Rappin’ 4-Tay appeared on Tupac Skakur’s 1996 album, All Eyez On Me. In an exclusive interview with HipHopDX, Rappin’ 4-Tay says that he reached out to Tupac when he was incarcerated, which led to 4-Tay’s appearance on the landmark release.
“I sent a female out to Rikers Island to go visit him, put some ‘zoom zooms’ and ‘wham whams’ in his books,” Rappin’ 4-Tay says during an exclusive interview with HipHopDX. “You know, send him some love. Some money, as well. So he felt that from a distance. When I finally got out, we coincidentally seen each other at the Beverly Center [shopping center in Los Angeles]. We embraced and we painted the whole town…Los Angeles…day and night, having fun, supermodels, bottles. Goin’ full throttle, in the droptop Rolls Royce, just having fun. You couldn’t separate us. As a matter of fact, Suge Knight was looking for us. There was an APB out on Rappin’ 4-Tay and Tupac Shakur. So to calm Suge Knight down, when we did get in the studio, when we finally made it back, we put together a song, ‘Only God Can Judge Me,’ and history was made.”
“Only God Can Judge Me” was a manifestation of the bond Rappin’ 4-Tay and Tupac shared beyond music, Rappin’ 4-Tay says.
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Rappin’ 4-Tay Had A Tight Bond With Tupac
“’Pac is my Godbrother,” Rappin’ 4-Tay says. Tupac’s mother “Afeni Shakur was like my Godmother. We came up together. It was unfortunate that times when he was in Ghetto University I was free and when I was in Ghetto University he was free.”
Rappin’ 4-Tay gained national notoriety when he appeared on Too $hort’s “Don’t Fight the Feelin’,” a cut from the Oakland, California’s 1988 album, Life Is…Too $hort. Rappin’ 4-Tay says he is preparing to celebrate his twenty-fifth anniversary in rap by dropping three albums. The collections are slated to feature new and previously unreleased recordings from 4-Tay and his old T.W.D.Y. crew. The songs are scheduled to include a host of a-list guest appearances, including a never-before-heard track with Tupac.
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“There’s a Christmas package that’s coming out first, and that’s called The Appetizer,” Rappin’ 4-Tay says. “With every main course you got your salad, your appetizer, your salad and your main course. The project basically consists of everything that I’m working on lately, which is 25 years of Rappin’ 4-Tay. It’s about reinventing myself, getting back into the limelight, making myself a force and giving the fans a mix that they’ve been waiting for for oh so long.”
Rappin’ 4-Tay Delivering “Star-Studded” Albums
4-Tay says his second and third albums are defined by two words.
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“Star-studded,” the Bay Area veteran says. “I got a whole bunch of predominant artists that got tracks on there, Too $hort, Snoop, Daz and Kurupt. The list goes on. Treach, Akon. We got one on there with Bone thugs-n-harmony, the Ying Yang Twins. It’s gonna be star-studded. And then the other album is gonna be called I Got The Bay On My Back, which brings back all the classic Bay Area rappers that you haven’t heard from in years. I got all of them coming back on that album. T.W.D.Y. and Ant Banks, he’s got a track on there. It’s a little touch of the Bay to give the local fans a taste of what we been doing. I even got a track with Tupac on there.”
Beyond his music, 4-Tay says he has several film projects in the pipeline.
“I’m working on a movie right now called The Bay,” he says. “I’m working on another movie with Eric Roberts, it’s called Don’t Shoot! I’m the Guitar Man, based on the bestseller by Buzzy Martin. I got a young group called the Interceptors and The Fat Kids on my label 4 Flavaz Records, and I’m working on a comic book as well so there’s a lotta things comin’ from Rappin’ 4-Tay. We even got a European Tour and then a US strip club tour, so keep your ears wide open. Get you some Q-tip swabs and get ready.”
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