All you 2Pac fans out there get ready because new material from the legendary rapper will be released soon. Read more on the story after the jump!
Jeff Jampol, owner of JAM Inc., tells Billboard, that this is the beginning of a “total reset of the Shakur estate.” Shakur’s mother, Afeni, went to JAM, Inc. for them to oversee 2Pac’s collection which includes everything from “unreleased music, released music, remixes, original demos, writings, scripts, plans, video treatments [and] poems.” The company partnered with Tom Whalley, who signed Pac to Interscope in 1991. Whalley is the head of Loma Vista Records. The company is planning to mirror what its been able to do with the management of estates from Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson and the Doors. They specifically work on licensing, apparel, and other media ventures.
Whalley who has went through much of the archive says, “Some of [the material] is in bits and pieces, some of it is complete; some of it is good, some of it needs work……But I think the work that is left can be completed, and is worth his fans hearing.” Because of the 20th anniversary of Shakur’s September 1996 death approaching, some of the projects are lined up for later this year, which includes new apparel, collections like the recent Grammy Museum exhibit, as well as a biography by a “very serious writer.”
More recently 2Pac was included in the Powerade commercial and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly closer, “Mortal Man,” which featured a 1994 interview with Shakur. Whalley said, “I thought it was a brilliant idea, and they sent me portions of what he was thinking of doing, and I supported it. I think if Tupac was here, he would have tremendous respect for Kendrick Lamar’s work…At some point in time, Kendrick would be brilliant to work with Tupac’s [material]. He’s one of the new great poets.”
Whalley also wants to do a project that would involve musicians singing to Pac’s words, and it would be similar to the Bob Dylan project Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, where artists used unused Bob Dylan lyrics from 1967.
