Bloggystyle -- The Greatest

When it comes to seamlessly inserting Keira Knightley photos, or covering the awards shows, The Hive has that niche dominated.

But The Hive also tends to outsource into different topics, and Flyno apparently writes a music review column for some Mormons. But his review of Me Against The World was like a cry for help.

It's alright, but isn't anything close to All Eyez On Me. I can't believe that some people think that this is Pac's best album. I'm not a huge 2Pac fan anyway, and this album definitely didn't help that.

All right Flyno. It's time for you to clear out and let a professional take care of this one.

Intro

Pac got shot in November 94. For the next 90 seconds you will hear a whole gang of news reporters tell us that fact, one after the other, black/white/male/female etc. Wonderful.

If I Die 2Nite

This is still the only rap track I've ever heard that focuses on alliteration. Pac drops tongue twisters like "Picturin pitiful punk niggas coppin pleas" and "Picture perfection pursuin paper with a passion" over an interesting beat. This song would become famous because journalists would use this track's title to talk about Pac foreshadowing his death in September 96.

Me Against The World

The title track didn't make Flyno's Top 3. The introduction of a few of the Outlawz aside, I am still in disbelief.

With all this extra stressin
The question I wonder is after death, after my last breath
When will I finaly get to rest? Through this oppression
they punish the people that's askin questions
And those that possess, steal from the ones without possesions
The message I stress: to make it stop study your lessons
Don't settle for less - even the genius asks questions

Well I guess the bitch on the hook can get obnoxious, but this is an egregious oversight nonetheless.

So Many Tears

A nice sample of Stevie Wonder. The dregs at Murder Inc. are obsessed with this track, and The Pledge Remix with Nas Ja and Ashanti samples a bunch of Pac. The Pledge Remix was one horrible song, back in the day when Nas had just dropped Stillmatic and was flirting with joining the Murder Inc crew, no homo (I think). Those were trying days for me, but Nas came to his senses.

But I digress. This track is incredible. Certainly better than Temptations (one of Flyno's favorites). Look at the last verse on this track:

Lord knows I.. tried, been a witness to homicide
Seen drivebys takin lives, little kids die
Wonder why as I walk by
Broken-hearted as I glance at the chalk line, gettin high
This ain't the life for me, I wanna change
But ain't no future right for me, I'm stuck in the game
I'm trapped inside a maze
See this Tanqueray influenced me to gettin crazy
Disillusioned lately, I've been really wantin babies
so I could see a part of me that wasn't always shady
Don't trust my lady, cause she's a product of this poison
I'm hearin noises, think she fuckin all my boys, can't take no more
I'm fallin to the floor; beggin for the Lord to let me in
to Heaven's door -- shed so many tears

Temptations

This made Flyno's Top 3. I wouldn't go that far but this track's nice. Pac was locked up by the time Me Against The World dropped. When it debuted at #1, Pac became the first artist to have a #1 album while incarcerated. More importantly, the video for this track came out when Pac was locked up, so they got a bunch of high profile rappers to cameo in this video.

At the beginning, Ice T and Coolio argue about whether or not they just saw Pac. Coolio's a hotel scrub delivering room service, and since this is a sex song, Coolio peeps in while the likes of Treach, Salt N Pepa and various others are playing strip poker or banging etc.

Young Niggaz

Pac dedicates this to Robert "Yummy" Sanderford and all the "young Gs caught up in the struggle." Sanderford was a teenage gang banger who got popped at the age of 13. Basically Sanderford was the premise for every Pac track of this type (including Shorty Wanna Be A Thug).

This is a really laid back track with a fast delivery and a different message than usual. Where else will you hear a rapper tell the kids to be an accountant or a lawyer?

Heavy In The Game

What the hell is with rappers insisting on throwing terrible sounding reggae into tracks? Heavy In The Game is easily the worst track on this album. I dare you to try listening to this track for all 5 minutes without grabbing a blunt instrument and knocking yourself out cold.

Lord Knows

This track's even got a nice beat for you Fly! Lyrically this is probably below average on the album, but the simple hook and the emotional delivery does wonders.

Dear Mama

This was probably Pac's most famous track until California Love. It also made Fly's Top 3. I don't know what more can be said about this track that hasn't already been said. I get sick of the hook real fast though.

