Top 10 2Pac songs

It's time for another list and since my previous post being about Charles Hamilton, one of my favorite rappers of all time it seems only fair to make one about my favorite rapper who is no longer with us. 2Pac, a.k.a Tupac Amaru Shakur, birth name Lesane Parish Crooks. Widely considered by some as one of, if not the best rapper, and on many people's top rappers lists of all time. I've done a video of my top 10 before, but it's pretty outdated now as I've since heard more music of his since that time and my favorites have changed. The link is below however if you'd like to see how it compares.

1. Song title: Pain
Album: Above the Rim Soundtrack
Sample: Earl Klugh - Livin Inside Your Love
Favorite lines:
The whole thing, I mean really the passion in these verses and the sample and everything is just top notch to me. The featured rapper on the song, Stretch delivers a great verse as well and makes it that much better. A stunning song that truly shows you the pain of coming up in poverty and violence and the struggle to get out.

2. Song title: Temptations
Album: Me Against the World
Sample: Sly and the Family Stones: Sing a Simple Song
Favorite lines:
"A lotta people think it's easy, to settle down
Got a woman that'll please me, in every town
I don't wanna but I gotta do it, the temptation
Got me ready to release the fluid, sensation
Sit down and conversate like you know me, take my hand
Cause even Thugs get lonely, understand
Even the hardest of my homies need attention
Catch you blowin up the telephone, reminiscin"

Simply relatable, perhaps more so to other entertainers and celebrities that actually travel a lot, but still down to earth and showing that everyone does get lonely at times and could use some attention.

3. Song title: Starin Through my Rearview
Album: Tupac Resurrection Soundtrack
Sample: Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight
Favorite lines:
"Multiple gunshots fill the block, the fun stops
Niggas is callin cops, people shot, nobody stops
I wonder when the world stopped caring last night
Two kids shot while the whole block staring
I will never understand this society, first they try
To murder me, then they lie to me, product of a dying breed"

This song also has a version with Dwele on it instead of E.D.I. Mean and Yaki Kadafi of the Outlawz, which is found on the album  Nu-Mixx Klazzics Vol. 2.

4. Song title: Niggaz Nature(also called Thug Nature)

Album: Killuminati: The 3 Day Theory (The original version of  The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory)

Sample: Michael Jackson - Human Nature

Favorite lines:

"No need to cry now, go wipe your tears
Be a woman, why you actin' surprised?
You saw the bullshit comin' fake hair
Fake nails, fake eyes too
So why you bound to fuck wit fake guys too

Ain't nothin' hard about it
Why you lookin' sad, shoulda thought about it
Say you learn, I truly doubt it"

Women with all the make up and other things to make them selves appear better, will fall for someone who also exudes fakeness is basically the idea that he's expressing here.

5. Song title: Hail Mary

Album: The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory

Sample: None that I know of.

Favorite lines:

"Penitentiaries is packed with promise-makers
Never realize the precious time that bitch niggas is wasting
Institutionalized, I live my life a product made to crumble
But too hardened for a smile, we're too crazy to be humble: we ballin'"

Simple, not much explanation necessary.  Prisons are packed with people who make promises that they'll keep once they get out and that the people in jail are wasting their time in there and becoming used to it. His life being a product made to crumble, meaning he knows he won't live long, so he lives for the now rather than the later, too tough to crack a smile and too crazy to be a humble person.

6. Song title: Against All Odds

Album: The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory

Sample: Cameo - Skin I'm In

Favorite lines:

Once again, all of them. He dissed a lot of people in one go. So instead I'll just give a list of people he mentioned, by name. Very direct of him.

Nas

Puffy

Mobb Deep

Hatian Jack a.k.a Jimmy Henchman

De La Soul

Dr. Dre 

Walter ‘King Tut’ Johnson(apparently one of the shooters of 2Pac)

7. Song title: I Wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto

Album: R U Still Down? (Remember Me)

Sample: Cameo - Two of Us

Favorite lines:

"I see no changes, all I see is racist faces
Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races
We under I wonder what it take to make this
One better place, let's erase the wasted
Take the evil out the people they'll be acting right
Cause both black and white are smoking crack tonight
And only time we deal is when we kill each other
It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other
And though it seems heaven-sent
We ain't ready, to have a black President, huh
It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact
The penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks"

Lyric breakdown: 

Racism running rampant and black males being arrested and imprisoned at rates higher than any other ethnicity, although like he clearly says "both black and white are smoking crack tonight" or in other words, people of every color and creed do bad things. There's no need to look down on one specifically and overlook the wrong doings of another.

8. Song title: Holla at me

Album: All Eyez on Me

Sample: None that I know of

Favorite lines:

Once again, the whole song, can't even begin to single out certain lines. Three verses, one dedicated each to a different person, in a dissing fashion fueled with the passion that he brings as usual. It's unknown for sure who is dissed in what verse but it's pretty much common perception that the first verse is dedicated towards Stretch, the second verse to Biggie, and the third verse to the woman who accused him of rape and got him sent to prison. All in all a great song with a nice beat and truthful lyrics, emotional and relatable. He was just human here, no big bragging, no gangsta persona nothing of the sort really.

9. Song title: Do For Love

Album: R U Still Down? (Remember Me)

Sample: Bobby Caldwell - What You Won't Do For Love

Favorite lines:

"I shoulda seen you was trouble but I was lost, trapped in your eyes
Preoccupied with gettin' tossed, no need to lie
You had a man and I knew it, you told me
Don't worry bout it we can do it now I'm under pressure
Make a decision cause I'm waitin', when I'm alone
I'm on the phone havin' secret conversations, huh
I wanna take your misery, replace it with happiness
But I need your faith in me, I'm a sucka for love"

Thoughts: 

These lines right here are some of my favorite 2Pac lines of all time, easily. I suppose because I'm a sucka for love(one of the alternate versions of the song).

10. Song title: Never Had a Friend Like me

Album: Gridlock'd Soundtrack

Sample: None that I know of

Favorite lines:

"You got my nigga 25
So now I sacrifice your life
Help to separate me and my dog
Broken ties
Why the fuck should I let you live
When I'm dead inside
Rapid fire my delivery
I'm bustin' at they whole crew
Nigga, remember me"

Thoughts:

Maybe I'm just a sentimental fool, but when someone separates you from your homie, you feel hurt. Once again the passion in this passage is way above average, bars so savage. Lol, couldn't help myself but such a simple statement is stated with a calm rage, it's great.

  

That's my top 10, he has so many songs that it really isn't easy to do. His lyrics might not be full of crazy metaphors and double and triple entendres but the passion, delivery, flow, and pure honest behind them always and hopefully always will set him above the rest and make his name go down in history as one of the greatest to ever do it. The art of rap misses one of the greats, as do I.

 My former top ten, check it out and compare.