2Pac Friday
18 August 2023
Taking a flight tonight, on this 2Pac Friday, to meet some coworkers for one night of revelry in New York. This is what we might call “going to the museums.”
This is what we certainly call 2Pac Fridays.
The most appropriate 2Pac song for this 2Pac Friday, for this occasion, will be “Check Out Time” because surely there will be a scramble to collect belongings to check out in time from the Airbnb. Which is really what this 2Pac track is about–a mad dash to get your shit together the morning after a late night of partying.
The song features Syke, common on 2Pac tracks throughout his career, and Kurupt, from Tha Dogg Pound. Track 8, “Check Out Time” comes in the party vibe heart of All Eyez on Me, Book 2, what we have already established in previous 2Pac Fridays is almost certainly the most party-like 2Pac CD in the extensive catalog, It really feels like a group of guys hungover from a night of partying trying to get their shit together to check out on time; but like Syke says in his verse: “the front desk calling, but I’m checking out later.” A lighthearted sense of rebellion.
Not completely unlike celebrating a 2Pac Friday well into Saturday.
Not being beholden to antiquated man-made calendars of the past.
Bending time, to put it on your side. Time does not have to be all about increasingly arthritic joints and unnecessarily face-Yoga course expenditures in attempts to reduce wrinkles, according to 2Pac Fridays. Never once are such things discussed in 2Pac songs.
This is not Kansas Fridays where we are all “Dust in the Wind” (though that is a good song, Kansas does not border Iowa, the birthplace of 2Pac Fridays). With 2Pac Fridays, the temporal nature of this world is tempered itself.
Big Syke, AKA Mussolini, of the Outlaw Immortalz sadly died too young, of natural causes in 2016.
But he lives on in this song, on this 2Pac Friday–as well as other 2Pac Fridays.
In fact, it should be noted, Big Syke was born on November 22, 1968–a Friday.
A 2Pac Friday.
His worldly death naturally occurred on what is widely accepted as the worst day of the week–a Monday.
But we refuse to accept that as an ending for Syke.
As stated earlier, there is a rebellion against conventional time occurring here.
A rebellion against the calendars of the old, against the cliches of the old, like “all good things in life come to an end.”
Not with 2Pac Fridays.
The good things never end when you put on the 2Pac track “Check Out Time.” The good times continue. It’s like the alarm clock you want to hear, with Nastaha Walker sweetly repeating the refrain “we gotta go” as the chorus.
That is the magic of 2Pac and 2Pac Fridays.
Somewhere in the world the annoying alarm clocks in life are ringing, but we cannot hear them and they do not affect us. The so-called urgent responsibilities can wait, for us, on our terms.
The figurative front desk may be calling, but we will not be checking out until later.
Like Keats said, “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.”
That thing of beauty Keats refers to is a 2Pac Friday, which never truly ends, regardless of what the policy is stated at the front desk.
We answer to a higher policy, of a spiritual nature, integral to this 2Pac track and this 2Pac Friday, penned by the late Big Syke and well-worth repeating: “The front desk is calling, but I’m checking out later.”
In addition to Big Syke, shout-outs to AB, JD, JG & RM for their extra participation in this extra special 2Pac Friday.