Tupac Shakur & Boot Camp Clik - One Nation (1996)

In the spring of 1996 Tupac Shakur announced that he was working on a new project called 'One Nation', which was to be an East Coast/West Coast collaboration. Although the rapper certainly had his differences with other artists, this unreleased and unfinished record was intended to show the rap industry, and perhaps the world, that rappers from opposite coasts could work together. The album's inception began with a meeting between Shakur, members of his Outlawz crew, and the Brooklyn rap collective, Boot Camp Clik, who were made up of the groups Black Moon, who were spear-headed by rapper Buckshot, Smif-N-Wessun, O.G.C. (also known as Originoo Gunn Clappaz) and the newly-formed duo Heltah Skeltah. The collective had the unique position of not being signed to a major label, but instead they had formed their own label, Duckdown Records, the previous year, which many say Shakur admired as he was trying to start a label himself. Boot Camp Clik were ferried out to California to begin work on the project, staying at Shakur’s new home in Calabasas while recording his proposed new album. A familiar face also helped ease any discomfort, with Buckshot's old friend Snoop Dogg showing up at Can-Am studios, where they were eventually joined by the aforementioned Outlawz, Daz Dillinger, Nice & Smooth’s Greg Nice, The Luniz’s Numskull, and New Jersey natives Asu and Capital LS from the group Rumpletilskinz. Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel also supposedly stopped by at some point during Boot Camp Clik’s week-long stay in California. Those closest to Shakur say the media had spun the whole East Coast versus West Coast beef out of control, and the idea of the album was to not only end the animosity between them, but to show that they could actually work with the people he was beefing with just days prior. 'One Nation' was intended to be the first of a number of volumes, with Vol. 1 coming out on Shakur's label Makaveli, while Vol. 2 would appear on Duckdown Records. After the initial recording sessions, Boot Camp Clik and the rest of the non-L.A.-affiliated groups never recorded with Shakur again, although he did meet up with Buckshot in New York some months later at an awards show. No one knows for certain how much of the album was actually completed, with estimates ranging from just four or five songs to 70 percent of it being finished, and although unofficial versions of the project have been released over the past 20 years, none have been confirmed by Shakur's estate. To my ears this bootleg seems like one of the best reconstructions of the album, featuring contributions from all of the artists that we know recorded at the sessions, and so enjoy this joining together of East and West Coast rappers working together in harmony, and imagine what this could have kick-started had Shakur not been shot and killed just six months later.   

Track listing

01 Lets Fight (feat. Yukmouth)
02 Tattoo Tearz
03 My Own Style (feat. Greg Nice)
04 Secrets Of War
05 Where Ever You Are (feat. Big Daddy Kane)
06 They Don't Know (feat. Snoop Dogg)
07 Struggle Continues (feat. Big Syke)
08 Brothaz At Arms
09 World Wide Dime Piece (feat. Greg Nice & Snoop Dogg)
10 Military Minds
11 Thug Nigga (feat. Greg Nice)
12 Just Watching (feat. Snoop Dogg)
13 Immortal (feat. The Outlawz)
14 How Do You Want It (feat. The Outlawz)
15 Where Will I Be (feat. The Outlawz)
16 Thug Pound (feat. Tha Dogg Pound)
17 The Money (feat. Daz Dillinger)

2Pac - Troublesome 21 (1992)

Following the release of his debut album '2Pacalypse Now' in November 1991, Tupak Shakur started to prepare his second official album, which was originally supposed to be called 'Black Starry Night', but as the recording process went on over the next few months, he decided to change the name to 'Troublesome 21'. Although it was pretty much finished, Time Warner scrapped it due to the outcry in the media and political legislatures over the lyrics on albums such as '2Pacalypse Now', and many of the songs from the album remain officially unreleased, although some of them did turn up on b-sides in 1993, while a few of them appeared on his official second album 'Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z...', either in slightly reworded form, or taken from the 'Troublesome 21' master tapes. The album stands as a truly historical piece in 2Pac's discography due to the fact these are unreleased or rarely heard songs because of the controversial lyrics at the time. The album was produced by Stretch, Big D the Impossible, Truman Jefferson, Laylaw, and the D-Flow Production Squad, and while there are various track listings online for this album, I've taken it directly from Shakur's handwritten notes for it, which is also included in the folder. 

