It’s a rare occurrence to run across footage of the legendary West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur in the studio. The rapper liked staying up all night with his friends, smoking, drinking, recording and having a good time until the early morning.
Many artists are known for recording through the night until the morning because, during regular working hours, they are preoccupied with conducting interviews and other promotional duties. However, many artists like to record alone or with a select group of people. But not Tupac.
For Pac, the studio was a party everyone was invited to, and, as seen in this new footage, he even liked bringing his friends into the booth with him to create a vibe. Pac rapped about many things, some of his tracks were aggressive, and some weren’t. Tracks like ‘Brenda’s Got A Baby’ were softer. With songs about women and children, it is no surprise that Shakur even invited women and children to come and hang out with him while recording in the studio.
This rare footage of Pac in the studio is interesting because it reveals that it wasn’t about him. Many rappers like to be alone because it’s about them, and the music is about themselves. Whereas for Tupac, it was innately political. It was centred around communities of black people just like the one we see in the video, whether it be a man, woman, adult, child or teen, and he needed his community there to spur him on.
This epic footage sees a montage of Shakur recording songs such as ‘Why You Turn On Me’, ‘All Bout U’ and ‘Reincarnation’. Many of the songs featured in the montage of Shakur’s recording session had to be featured on posthumous compilation albums as they were never released on any official Pac project in his lifetime. The footage was recorded on June 10th, 1996.
