- May '96 - August '96
- After Johnny J left Death Row, 2Pac tried to complete One Nation compilation
Snoop & Tupac
Brotherhood Crusade, the 15th of August 96
### This is a personal attempt to recreate this unfinished project, following the available tracklists from July / August of 96, but by leaving off the tracks of the first June sessions for the Volume One and by filling these second sessions with songs that could logically be included. ###
2. Toss It Up (Remix) feat. K-Ci & Jojo, Danny Boy & Aaron Hall
- in BOLD : tracks appearing in One Nation tracklists or * which could have been recorded for it.
During the recording sessions in June with Boot Camp Clik, Greg Nice & others, Tupac was thinking to make other sessions with artists like Scarface, E-40, Outkast, Grand Puba, Rakwon, Ghostface Killah... But these new guests seem to be there to complete One Nation compilation and not to create a second volume.
But it is said that then Tupac thought about making a second and even a third volume of One Nation (maybe "West" and "South"). He even thought to transform his 2Pac+Outlawz album called The Hunger / Troublesome, Tha Secretz of War - that was almost ready to release in late June - in the One Nation West.
It
is important to say that in June, 2Pac was trying to mix this Outlawz
album. In the very first days of the month, "Hit Em Up" was out as a
B-Side and they recorded a clean version of the hit, and a video for the
first clip-single "Made Niggaz". If you listen to the One Nation, the Sessions, you could hear 2Pac working at "Last Onez Left", "Troublesome"... Two songs recorded during One Nation
were new versions of songs from the Outlawz album : "Secretz of War",
"Never Call U Bitch Again". A new version of "U Can't Be Touched" will
as well been recorded... At last, some songs like "Untouchablez", "Thug
Luv", recorded around the time of the sessions appear in both tracklist
projects. In late Outlawz tracklists, Tupac included a solo track by
Fatal called "Hollywood, New Jersey"...
So, we can say that Outlawz LP and One Nation were deeply connected. Maybe at that point we could say that part of the songs recorded would have been for Outlawz LP and that the rest would have been completed with new songs.
Something will complicate everything. Johnny J ceased to work with Death Row in May (it is said that he was complaining - like Mopreme and Syke - about his underpaid work on All Eyez on Me). Outlawz LP was almost entirely produced by him (like 2Pac scrapped solo)... It seems that the dispute comes to 2Pac and him. Circa mid July, all Johnny J songs disappear from 2Pac projects : "When Thugz Cry" from Makaveli ; "Secretz of War" and "Never Call U Bitch Again" from One Nation. And will appear new Outlawz project called Ghetto Starz (with "Hollywood, New Jersey"). Have 2Pac scrapped the whole album because of Johnny J ?
Anyway, in the late One Nation tracklists you can see the new song "Smile 4 Me", probably the one recorded in August with Scarface. The song "Untouchable" recorded in early June appears to complete the tracklist. We can imagine that Tupac would have continued to include new combinations with guests to achieve One Nation (Spice 1, Kokane, Lil' Big, Nutt-So, recorded with him in August).
The tracklist took back old One Nation titles but also dropped "Jawz Tight" that arrived in Ghetto Starz Outlawz new project. "Frankie & Johnny" unknown song will also be included in Outlawz tracklist (as a Hussein/Noble duet).
One Nation is a special project because you can really recognize the typical sound from that session. Absolutely no other 2Pac song sounds like that. So we decided to follow the idea of a full new One Nation Part 2 including new featurings. We included "Fame", "Don't Sleep" and "One Day at A Time" recorded in August as well as "Thug Luv" (Bone Thugz announced in One Nation initial tracklists), "Reincarnation" (recorded the same day than "Untouchable").
But in One Nation, it is already east coast / west coast, isn't it ? The central tracks of One Nation were already east/west united (2Pac/Buckshot). In the other hand, we could answer that 2Pac and the Outlawz come from the New Jersey... so they are east and west at the same time... But we can also find west coast artists like Snoop, Kurupt and Numskull from the Luniz (in fact Kurupt is also from the East coast, Philadelphia...).
