Reminisce

As September fast approaches and marks the 11th year since 2Pac's death, I pause to think about what could have been. As the Hip Hop scene has devolved into a caricature of its former self, I find myself reminiscing about days past when the music provided both an outlet for expressing the ills of society and also the sheer jubilation of being young and just wanting to party. What separated that music from most of what you hear today is that many times they were on both contained on the same album, in the same song. You could be both the rapper that took and stand and the rapper that tore the club up. Now artists are put into different boxes with mainly the most superficial among them seeming to get the most promotion. How did we let this happen? When did we stop caring?

Here's one of my favorite verses from Pac that appears on the song "Nothin to Lose." However, I'm not a fan of the album version. This live performance (ironically in with a great assist from Biggie Smalls) captures emotions that just don't come through in the studio version.