It Ain't Easy

Some people like this beat. Kenny Bloggins can't stand it. I guess I'm on the fence. But this track has intangibles, like a serious verse where Pac raps about talking on the phone with Mike Tyson and getting important advice on life from the champ. And it wasn't even a joke!

Bill Clinton can you recognize a nigga representin
Doin twenty to life in San Quentin
Gettin calls from my nigga Mike Tyson, ain't nuttin nice
Yo 'Pac, do something righteous witcha life
And even thou you innocent you still a nigga, so they figure
Rather have you behind bars than triggers

Somehow I just can't see Iron Mike saying that shit. But the two of them were real tight, thus the reason Pac attended that Tyson-Seldon fight in Vegas on September 7, 1996.

Can U Get Away

This is a soft track about Pac trying to get a woman to leave an abusive relationship. Unless you like these types of tracks, this one's probably the 2nd worst track on the album.

Old School

Throughout this track, Pac basically gives extended shoutouts to the Old School, New York rappers.

I remember Mr. Magic, FLASH, Grandmaster Caz
LL raisin hell but, that didn't last
Eric B. & Rakim was, the shit to me
I flip to see a Doug E. Fresh show, with Ricky D
and Red Alert was puttin in work, with Chuck Chill
Had my homies on the hill gettin ill, when shit was real
Went out to steal, remember Raw, with Daddy Kane
when De La Soul was puttin Potholes in the game

An interesting sidenote about this track is that Pac gives LL a backhanded compliment and apparently the two started trading subliminal disses, and also had an incident at an awards show that LL was hosting. Eventually, after Pac was shot and Biggie dropped "Who Shot Ya," which Pac took as a diss, LL dropped "I Shot Ya" on his next album. In a bunch of unreleased tracks, Pac goes ballistic on LL, but nothing really came of it, for obvious reasons.

Fuck The World

This track, like this album, wasn't made in a vacuum. This track is just vintage venting. This one wouldn't make a Top 3 list for anybody who has ears.

Death Around The Corner

Another title that invariably gets mentioned about Pac foreshadowing death in 96. But this one's interesting for a different reason.

In the early 90s, before he got shot in 94, Pac was tight with Randy "Stretch" Walker of the Live Squad. Stretch did a bunch of production for Pac, including Pain and Holler If Ya Hear Me. Every once in awhile, Stretch dropped a verse on Pac tracks as well.

When Pac was stuck up and shot by assailtants in a recording studio in 94, he blamed the Bad Boy Crew. During the stick up, nobody went for Stretch's shit, so Pac began to suspect that Stretch may have been involved. Then, when Pac was locked up for most of 95, Stretch was running with Biggie and that pissed him off. Pac and Stretch sorta went their separate ways, until Stretch was killed on November 30, 1995 in a drive by, one year to the day that Pac was shot.

On this track, Stretch apparently had a verse, but since they were no longer tight, Pac took his verse off and did the 3rd one in his place. But throughout most of that verse, Pac does a spot on imitation of Stretch, from the voice to the flow, that's absolutely surreal for anyone who listens to a lot of Pac/Stretch work (like myself).

Outlaw

This is pretty much the only track where he explicitly discusses the robbery in 94.

Before I close my eyes I fantasize I'm livin well
when I awake and realize I'm just a prisoner in hell
Just as well, cause in my cell I'm keepin pictures of these bastards
Excersisin, visualizin, everyone inside a casket
Picture me blasted, surrounded by niggaz in masks
Sent with the task to harass and murder my ass
Will I last? Heaven or Hell? Freedom or jail?
Shit's hard, who can you tell? And if we fail?

Once again we get a couple of the Outlawz, one of which, Kadafi, was about 16 when this track was made.

In addition to being an uncontested classic, the situation surrounding Pac during the creation of the album was so hectic that it was amazing he could make material for an album, let alone an incredible one. In addition to being on trial for a crime that he didn't commit, he was shot on the 30th, sentenced to jail the next day, and he felt that his friends turned on him while he was inside, where he was being told that they were also involved. He also felt that Biggie's debut album was basically stealing his style for Me Against The World, so Pac went back and changed it around and added new shit (like Outlaw).

And I'll be damned if the finished product wasn't better than All Eyez On Me.