Static: My Tupac Shakur Story

Static: My Tupac Shakur Story is a memoir by someone who knew Tupac before anybody else did. Chopmaster J, real name Jimi C. Dright Jr., co-founded Digital Underground in Oakland in 1987 together with Shock G and Kenny-K. That group gave Tupac his way into the music business: first as a dancer and hype man on stage, then, in 1991, with his first verses on record.

About the book

What it covers

Chopmaster J looks back on the hectic years around 1990: the tour bus, backstage, the studio, and Tupac’s restless drive to step out of the shadow of a colourful party band. The book is slim and heavily illustrated, told entirely from the author’s own point of view.

For collectors, the bundled CD is the real draw. According to the Library of Congress catalog record, it holds songs from Tupac’s 1989 demo tapes plus the song and video Static, recorded for an album by the Force One Network project that was never released. Chopmaster J produced those early sessions himself. The same material later became Beginnings: The Lost Tapes 1988-1991, officially released in 2007 by Koch Records and Amaru Entertainment, after an unauthorized release through Herb ‘N Soul in 2000 had been pulled.

Assessment

A small-press eyewitness memoir, not a biography. It documents a period most Tupac books pass over quickly, but it remains one participant’s memory, and that participant also had a business stake in the early recordings. No reviews in major outlets could be found. 2000 is often given as the publication year; library catalogs show the book was already out in 1999.

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