This is an excerpt from Shock G's upcoming book chronicling his time with 2pac during his pre-Death Row days, including the recording of the legendary I Get Around. This is a real nice read, gives great insight into the making of the beat and the actual studio session with the greatest rapper to ever touch a mic. Enjoy and R.I.P. Pac...
"The ’I Get Around’ Story"by shockg(this is an excerpt from the forthcoming book "Producing a Young Genius", coming in 2009) The deep 808 kick-drum, the screeching percussion turntable part, the"step-up" (james brown?) voice sample, and the triplet-snare pick-upare all part of 1 sample; "Step into the Arena" by Gang Starr. I thinkthat was the title, but all I know for sure is that it was Gangstarrand that it was a song from one of their first 2 albums.The main kick, snare, & hats where all individual drum samples fromold james brown records, on an MPC disc full of drum sounds that Fuzetailor made & truncated himself and then passed it on to me:"Shock, your drums are gettin stale. You make good tracks, your beatsswing, but I’m gettin tired of those same ol’ drum sounds; here trysome of these." Get Around was the first beat I made after Fuze slid me that disc ata rehearsal. The drum pattern, the bassline, both piano tracks, thechord change from those piano tracks, and the ultra-low tuning of thehats where all original and were my doing. The layered cry-baby vocalsamples; "I been arounnnnn’ ooh oo-oo-oooh" (..yeah, it isn’t evensaying "get" around), and "you knoww I.." were both lifted fromRogers’ "Computer Love" and I ran them through a DJ mixer andtransformed them as I sampled ’em. That’s what chopped it all up likethat. Pac heard the track for the 1st time almost five months after it wasmade. It just missed becoming the theme music to an "Oz" type TVseries called "Angel Street", but the networks never picked it upafter the 3 pilot shows aired. After that, it was a popular 4-trackcassette instrumental that I used to carry around, and it served as abackbeat to many freestyle sessions and rocked many parties. At oneoutdoor picknic/video shoot (for the song "Spirit" by Force OneNetwork), repeated plays of that 4-track cassette I Get Aroundinstrumental slowly pulled 30 to 40 people (almost half the peoplethere) away from the set and over to the parking lot 200 yards awaywhere we were bumping it out of a friends droptop camaro. The crowdkept insisting we play it again & again, over & over & over. Itsounded SO fresh & exciting that summer, a year before it came out. After Angel Street got rejected by the networks, we decided to recordit as a d.u. song. But before we even began work on it, a call came inthat the director john singelton wanted a song with Pac & d.u.together for the Poetic Justice soundtrack and that "Shock should makethe beat". So I mailed Pac a tape with 3 beats on it, the Get Aroundbeat first, and 2 other tracks I had made in case he didn’t like thatone. I was concerned that it was too pretty for Pac and he might notof liked it. The Angel Street producers were concerned it wasn’t toughenough for their street series, and another rap crew we used to runwith called "the Dungeon Squad" rejected it all together. (I nevertold them the picnic story though, I felt the artist should always hear the magic themselves.) But don’t let 20/20 hindsight fool you, that beat wasn’t so obvious back then, most people thought it was too pretty & R&B souding for hip-hop believe it of not. Anyway, when I sent it to Pacs’ cabin or trailer or whatever they hadhim in on the "..Justice" set, he paused the tape after the first 2bars of Get Around went by and left me this excited phone message:"YES! YES NIGGA! BEAT ONE! I HAVEN’T EVEN LISTENED TO MORE THAN A FEWSECONDS SO FAR, BUT YES, BEAT ONE! Okay, I’ma press play now andlisten to the rest of the tape."About a week or 2 later, I was told by either Atron or someone at Interscope what time Pac would be in town, and we figured out the best time for the session. It took place at Starlight Sound in Richmond California, and here’s what happened:I had been in the studio all night & day by the time Pac arrived. I had been dumping tracks for Raw Fusion, digital underground, and adding vocals to Gold Money’s album the day before. All of Atrons acts where in the studio that week, the entire TNT label/roster, and we had Starlight Sound locked out the entire month. As one act was leaving, the next would be arriving, usually stopping in the booth to add their 2-cents to whoever elses album. Back then we didn’t have Pro-tools, Cubase, or Reason yet; so dumping tracks involved a shitload of changing disks, switching & re-plugging midi cables, repositioning keyboards & rackmounted gear, and re-directing quarter-inch cables to various outputs in the MPC60, the SP1200drum machine, or the various keyboards & rackmounts. By the time Pacs session rolled around I was exhausted from a day of the above, but Darrin & I managed to get the track recorded properly, and I even managed to add the little live piano bits with a little flavor & enthusiasm. As usual, Pac was either pacing back & forth impatiently as we layed the music, or leaving on missions across town to get more weed.As we were finishing the music Pac stormed in and announced "We gotta finish it today. I want you & Mun ta put yall verses on it right now too." I said.. "I’ll get a verse tagetha tanite when I get home, and come back 2morrow and lay it", as I started unplugging & tearing down my equipment rack. I was in the habit of splitting my brain into two different modes, either producer mode, or emcee mode, two