LL Cool J: "2Pac Had To Put On A Gangsta Image For The Dudes To Like Him"

[DON MA MA]

Nas wasn't a street guy neither.

Yep. He been the same since highschool.

 

[SuavePrince]

This is wild so because he wasn't gang banging he ain't tough? Alot of people in the hood don't bang but go try them see what happen lol

 

[UpAndComing]

Nikkaz talk alot of shyt but that's after I'm gone....

So you saying they feared him in the physical form?

 

[Wild self]

I'm about to post something in a few...you hit the head on the nail...that’s the type of music I was listening to the first half of high school...music that was hard but still lyrically conscious or artists who could drop hard tracks and then turn around and drop conscious joints too...around '92 probably my junior/senior year I asked this kid I was cool w/ to make a mixtape for me...it had all hardcore tracks cuz I think he tried to clown me about the shyt I was listening to so he made a tape of what he was rocking...I’m not gonna lie some of those tracks was depressing af when I first heard them cuz I didn’t listen to too much street rap...shyt was a complete 180 from what I listened to...even tho I grew up in a tough neighborhood...ppl still carried themselves a certain way...but those years ushered in a new wave of rap that had “everybody” trying to act tough and pretending to be a gangster when a lot of ppl weren’t about that shyt...not just musically but in the streets as well...anyway I still have the tape and the track list that he wrote out...about to post it...piece of paper is almost 28 y/o lmao

*edit*

in hindsight these songs were “tame” af...I just wasn’t used to this kind of music being promoted @ the time...back then pops was taking me to NOI meetings and shyt like that which was still somewhat prevalent in rap culture @ the time...so there was still a lot of upliftment in rap music as opposed to embracing the negative and making music about it...

A good piece of history

Yeah, you saw the change from the 90-92 era and the 95-97 era. Its was night and day, in terms of the subject matter of the songs. People became less community-oriented as time went on. More on that "every man for themselves".

 

[CashmereThoughts]

Nas wasn't a street guy neither.

which is why you won’t ever see him in flamed up in red rags or with gang tattoos on his body or jumping rival gang members

 

[CashmereThoughts]

So you saying they feared him in the physical form?

Baby lane didn’t fear him

 

[G.O.A.T Squad Spokesman]

which is why you won’t ever see him in flamed up in red rags or with gang tattoos on his body or jumping rival gang members

I've seen Nas wear red bandanas plenty of times and he called himself Escobar. He also idolized Pac

 

[CashmereThoughts]

I've seen Nas wear red bandanas plenty of times and he called himself Escobar. He also idolized Pac

Red bandana? pic?

 

[G.O.A.T Squad Spokesman]

Red bandana? pic?

No receipts unless I can find some old school word up magazine pics from when I was in high school so you can call bullshyt since I have no proof. Plenty pics of him in blue rags but I said red and have no receipts so I'll fall back.

 

[I'm Blackman]

Why wasn't nikkas like ll saying this shyt when he was alive tho?
Seems like the 5'11 160 pound nikka really had people shook lol

 

[sfgiants]

After the Malcolm X movie came out, and Public Enemy and Ice Cube making pro black songs in their albums and on movie soundtracks during the end of their hot streaks in late 92, the labels got pissed off and was scared of a pro black wave. Another Black rights movement, even.

Then they pushed Onyx on the east coast, released Menace II Society in hood theaters, and pushed that super thug shyt on the West to greater heights, so that any hope of a black awakening was extinguished. It forced cats like 2 Pac to be hard edged and thuggish instead of being Black Panther-ish, and pushed out P.E. out the spotlight.

It was genius in the sense that it forced young black men to go to jail at record rates, forced those same black men to give up intellectual stimulation for insteant gratification to appeal to broads, and made black women disrespect anything positive from black men. Nearly 30 years later, we have this fukkery ad the norm in mumble music.

“No medallions, dreadlocks, or black fists
It's just that gangster glare
With gangsta raps, that gangsta shyt
Makes a gangs of snaps“

 

[3rdWorld]

“No medallions, dreadlocks, or black fists
It's just that gangster glare
With gangsta raps, that gangsta shyt
Makes a gangs of snaps“

Cringe whenever I hear that..quite possibly the most c00n thing ever said in music..
Lets be honest, Pac was a technicality poor rapper.
Yeah he could put some emotion in a song but were not bytches here..
His music made more sense due to the prison thing and getting shot multiple times. He needed those controversies to appeal to impressionable fools.

 

[Wild self]

“No medallions, dreadlocks, or black fists
It's just that gangster glare
With gangsta raps, that gangsta shyt
Makes a gangs of snaps“

Dr Dre was the architect for that. Sounds like a call for black destruction and ignorance on great production.

 

[Wild self]

Let's be honest, Pac was a technicality poor rapper.
Yeah he could put some emotion in a song but were not bytches here..
His music made more sense due to the prison thing and getting shot multiple times. He needed those controversies to appeal to impressionable fools.

And he was the fatherly role for a lot of lost black men at that time.

 

[3rdWorld]

And he was the fatherly role for a lot of lost black men at that time.

When he was alive, he only got the publics attention whenever he had his latest brush with the law or getting fukked up by real street dudes.
No one can find anyone anywhere calling him a great rapper when he was still alive. He was only referred to as 'controversial'..an overly emotional man is these clown dudes favourite rapper.
He was a fine actor though..

He also cleverly used the beef to attach his name forever to that of an actual great emcee, and that is one of hiphop greatest crimes and injustice.