Volume I

About

Perhaps the most underappreciated album of 2Pac's lifetime is an important transitional document—the pivot point in one of hip-hop's most storied creative evolution. Released in September 1994, weeks before he survived a shooting at a Times Square studio, <i>Thug Life: Vol. 1</i> serves as the doorway between 2Pac the Molotov-tossing political firebrand of 1993's <i>Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.</i> and 2Pac the introspective, confessional poet of 1995's <i>Me Against the World</i>. His darker and more nihilistic moods begin here, as well as his more immediate, less flashy rhyme style. Thug Life, the group, was a supergroup of sorts: 2Pac, his stepbrother Mopreme (who had been on a Top 10 single for Tony! Toni! Toné!), future Outlawz member Big Syke, Macadoshi, Rated R, and plenty of assistance from Stretch of the Tommy Boy-signed New York duo Live Squad, who was murdered a year later. However, the Thug Life MCs all seemed to share one bleak vision, spinning emotion-rich tales of rough upbringings and the horrors of ghetto life. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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