Shock G sends a funny and informative email to the East Bay Express about 2pac’s role in Digital Underground, interracial dating and production credit for I Get Around. link
MYTH 2: TUPAC STARTED OUT AS A DANCER AND EVOLVED INTO A RAPPER
Please. Pac was just touring with us (digital underground) to kill time while we shopped his demo and helped him finish his album. Money-B’s brother Cullen, our original Humpty-dancer, stayed home to make room for Pac, so Pac filled in and did the dance. Yes, you could say he did this as part of his “job” but he did it mostly for fun. Everyone in our 8-person crew wanted to do the dance, it pulled the chicks after the show each night. We signed Tupac Shakur to our indy label TNT records as an emcee and began working on his album in 1989. He began touring with d.u. a year later, after being bored & frustrated with waiting for us to return from tour to continue working on his project. And we were constantly shopping him the entire time, many companies passed before Interscope finally agreed to distribute him. His “I was Shocks roadie” comment from “Resurrection” also makes my blood boil; as if the nigga carried my personal bags. He never did. Everyone carried their own suitcases. Unloading & loading the stage equipment was the tour responsibility he speaks of, a “right of passage” to every d.u. member. We all did it for a tour or 2, including myself & Money-B on the first tours, and later it was how we initiated new blood. So did DJ Fuze, Saafir, DJ-JZ, Pee Wee, and every other d.u. member except the females. (they cleaned the bus & did the laundry; perhaps chauvinist but true)To say that Tupac “originally started as a dancer”, as many people & publications often do, not only insults his true title & essence at that time, (emcee, public activist, & social critic) but it also insults digital undergrounds awareness & recognition of who he really was at the time. Worst of all, it promotes that it’s uncool to dance, and that no self respecting revolutionary, “thug”, or “gangsta” would be caught dancing; as if Pac graduated outta dancing into a stronger male. Nope, sorry, he was already the strong male revolutionary, with 2Pacalyspe Now recorded, BEFORE he danced with d.u. Therefore, Tupac deserves even more credit for being all of the above and still remaining humble enough to contribute to d.u. as a dancer & roadie. It was his choice to do this, not an ultimatum, as his solo album was already being shopped, and as we were already committed to his project.He also can be seen playing congas & doing background vocals onstage w/d.u. on televised Yo MTV Raps Live, and Showtime at the Apollo tapings, well after the movie Juice and his solo album was out. This is documented fact, do the research, and then do the math.