Anyway, the temptation to gather this west side collection was too great and the result looks really awesome, don't you think ?
DETAILED TRACKLIST
(Special thanks to Bomb1st members Filla and Dominator for samples credits)
- 1996/03 - ? (final mix). Published as a bonus track with an added outro in some (unofficial ?) versions of Nutt-So's The Betrayal (2000, Nutty's Playhouse). Released in Better Dayz (2002). A first take was found in the background of the leaked mix of the song we have, with alternate vocals take and chorus.
- Samples :
- Leon Ware - "What's Your World" (melody)
- 1996/05 (?) - 07/25 (new mix). Released in Greatest Hits (1998, Death Row) with 2Pac's second verse added. The fact that this mix exist without a second verse could justify the idea of an early first version, Aaron Hall's version, in June, then remixed due to the legal demand by Blackstreet in July to not using the Dre beat. Aaron Hall explained that Teddy Riley asked to record "No Diggity" with Guy but he refused - an explanation would be that he already recorded on that beat with 2Pac and Death Row.
- Samples :
- Bill Withers - "Grandma's Hand" (melody)
- Blackstreet, Dr. Dre & Queen Pen - "No Diggity" (vocals interpolation)
03. Smile 4 Me (Damon Thomas Remix) feat. Scarface & 816 (?) / Darryl Harper REMIXED by Damon Thomas
- 1996/08/13-17 - 10/28 (remix). Released in Death Row's Greatest Hits (1996). Remixed in Scarface's The Untouchable (1997, Rap-A-Lot). Darryl Harper produced the original unleaked version with the sample of Sara Smile's "Hail and
Oates". It is said that the very first version was from the 13th but had Kadafi & Edi instead of Scarface (the song was firstly intended to be for Outlawz LP, cf. Troublesome, Tha Secretz of War). Damon Thomas aka Assassin was probably asked to make a first remix because the sample was too hard to clear. Scarface was hoped for One Nation and the song "Smile 4 Me" appears in One
Nation late tracklists.
04
05. Fortune & Fame feat. Kokane, Edi, Kadafi & Spice 1 / Hurt M Badd & Darryl Harper
- 1996/08/20. Remixed in Better Days (2002, Amaru). There is a short kind of live studio take with 2Pac singing the chorus. 2Pac wanted to work again with Above The Law (a "187" credit appears in a late Dramacydal tracklist in mid 95) after their collab in early 92 for "Call It What U Want" (cf. Featurings).
- Samples :
- Bad Bascomb - "Black Grass" (kick)
06. Untouchable feat. Kadafi, Hussein & Edi / 2Pac, Darryl Harper & Hurt-M-Badd (?) - [FIX Kadafi's verse by DJ Moey]
- 1996/06/10. Included in One Nation part 2 July tracklists, it leads to the idea that 2Pac would have made a compilation of various tracks recorded since at least early June. In most of the available leaked mixes, Kadafi's verse is not well patched. Pac's verse "after the fire comes the rain, after pleasure there's pain..." will be re-used in the "Drunken freestyle", in "War Gamez" and in "Killuminati"...
- Samples :
- Everything But The Girl - "Single" (melody)
07. Don't Stop, Keep Goin' feat. Dogg Pound / Daz
- 1996/01 - 08/19 (edit Kurupt's verse). Released in Dogg Pound's 2002 (2001, Death Row). A first version has been recorded in summer of 1995 with Nas instead of 2Pac (released in Tha Last of Tha Pound, in 2004). Probably because of the feud between the Dogg Pound and C-N-N & Mobb Deep ("New York, New York" ; "L.A, L.A"), they dropped out the Nas verse and gave a space to 2Pac that had close enemies (New-York, Bad Boy Records ; Napoleon too had a beef with Mobb Deep). Kurupt re-recorded his verse or edited it : "Kurupt, Daz and Nas" becoming "Kurupt, Daz reside". In the original version of this re-recording, Kurupt had a second verse. Daz probably edited that second verse off in August of '96 for their West Coast Aftershock shelved album.
