2Pac Friday
6 October 2023
Despite this track’s name, it has a chill vibe, almost Jimmy Buffettesque (it is guitar-centric).
It was produced by E.D.I. Mean of the Outlawz under what I believe is primarily his company We Got Kidz Productions, but I’m not 100 percent sure about the exact structure of that production company. I think it also features a sample from “Street Life,” from Geto Boys, a group that includes Scarface, whose song “Smile” featured 2Pac with both the first and last verses. This makes sense because Scarface is a guitar enthusiast and may be a cousin of Johnny Cash. But the guitars are much more prominent in this 2Pac track than the Geto Boys’ song and it is definitely an evolved production style. Whatever the exact details of “Fuck All Y’all”s production, the song has awesome production and goes along with 2Pac’s laid-back delivery in this song rather than the content if you were just to read the lyrics, which would seem angry.
He starts off:
“Money gone fuck friends, I need a homie that know me
When all these motherfuckin' cops be on me”
It could seem like 2Pac might be beginning to make a distinction between “friends” and “homies” in equating the latter as a “true friend that has your back.” However, it appears more clearly that 2Pac is using these words in their more standard synonymous meaning as he proceeds with a scorched earth policy congruent with the song’s title that goes after everyone and feels like it would have been appropriate to appear on Me Against the World, which was probably written around the same time. Even though this track is not from that album, the narrator certainly feels like it is him against the world:
“I got problems, ain't nobody callin' back
Now what the fuck is happenin' with my ballin' cats?”
Initially it may seem like the relaxed nature of the song’s vibe is in direct, 100 percent contrast to the lyrics.
But 2Pac continues:
“Remember me? I'm your homie that was down to brawl”
In this sense the laid-back nature of the song is not in complete contrast to the lyrics themselves as there is a certain nostalgia evoked regarding a previous time where things were good and friends were loyal, but now that all seems to be the past. So you have currently a bad situation, where the narrator is alone–but there is an idyllic time in the past to reflect fondly upon.
As this track is from the album R U Still Down? (Remember Me), this song could be seen as in fact answering 2Pac’s question in the album title with an unfortunately resounding “No.”
But we will respond to this album’s title as we always do: we are still down, 2Pac. And, this song brings back a nostalgic feeling to our own younger years when the song first came out and, even though the song was released posthumously, it brings us to a nostalgia of better times when 2Pac was still alive.
But 2Pac still does live on in nostalgia. Time does pass; things do die; a 2Pac Friday does turn into a standard, none-adjective-bearing Saturday; people do die; but the good stuff in life lives on in nostalgia. This featured 2Pac track proves just that. Listen to this track, celebrate this 2Pac Friday, and soak yourself in the nostalgia, the good times of life.