Tupac does it on the track Dear Mama, from his 1995 album Me Against the World. This technique is often used by rappers to emphasise certain rhythms, words and phrases.
Stacks, layers and huskĪnother technique Tupac was known for was stacking or layering his vocals, which added another dimension of warmth and rawness to his voice. You can hear and feel the weight and the power of his voice, which made him sound 10 feet tall, when in real life he wasn't that big of a person. Where Biggie Smalls would swing like a jazz horn player, Tupac took inspiration from powerful speakers like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. "Slick Rick rhymed from the nasal palate, Nas from the back of his throat, and Pac from the pit of his stomach, which is where his power came from," he said. In the documentary Tupac Shakur: Thug Angel, one of Tupac's early producers, Greg "Shock G" Jacobs, talks about how rappers also project from different parts of their body. The "chest voice" range resonates from the chest area. Tupac's experience in theatre and acting made him an incredible storyteller.
It wasn't just a case of choosing a sample because it sounded good artists and producers would often incorporate people and songs that meant something to them. They were both powerful, strong figures for the black community. Trapped, one of the hit singles from his first record, samples James Brown's The Spank.īrown is one of the most sampled artists in hip hop, along with Curtis Mayfield. Tupac sampled a range of artists on his records, such as Herbie Hancock, Pink Floyd, Parliament, Joe Cocker, Public Enemy and Stevie Wonder. It tells the story of a 12-year-old girl from the ghetto who has a baby and ends up slipping into drugs and prostitution and is eventually killed. Songs like Brenda's Got A Baby on his debut studio album, 2Pacalyse Now, highlight that. On the other side was that social conscience, showing all the facets of what life was life in the ghetto as a young black male, telling stories that hadn't been heard, and speaking out for the black community. There was a side of him that wanted to just let it all out and cut loose and not care about consequences. It wasn't necessarily about telling a story in the most intricate and detailed of ways, it was about making you feel like you were there seeing what he was seeing. Tupac's ability to communicate what was going on around him was second to none. " wrote some of the rawest stories, man," he told the LA Times in 1995. He also studied theatre as a teenager at the Baltimore School of Performing Arts, and was inspired by Shakespeare. Tupac took a lot of early inspiration from the politically-charged music of Public Enemy and Ice Cube. He had a level of self-empowerment that made people want to listen to what he had to say.Įven today, you could fly anywhere and surely there'd be someone who knows of Tupac. What he brought to hip hop was a level of rawness and a poetic drive in the way he delivered his words.
Tupac Shakur, known by his stage names 2Pac, Pac, and Makaveli, is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential rappers of all time.