matrimony. They share a daughter beautifully named Egypt Jahnari Criss born September 2, 1998.
2. Tupac Shakur-In his first big screen appearance, Tupac played the role of “Bishop” in the cult classic Juice. If you remember correctly, Bishop was not a character who made friends easily. In the beginning of the movie, Bishop has beef with a character named Radames and if you pay attention, you can see Treach standing behind Radames as he and Bishop have one of their many verbal altercations.
3. James Gandolfini-Who doesn’t love a good mob story? In 2006, Treach’s TV acting prowess landed him a gig on an episode of The Sopranos as the character “Marvin”. His role was short lived, but not many are able to say they played opposite of the infamous Tony Soprano.
4. Queen Latifah-This fellow New Jersey rapper was in and out of Treach’s musical and acting career. She was one of the first successful artists to give Naughty By Nature the attention they deserved. She has featured Treach on songs throughout her discography. She was even casted alongside Treach in his first big screen appearance (although they were never on screen together).
5. Leonardo DiCaprio-Although this relationship may be more loosely based than the rest, it’s important none the less. Naughty’s track “Hip Hop Hooray” was featured on the soundtrack of the very successful film Wolf of Wall Street starring Leo DiCaprio in 2013.
6. Michael Jackson-This may be his connection with the most star power. In 1995, Treach was recruited to get on the remix to the brother-sister hit single “Scream” featuring Janet Jackson. Probably in part due to the success of O.P.P. which sampled one of the most famous Michael Jackson tracks.
Today in Hip Hop History, Tupac Shakur was shot 5 times and robbed in the lobby of Quad Studios in NYC. As fate would have it, many felt this shooting ignited the East Coast/West Coast beef resulting in the death of two legends in hip hop. During the night of November 30, 1994,right before the verdict in his sexual abuse trial was to be read, Shakur was robbed and shot five times by three men. Shakur who was just 23 years old at the time walking through the lobby of Quad Recording Studios at 723 Seventh Avenue, near 48th Street, about 12:25 A.M. when three men approached and demanded money
Tupac was shot twice in the head, twice in the groin and once in one hand, was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center and his wounds were not believed to be life-threatening.
Following the shooting Tupac publicly came out pointing fingers at Biggie Smalls for the shooting who happened to be recording in another room upstairs. Tupac eventually went to jail for the sexual assault trial, he publically went against the world and Hip Hop would never be the same.
West Coast rapper Snoop Dogg is putting the crown on 2Pac‘s head – literally. The hip-hop veteran went online this week to salute the late music mogul with a king-inspired painting. Look and comment below!
The dynamic duo of Mobb Deep from QB released their third full-length studio LP 23 years ago today.
On this date in 1996, the “infamous” crew from Mobb Deep dropped album number three entitled Hell On Earth. The Mobb-produced project was released under the epic Loud/RCA imprint introduced many of the extended QB/Mobb family including raspy-voiced Twin Gambino, Big Noyd, and a few others. Hav and P enlisted some of the game’s top dogs of the time for this album including their QB brethren Nas, Wu’s Raekwon the Chef and Method Man.
This certified gold classic was unquestionably a part of the East Coast arsenal against the West Coast during the height of the rivalry, with tracks such as the title track, “Still Shinin’”, and of course, “Drop A Gem On ‘Em”, sending overt threats at Tupac Shakur and his cohorts. Other standout joints include “G.O.D. Pt.III”, where Prodigy drops some street knowledge, “Blood Sport”, and “Give It Up Fast” featuring Noyd and Nas.
This album was also the project that confirmed Havoc’s skills as a producer, which led to several other projects outside of the Mobb.
Salute to P, Hav, Noyd, Gotti, Twin, Ty Nitty, Nas, Rae, Meth, Steve Rifkind, and everyone else involved with this classic album!
How y’all feeling it?
