2Pac Friday
22 September 2023
Sometimes 2Pac Fridays are retrospective. This 2Pac Friday recalls the rain and wind that did not stop last weekend from Hurricane Lee.
Power was out for most of the weekend.
Except 2Pac Friday. While power was out Saturday and Sunday, Lee respected the necessity of power on 2Pac Friday. So we were able to listen to last week’s featured track, “Violent” and commemorate 2Pac Friday in peace.
I guess Hurricane Lee got a little too into the track and got a little violent itself.
The rain and the wind did not want to stop all Saturday, preventing the lineworkers from getting in the buckets to begin the repairs to restore power to those of us who had already lost it.*
As the rain and the wind just kept on coming; it literally felt like that “Shit Don’t Stop.” The “shit” in this case, being the rain and the wind.
But that doesn’t have to stop one from enjoying life. Like the song opens, “You can dance underwater and not get wet,” so one can dance in their home underneath the water in the storm but not get wet because of the power of 2Pac Friday–and their home’s roof.
For one who doesn’t quite enjoy the wetness of dancing in the rain as much as Pittsburgh native and the positivity-laced legend Gene Kelly, “Shit Don’t Stop” with its lack of wetness while underwater is a good alternative. One can dance with the joy of Gene Kelly to “Shit Don’t Stop” while it's raining, but do so inside and thus avoid the wetness.
But both levels of rug-cutting aqueousness can be combined, if one achieves balance in their life in such a manner. The dancing and singing can start outside in the rain with the 1952 tune** and then continue it with the 1994 track inside because “Shit Don’t Stop.”
This aquatic science-defying line of “Danc[ing] in the water but not get[ting] wet” is a sample from Parliament’s “Aqua Boogie,” which gives a good idea of the song’s flavor when mixed with 2Pac and his Thug Life group–and this track is from their one album, Thug Life, Volume I. Parliament provides an underlying funk to the raw, hard underground sound of 2Pac’s group. It is what one might expect when Parliament meets Thug Life.
I happened to see Parliament in concert years ago in Toronto. I do not recall if they played “Aqua Boogie,” but they probably did and that may be the closest to a 2Pac concert I will get to in my life. Neither do I recall if that were a 2Pac Friday, as it was not an officially recognized holiday at the time.
Now we have globally-recognized 2Pac Fridays (citation: this website can be accessed across the globe) and this awesomely sweet track.
It is a sturdy and compact track with tight rapping in the first verse by 2Pac continued n the second verse with Macadoshis and Rated R going back and forth with a similar dynamic between Mopreme and Big Syke in the third and final verse. Each chorus, sang by Y.N.V. with Parliament’s “Aqua Boogie” melody, is joined by a rapper from a neighboring verse with the refrain “Shit Don’t Stop.” This song is the essence of a group collaboration with all of these artists combined in an organized and systematic fashion for a track under four minutes long.
In essence, “the shit” in this song can refer to multiple things, but essentially refers to “the game” or “thuggin’” as 2Pac starts the first verse with “Game rules often slang to the them lame fools” and Big Syke ends the final verse with “thugs keep thuggin’ till their casket drop.” Everything in between is basically explaining what the game rules are and what “thuggin’” is.
But again, at the same time, “shit” is vague enough that we can relate it to anything we want, really.
And with all of that valuable reflection and retrospection that we promised can happen on 2Pac Fridays and have rightly helped–with 2Pac–to deliver, we now transition to forward thinking that is in the 2Pac Friday DNA, where we look forward to the weekend ahead (and the great beyond as the “Shit Don’t Stop”).
And this forecast moving forward looks in stark contrast to last weekend’s nonstop rain. We have nonstop crisp, clean fall weather ahead. With a lot of sunshine in the sky. So for this weekend, starting on this glorious 2Pac Friday, it will be that good shit that don’t stop.
And we won’t ever stop listening to this great song, but this “Shit Don’t Stop” being relevant, whether it be 1994 or 2023–or well beyond.
*Of course we are simply referring to the power from the electrical grid that connects to our homes, not the deep reservoirs of inner power that still had plentiful reserves from the abundant 2Pac Friday supply, further emphasizing the importance of filling those supplies by commemorating 2Pac Friday: when local infrastructure fails you, sometimes you are left with nothing but inner power; all too often 2Pac Fridays are the only reliable power grid, which makes us thankful people all that more grateful for 2Pac Fridays.
**This song was originally written in 1929, but we are referring to the film version with Gene Kelly.