The late great Tupac Shakur penned one of the greatest songs “Dear Mama” dedicated to his mother Afeni Shakur, who unfortunately passed away this week from a heart attack.
‘Dear Mama’ is the most universally loved and played songs during Mother’s Day and one of Tupac’s biggest hits, but the song that is off his critically acclaimed album “Me Against The World” is not the original according to his former collaborator DJ King Assassin.
“The original version of ‘Dear Mama’ was far different than the version that was released, as far as the hook was constructed. Originally, the hook was a sample of a song from the legendary rapper and friend of both of ours named Yo-Yo, from Ice Cube’s [Da] Lench Mob. The sample was ‘Wouldn’t be a damn thang without a woman,’ which was taken from the original song from Ice Cube’s ‘This Is A Man’s World,’ with the scratching done, of course, by yours truly DJ King Assassin. The day after we had finished up on everything we were in Echo Sound in L.A. when Tupac comes in the studio very upset and proceeds to explain to us that we had to take out Yo-Yo’s part because a person by the name of Pat Charbonet would not give us the clearance to use that part in the song, so we had no choice but to take it out and that’s where even the Richard Pryor excerpt, which you will hear, is completely off the released version of the song.”
