Album: All Eyez On Me (Death Row)
Songwriters: Bruce Fisher, Johnny Jackson, Quincy Jones, Stanley Richardson, Tupac Shakur and Leon Ware
Hit #1: July 6th, 1996 (3 Weeks)
On All Eyez On Me, 2Pac's first release since his his eleven-month jail big and the first- and second- installment of a three album deal with Death Row, the rapper expressed a largely celebratory mood, filling the double-disc with slickly-produced "thug-life"-repping rhetoric that dominated over the more conscious slant of past releases. "How Do U Want It", though manages to sneak in a little of both amidst the sultry funk of a Quincy Jones-sampling jeep jam.
Paired with the West Coast-hyping "California Love" as a double A-side single, the frisky "How Do U Want It" found Pac indulging in the benefits of being a multi-platinum "gangsta" rapper (or as the sweaty church croons of K Ci & Jo Jo so eloquently state: "Comin' up as a nigga in the cash game/ Livin in the fast lane"). With his infectiously bouncy flow riding atop a pure pimp groove, Pac dishes on his Alize-fueled sex-cravings ("I'm hittin' switches on bitches like I been fixed on hydraulics"), cruising the Cali streets looking for the next honey to pounce on, no strings attached ("Tell me is it cool to fuck?/ You think I come to talk?").
Then, as if he suddenly realized how irrelevant the material seemed, Pac deads the search for "America's Next Top Hoochie" mid-verse and turns his focus to the politicians obsessed with condemning him. To well-known rival C. Delores Tucker: "You a muthafucka/ Instead of tryin' to help a nigga/ You destroy a brotha" (The stinging line led to a lawsuit from Tucker the following year). From there, his poetry teeters with near-explosive angst at the list of escalating problems (some real, others formed out of paranoia) he's now facing: "They'd rather see me in a cell/ Livin in hell"; "Media is in my business and they actin' like they know me"; "These taxes got me crossed up and people tryin' to sue me." With all this pressure suffocating him from all sides, the carefree horniness that opened the track takes on a deeper meaning. All he wants is a brief escape from his troubles.
Was "How Do U Want It" the best Pac had to offer? Far from it. But his ability to cleverly sneak in dark introspection on what's otherwise a very commercial-leaning track offered a snippet of the multi-directional talent that would make him such an iconic rap figure.
DL: "How Do U Want It" (YFH)
0 comments:
Post a Comment