You know what’s crazy about these Tupac albums? These three records, Me Against The World, All Eyez On Me, and Makaveli [The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory] was played so much that you start mixing up what songs was on what album because there was so much in heavy rotation.

"I got into it through both [his beats and his raps], me being a kid and listening to it. He was a rapper. I kind of knew he made the beats too for some reason. I think somebody told me that ‘cause as a kid I never looked at Quik as just a rapper. I knew that he actually did the whole instrumentation behind it"

“I’m sure it was a big influence, just what he talked about. Cube talked about a lot of stuff that was going on in the world as well. He blended that into the streets and it was really from a raw standpoint. That’s why I like that the most.”

"That was probably the first rap album I remember them playing in the house from top to bottom. Songs that I actually remember as a kid. That’s the start of them house parties I always talk about growing up."

“‘Who Am I (What’s My Name)’ is probably one of the first rap records I really learned all the way. I remember watching it on The Box, the cable channel you had to like order and call. I remember them playing that and ‘I Got 5 On It’ like 10 times in a row on certain days.”

"[What resonated with me was] the storytelling, just the storytelling, how in-depth the storytelling was. The storytelling and the flow. The one thing about West Coast music, we had storytelling, it wasn’t crazy in-depth like that, but we had it. Our stuff was more laid back, more flow and feel good, more how records felt. His was just grimy. Stories was crazy. Flows was crazy.”

"It really was just in heavy rotation. Constantly going back and forth where we was just mixing and matching songs together. It was really dark. ‘Death Around The Corner,’ ‘So Many Tears,’ you can tell what type of space he was in.”

“Yeah, with ‘Let’s Play House.’ [Laughs] Yeah, Dogg Pound, Dogg Food, Kurupt. They was so cold with it. That was all the stuff I was playing in the house too. I was exposed to all them crazy raps. Daz on the beat, Kurupt spitting crazy bars. ‘Let’s Play House’ was one of the standout joints.”

"You know what’s crazy about these Tupac albums? These three records, Me Against The World, All Eyez On Me, and Makaveli [The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory] was played so much that you start mixing up what songs was on what album because there was so much in heavy rotation. With the older songs and the newer songs, they were played so much in the household. All I can remember is just my pops always constantly just playing that album. Just playing it, playing it playing it. All of them really were in heavy rotation. That’s all we knew in the house.”

"I got into Reasonable Doubt like 2002, 2001. I was super late. On the West Coast we weren’t really playing East Coast music like that just because of all the beef stuff that was going on—we was really influenced by that. I’m like 9, 10, 11 years old. I don’t wanna listen to nothing on the East Coast. Everything everybody was playing was Death Row.”