Track listing

01 Intro
02 Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... 
03 The Streetz R Deathrow 
04 I Get Around (feat. Digital Underground)
05 Holler If Ya Hear Me (feat. Live Squad)
06 Don't Call Me Bitch (feat. Shock G)
07 Papa'z Song (feat. The Wycked & Poppi)
08 Crooked Nigga Too (feat. Stretch)
09 Souljah's Revenge (When I Get Free)

10 What Goes On (feat. The Wycked & Mouse Man)

11 Still Don't Give A Fuck
12 I Wonda If Heaven Got A Ghetto
13 Nothin' But Love (feat. Dave Hollister)
14 Troublesome
15 Keep Ya Head Up (feat. Dave Hollister)

2Pac - 100% Black Gold (1996)

Tupac Shakur began recording under the stage name MC New York in 1989, and after signing with Atron Gregory, manager of the rap group Digital Underground, he was added to the group as a roadie and backup dancer. In January 1991 he debuted under the stage name 2Pac on Digital Underground, under the new Interscope Records label, on the group's January 1991 single 'Same Song', which also opened the group's 'This Is An EP Release'. Shakur's debut album '2Pacalypse Now' arrived in November 1991, and would bear three singles, 'If My Homie Calls', 'Trapped' and 'Brenda's Got A Baby', all of which depicted individual struggles under socioeconomic disadvantage in a distinctive poetical style. Shakur's second album 'Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z...' was released in in February 1993, and was a critical and commercial advance on its predecessor, debuting at No. 24 on the pop chart in the Billboard 200. In late 1993, Shakur formed the group Thug Life with Tyrus "Big Syke" Himes, Diron "Macadoshis" Rivers, his stepbrother Mopreme Shakur, and Walter "Rated R" Burns, releasing its only album 'Thug Life: Volume 1', in October 1994. Shakur's third album 'Me Against The World' was released in March 1995 while he was incarcerated, and is now hailed as his magnum opus, and commonly ranks among the greatest, most influential rap albums of all time. The lead single 'Dear Mama' was released in February 1995 with 'Old School' as the b-side, and is the album's most successful single, topping the Hot Rap Singles chart, and peaking at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. 

While Shakur was in prison in 1995, his mother was about to lose her house, and so Shakur had his wife Keisha Morris contact Death Row Records founder Suge Knight, who advanced Shakur's mother $15,000 to pay her debts. In October 1995, Knight visited Shakur in prison again and posted the $1.4 million bond, allowing Shakur to return to Los Angeles and join Death Row, with the appeal of his December 1994 conviction pending. His fourth album 'All Eyez On Me' came out on Death Row in February 1996, and was rap's first double album, featuring Shakur rapping about the gangsta lifestyle, and leaving behind his previous political messages. In between recording tracks for his albums, Shakur was constantly taping music, and there are many hand-written track listings of proposed albums which never appeared. One of these is the legendary '100% Black Gold', which was to have followed 'All Eyez On Me', but before it could be finalised Shakur was shot four times by an unidentified assailant in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996, and he died six days later. At the time of his death, a fifth and final official solo album was already finished, 'The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory', under the stage name Makaveli, which became the first of many posthumous releases over the next decade. Yet there is still much music which remains officially unreleased, and '100% Black Gold' is one of the very best of the fan-produced albums which has used some of those tracks. The album went through many different tracklist and name adjustments, being variously known as 'Outlaw Immortal', 'Still I Rise' and 'Thug Life Vol. 2', before finally settling on '100% Black Gold', and this reconstruction follows exactly the hand-written track listing for it that Shakur left behind. 

Track listing

01 Hit 'Em Up (feat. Outlawz)
02 Wordz 2 My First Born 
03 Troublesome '96
04 Made Niggaz (feat. Outlawz)
05 When Thugz Cry
06 Never Had A Friend Like Me
07 Never Call U Bitch Again
08 Fuckin' Wit The Wrong Nigga (Part 1)
09 Mama's Just A Lil Girl
10 Who Do U Believe In (feat. Yaki Kadafi)
11 Thug n' Me (feat. Jewell)
12 Fuckin' Wit The Wrong Nigga (Part 2) a.k.a. Tongue Kissin'