- Samples :
- The Sequence - "Funk You Up" (chorus interpolation)
08
09. Thug Luv feat. Bizzy Bone & Silk-E-Fyne / DJ U-Neek
- 1996/06/22-26 (?). Released in Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's The Lost Archives vol. 1 (2013, Harmony Howse). Initially there were three versions of the original song. The first and real original features Bizzy Bone and a short verse from Silk E Fyne, the second with Layzie Bone instead of Sylk E-Fyne and the 3rd added verses from the other Bones. The second version is maybe just an intermediate version. The third version has been remixed for the Bone's album The Art of War (1997, Ruthless).
- Samples :
- Sly & The Family Stone - "Sing A Simple Song" (snare, kick)
10. Don't Sleep feat. Lil' Big (A.M.W.), Napoleon, Kadafi, Kastro & Nutt-So / Daz & Chicago Craig
- 1996/08/10. This song is said to have been recorded for Nutt-So solo album but it was finally not in the Betrayal released
album (four years later). There is a
remix made by GO Twice, with Edi instead of Lil'Big, its music sounds
great but it doesn't always fit well with the verses and has probably
been made circa 1997-1999. Lil' Big was a regular partner of Nutt-So and his group Street Thugs (cf. Not To Be Fucked With). But his group American Most Wanted was in itself a well known group in the West Coast, the released two albums in 90 and in 95.
11. One Day At A Time (Spice 1 Remix) feat. LP, Spice 1 & Headstrong (chorus) / Hen Gee
- 1996/08/29 - (?) (guests added). Recorded at Ice-T's home studio. It is said that the guests gave their verses after Pac's death... So the demo with Pac solo (with alternate vocals) could be the real original, awaiting for Outlawz verses or for One Nation guests : E-40 & The Click ? Outkast & The Goodie Mob ? Hen-Gee was known for his album Brothers with Evil-E in 1991. In 1996, he was producing for Ice-T and Spice 1. Spice 1 pretends to have recorded the song with Pac very few time before Las Vegas shooting. So maybe he was with 2Pac the 29th at Ice-T's home.
- Samples :
- Tara Kemp - "Hold You Tight" (inspiration, drums interpolation)
12. World Wide Stampede (Time After Time) feat. OFTB, Kurupt, Kadafi & Michel'le (chorus) / Derrell (OFTB) & Darryl Harper
- 1996/03/31. Probably recorded for OFTB shelved second album I Come Up Hard and finally released in OFTB's The Missing D.R. Files (2007, WIDEawake).
13. Street Life (Remix) feat. Prince Ital Joe, Snoop Dogg & Val Young / Daz, LT Hutton & Soopafly
- 1996/03/21 (Daz & Ital) - 04/04 (Snoop replaced Daz) - 06/11 (2Pac added). The first take by Prince Ital Joe & Daz is said to be a reference for Snoop Doggy Dogg, to help him with the writing of his new album Tha Doggfather (like Pac's "This Ain't Livin'"). 2Pac added in June like he did in "Out The Moon" to replace Lil C-Style. In September, Snoop took off both songs from his album (he said by respect for 2Pac). After that, the song eventually was planned to be included in Gridlock'd or Gang Related soundtracks.
- Samples :
- The Crusaders - "Street Life" (chorus interpolation)
- Biz Markie & T.J. Swan - "Make The Music With Your Mouth, Biz" (drumline interpolation)
14. Reincarnation (My Only Fear of Death) feat. Hussein, Edi & Kastro / Darryl Harper & Hurt-M-Badd
- 1996/06/10. There is an alternate version with a speaking outro by Frank Alexander's niece Lemika, a disabled girl representing for the Make A Wish Foundation, who was invited to assist the recording sessions of the day. In this song, Tupac reuses the concept of his unreleased song recorded in late '93 (a concept he took from Syke partner Mental Illness from their group Evil Mind Gangstas.
BONUS TRACKS :
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