What brought ya’ll together with Tupac?
Tek: Well you know the saying real recognize real. When Pac first came to NY, he was doing the club scene heavy. Niggas was doing they club thing but we didn’t put a face with the name. Then he happened to go through his lil bullshit and got locked up and niggas made a comment to him like ‘keep ya head up and stay strong thug life for life.’ Outlawz is PNC. When he touched ground, he hollered at the god and from there it was family.
What was the experience like working with him?
Tek: Ahh it was real. I think that broadened my work ethic as an emcee period. As an individual just being around him, I had the god stop smoking cigarettes on some personal shit. He was a Gemini like I’m a Gemini so we just clicked up right there. We in the studio and you doing like three or four songs whereas before that a nigga was going in there doing like one freestyle not even a whole song. You figure you’re wasting thousands of dollars to do nothing when you could be taking care of B.I. Niggas just really sat down and became focused right there and that just helped us better ourselves as an emcee and as a person.
What was the wildest incident you can recall being with Pac?
Tek: It’s a couple but the one that really stands out was when we was coming from a movie set. He was filming a joint and he’d tell niggas to come through. We just happened to pull into a gas station and it was like on some Menace II Society like I know this ain’t no setup type shit. It’s like everything just stopped and he was like ‘What the fuck? Ya’ll niggas know who I am right now? You know niggas out to kill me blahzay blah’ He was like get the fuck up outta here and it was just so ill. It was funny and real at the same time. Niggas laugh at the stupidest things that be serious but it be funny. That’s one occasion.
Steele: A lot of people don’t realize that with Pac it wasn’t all work. When we went out there as soon as we landed he had his film guy, this kid named Goldie, meet us at the airport. He was making a film at the time. His thing was instead of doing a video he was gonna do a collection of videos.
Tek: That’s why you see a glimpse of Smif n Wessun in everything that come out.
Steele: What was dope for me was how he received us. This is in the midst of so-called east coast and west coast beef and we east coast niggas straight from the belly of Brooklyn. We go to Cali and we get out there and they had the limousine pick us up but we ain’t into all that limo shit. We don’t know what the vibe is gonna be but as soon as we pull up to the studio the first person we see is Snoop. Buck and Snoop seen each other and it was like they was old cousins. Then as soon as that happen we see Pac come out the studio with that infamous bop he got. It was like he was coming to greet his long lost friends. From day one when he seen us it was like a friendship. Instead of staying at a hotel, we stayed at his crib with his aunt and his moms. The Outlawz took us around when Pac wasn’t around. If we wasn’t in the studio we was building. One part that was funny when we were out there Buckshot was like yo Pac where the shorties at? Go call some shorties or something. So Pac got on the phone and tried to call up some chicks but he couldn’t get no chicks.
Haha
Steele: He was like I can’t get no bitches fucking with ya’ll. We really were just sitting in the crib. The nigga had the old big ass laserdisc and we was like put that Scarface shit on and he was like nah I don’t know how to work that shit. He was such a person. From a distance, you would think that he’s this guy you can’t sit next to or talk to and be real with but it was totally the opposite. We really had a connection. Like my PNC was talking about when he came from the movie shoot we were just getting up in the morning. So normally we get up in the morning and we do our push ups, so we doing our reps and Buckshot’s brother Thor is cooking breakfast for an army, flapjacks, eggs and all kinds of crazy shit. Pac comes in the crib with his white tuxedo shirt and his white hush puppies on and he’s like ‘Yeah!’ He see niggas doing push ups and he gets crazy amped drops down and starts doing push ups with us. It was some real shit, even seeing him and Tek when Thor yell breakfast is ready. Them niggas run down the stairs like two mischievous kids, go in the kitchen and get they shit first and put hot sauce on they turkey bacon. They was eating the same. We was all eating together. That right there was wild because you’re in that and a lot of times when you’re going through some shit you don’t really understand the intensity of what you’re dealing with until after the fact. So watching Pac, Tek, and Buckshot getting the super soakers and having a water fight it wasn’t the video scene. There were no video hoes but there was a lot of weed in the studio though. You know how we like to keep it a lot of weed, a lot of Hennessey and Thug Passion going on except for the last day.
This last day might have been the wildest shit. Up until this day, everything was cool. Suge was calling Pac all day and all day Pac had a sullen ass vibe. Every time he would get on the phone with this dude, he would put his head down, talk low and when he get off the phone with him he was somewhere else. At that point, we couldn’t really speak to him because we didn’t know what was going on. He’s like this motherfucker Suge is having a party in Vegas. I think it was a party for Pac because his birthday was coming up soon. Suge was having a party for him in Vegas and Pac didn’t want to go. He knew he had to go. Long-short, he kept getting on the phone back and forth and finally Suge sent some tickets. So the whole time we quiet and we heading to the airport to go to Vegas. He gets his ticket and he’s on a different plane than us. It was him and two other people on one plane and it was like five of us on another plane. We in the airport and he’s looking at these tickets and he’s like I told this nigga! Then he was just like fuck it. He took them tickets and threw them shits on the floor, BONG!, and we broke out from the airport. After we broke out, we went to the studio cuz we was like let’s take this vibe and turn it around. So we went to the studio and that was the hardest song we did while we were out there. It was so uncomfortable. He had a vibe like he did something that he was gonna have to answer to later on. I felt like I wanted to stay out there with him because he just rode for me and my team real hard right there. Plane tickets is a lot of money and you got eight motherfuckers flying out and to be just like I’m not going that’s kinda gangsta. We were working on a song called “I Never Call You Bitch Again.” Buckshot was in there, he was taking long to do his verse, and Pac was like c’mon man it shouldn’t take you this long. He was crazy different. Other than that, the overall vibe was he was a brother we ain’t seen in a long time. A lot of people ask us when those songs are coming out and I think that was just a spiritual encounter for us to grow off of and pass it on to other comrades. That’s where Buck got his name B.D.I. Thug. Pac was the first to call him that.
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What’s the most memorable gift anyone has ever given you?
Tek: Oh gosh, I had some bomb ass head. But let’s see family is a beautiful thing so I’m gonna have to say the love from my family.
Steele: I got some dope shit. When we was out there with Pac we went to this Aids benefit party and there were nothing but movies stars there. At the end of the night they were giving out these Adida bags and they wouldn’t give us no bags. They seen Pac and they was like here’s a bag and I’m like I need a bag and they like get outta here we don’t know you. So Pac snatched the shit and gave it to me. It was a bunch of different shit in the bag, CDs, t-shirts etc. Pac had a t-shirt and a lighter and I’m like they didn’t give me no shirt and no lighter so he gave me his shit. I got a shirt and a lighter from Tupac that was dope. It’s between that and this cat, who knows a friend of mine, painted a portrait of me. That’s hanging on the wall.
