I can and probably will knowing me, write an essay about this album and my life, how in intertwined with the death of my closest friends, it was three of us, and now it's just me, 20 years later.
how alive I felt at 17, playing Can't C Me, Check Out Time, Thug Passion, in my boys car, counting out thousands in small bills, weighing drugs, heading to a party doing lines on a cd case, while hitting a blunt, the ignorance of youth, we were in hotel suites and casinos living that life at a young age, it's surreal to think how normal it seemed at the time. The value system I still inhabit from this album. Good and bad. I was with another homie from high school, like a month ago, racing an M5 playing 'Pac, and I felt old, in a weird way.
and those days you always remember, my homie is gone, but every time I play this, I play it for him
I was in high school, we felt like we were living like Pac in his last days, but we didn't realize the consequences. We thought we did, if you would have asked me at that age, I would have said I understood, but i didn't. and I think that's part of the albums appeal, it's exhilarating sense of thrill and living life close to the edge, Pac seemed to know how close he was to death. I feel like that's exactly what this album embodies.
"Cold as a teenager, on my mobile calling big shots, on the scene major, packing hundreds in my draws, fukk the law" that defined me at that age, and still does, to be 100.