Beginnings: The Lost Tapes and The Prophet Returns

In early 2000, Jimi “Chopmaster J” Dright comes across cassettes in his mother’s basement that he had believed lost since 1991. On them: an eighteen-year-old Tupac rapping with his first group around 1989. What followed was no find for the display case but a legal fight spanning almost two decades.

This page gathers three releases on the edge of the discography. Beginnings collects the earliest recordings. The Prophet: The Best of the Works and The Prophet Returns are compilations that Death Row put together from its own catalog. Only one of the three also came out under the name of Tupac’s estate company Amaru, and all three say something about who owned Tupac’s recordings after his death.

Cassettes from the Strictly Dope days

The tapes date from the time when Tupac lived in Marin City and formed the group Strictly Dope with Ray Luv. In 2001, AllHipHop dated the recordings to the summer of 1989. There are ten tracks, among them Panther Power, The Case of the Misplaced Mic in two parts, Minnie the Moocher and two mixes of Static.

Material from the same source had circulated before. Chopmaster’s book Static: My Tupac Shakur Story came out in 1999 with a CD, and in Australia the CD 1 in 21 appeared in 1997, along with the single Static.

A recall, a settlement, a lawsuit

Tupac’s estate had not approved the first edition of April 2000. The estate wrote to retailers asking them not to sell the CD; according to Wikipedia, it was withdrawn. AllHipHop names Dright’s company Network One as the publisher. In May 2001 the two sides settled, and the record was allowed back into stores (news). In Germany it had been released by ZYX (news).

According to Wikipedia, the 2007 reissue came out with the approval of Afeni Shakur, under a new title and with new artwork. It did not bring peace. In September 2013 Afeni sued Entertainment One, formerly Koch, for more than 1.1 million dollars; Complex named missing royalties for Beginnings as the trigger (news). Only in 2018, after Afeni’s death, did the dispute end in a settlement (news).

A document, not a masterpiece

Critics agreed that this is the sound of a beginner. Max Helke of laut.de called the sound quality poor because the recordings come from ordinary cassettes, and heard early Miami bass rather than West Coast rap; for collectors, he still considered the CD essential. AllMusic gave it one and a half out of five stars, with Jason Birchmeier finding the delivery committed but clumsy and imitative.

Death Row helps itself

• Title: The Prophet: The Best of the Works
• Release: July 7, 2003
• Label: Death Row Records
• Recordings: 1994 to 1996
• Contents: 14 tracks, about 68 minutes, six from All Eyez on Me, five from The Don Killuminati, plus soundtrack songs
• Charts: Ireland No. 41, New Zealand No. 40
• Certification: Platinum in New Zealand (15,000 units, streaming included)

After Tupac’s death, the recordings from his time at Suge Knight’s label stayed there. While Amaru released new albums with Interscope, Death Row reshuffled familiar songs. The Prophet strings together tracks such as Only God Can Judge Me, Me and My Girlfriend, Against All Odds and California Love. The album contains no new material.

The sequel with Koch

• Title: The Prophet Returns
• Release: October 3, 2005
• Label: Death Row Records / Koch Records
• Recordings: 1992 to 1996
• Contents: 15 tracks, about 75 minutes, nine of them from All Eyez on Me

Two years later came the second part, this time distributed by Koch, which also handled the remix series Nu-Mixx Klazzics. Alongside album tracks such as No More Pain and Picture Me Rollin’ it includes the B-side Hit ‘Em Up, plus Hail Mary and a track from the Gang Related soundtrack. Chart positions are not documented.

How contested this vault was became clear in 2007: when Death Row, in bankruptcy, offered unreleased Tupac recordings for sale, Afeni Shakur went to court against it, according to XXL. What became of that material is told on the page Unreleased songs. The three albums are therefore more than footnotes. They mark the years in which Tupac’s voice belonged to several owners at once.