This is in my Top 5 of favorite Tupac songs, and it’s my mom’s ringtone when she calls.
With Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, passing away a few days ago, it’s no surprise that new Pac music would come to the surface. One of his most notable songs, ‘Dear Mama’, wasn’t released in its original format. The chorus originally featured a sample from Ice Cube affiliate Yo-Yo.
“The original version of ‘Dear Mama’ was far different than the version that was released, as far as the hook was constructed,” he said. “Originally, the hook was a sample of a song from the legendary rapper and friend of both of ours named Yo-Yo, from Ice Cube’s [Da] Lench Mob. The sample was ‘Wouldn’t be a damn thang without a woman,’ which was taken from the original song from Ice Cube’s ‘This Is A Man’s World,’ with the scratching done, of course, by yours truly DJ King Assassin.”
“The day after we had finished up on everything we were in Echo Sound in L.A. when Tupac comes in the studio very upset and proceeds to explain to us that we had to take out Yo-Yo’s part because a person by the name of Pat Charbonet would not give us the clearance to use that part in the song, so we had no choice but to take it out and that’s where even the Richard Pryor excerpt, which you will hear, is completely off the released version of the song.”
Check out the original version with the different hook, not bad.
h/t BSO
Best only