All Eyez On Me

the take

Even as I remember my sister playing this album through her CD player when I was a toddler, I clearly remember how amazing 2Pac's "All Eyez on Me" sounded. Granted, I only felt the vibe musically then, but I fucked with the music heavy. In the years since developing my own music taste, I keep coming back to this album time and time again, mainly due to this being one of those albums that laid the foundation for my musical likes and dislikes to begin with. My opinion has not really changed much at all, if I can be quite honest. "A two-hour long rap album? I'm sure there's some filler on here, right?!" Well, yeah... but there are so many bangers throughout the two discs that really outnumber the filler tracks. Filler or otherwise, there's no denying that 2Pac knew the world was watching him at all times and letting us know that's the case via his energy and lyricism through 27 tracks. Topic-wise, it can get a bit redundant, which is really one somewhat significant flaw, but the production on here, which is more West Coast and G-Funk than previous 2Pac albums, is more bouncy and energetic. When it comes to "Book 1" and "Book 2", the clearly better one is the first one. Disc 1 has all the singles and uptempo bangers, so it's not surprising how the majority of us have the aforementioned opinion. However, I will let it be known that the second disc has some bangers as well, like "Can't C Me", the title track "All Eyez on Me", and the Bay Area-energy posse cut "Ain't Hard 2 Find". (Side note: "Ain't Hard 2 Find" is my favorite track out of the entire album, as crazy as that sounds.) A two-hour rap album, the first of its kind and was unheard of back in 1996. And yet somehow, I still see toddler me still shaking trying to dance to this masterpiece like it was yesterday. That's how amazing and timeless "All Eyez on Me" really is.