totally different mindsets. Rarely did I ever do vocals and lay beats in the same session. One required a more detailed logical state of mind, the other required care-free spontaneity. As a producer, sobriety was best, but as a vocalist I always worked better with a buzz. But Pac replied.. "I ain’t got till 2morrow, their mastering it 2morrow. A messenger from Interscope is on his way here now to take the master and fly it back to LA with him tonight. We gotta finish it tonight". Swear ta god, it was all rush-rush like that. But he musta seen the exhaustion in my eyes because before I could even respond, he picked up a pen & pad and started scribblin words as he paced around the room. Less then 2 minutes later he handed me the paper and said.. "Just say this."Back then it was almost a crime ta say rimes that you yourself didn’t write, so I took the paper reluctantly and looked at it with a smirk, already ta say nay. But it was a tight verse I thought, so after fixing a word or two to be more my style, I went in the booth & tried it. I had to slow down a sentence or two, he had it too fast for my rimin style at first. It wasn’t that I couldn’t say fast raps, it was that I wasn’t known for it, so I figured it would be too obvious I didn’t write it if I suddenly started tongue-twistin outta the blue like that.Another concern of mine was the title & concept of the song.. us braggin about how we get around wit the chicks n all. At the time I was in love and engaged to someone, so at the time I was not down to be a "player" on the song, and I thought forsure that Pac would overlook this. But he knew Melissa, and supported our relationship, and had me covered. When I read.. "just cause I’m a freak doesn’t mean that we can hit the sheets.." that’s when I decided it was appropriate for me to say. The "satin on your panties" line was another cool sounding line but I really didn’t know what it meant when I was saying it, I just spit it confidently anyway, which is the rule when riming. Later, I imagined he meant that, before a girl was a fan of d.u., before she heard Sex Packets and Freaks of the Industry, and/or before she had sex with me personally, she wasn’t conscious of the fabric of her undergarments, or the sexiness-value of them, but ever since the "aftershock" she now wears satin panties regularly. (ha ha, Pac you a fool for that one!!)So as it turns out, the most popular punch-line of my career was penned by Tupac. So too-shay 2Pac, "without you, there’d be no me" as well!So after we all layed our verses, we left the 8-bar gaps where the hooks would go. Money-B by the way wrote his own verse, even though Pac rushingly wrote one for him as well, Mun didn’t like it and said his own instead. It was Pacs’ decision that I should sing the hook, and everyone agreed due to Kiss u Back being a big single out that year, with me doing the male singing parts. Pac didn’t have a melody idea, but he had the words.. "Round & round, round we go". When I asked him how he wanted me to say it, he said.. "You know, .. just put that Shock shit on it" ..which meant he didn’t have a musical idea for it, and was also his way of getting the best out of us, by boosting our egos & confidence. The way he said it translated: "you know, just do YO thing, I want YOUR thing on it" and it pumped us up before we added whatever we had.So I went in the booth, walking slowly, rehearsing in my head different melodies & rythmic patterns to fit the words to. By the time I reached the mic & put the headphones on, I had 3 different ideas to audition for everyone in the control room, which consisted of Darrin Harris the engineer, Pac, Mun, and 2 or 3 other homies, I forget which ones. I said over the mic "Okay here’s one way I could say it" ..and I sung idea 1 of the three, expecting that they’d let me try all three. But when they stopped the tape, everyone was all jumpin around in the control room, and Pac said "Nigga! Do you know how good that sounds?? Listen!" ..and we played it back for that first check. It caused everyone to jump around again, and Pac & Darrin were both like.. "Just double that". So I scratched whatever the other 2 ideas were without even doing them.. (trust me, they were hotter than what we kept, I was saving the best for last!) ..and put an identical stereo double over the first track, and that became the hook.Later when I rejoined Darrin at the board, Pac leaned over and said "Aight peace, make that shit sound fat!" and he bounced out the door as always, and left us to mix it down. He totally trusted our mixing ability and rarely even made a suggestion about the mix. I didn’t see Pac again till the video shoot weeks later. He never got invovled with the sound levels, the pans, the EQ, none of it.For the record, we mixed 4 versions of I Get Around, 3 of which I never saw again once I turned them in. We did a 3 minute short radio edit, a 4 min album version, a 5 min or so extended club version, and a completely instrumental version. The 4 min became the album & video version. The little mini 3 min version I never heard again, but no big deal. The extended club version I also never heard again, but this was a major loss. We had lots of music drop-outs, long drums-only sections, delays & echoes on sound bites, different vocal effects, etc., it was a fun mix. I wish interscope would release it one day. And the instrumental was equally lost in the shuffle. I only saw it once, over in Australia in 05, this kid brought it in for us to sign, a vinyl version, to a d.u. instore we were doing in downtown Adelaide. Me & Mun freaked when we saw it! ..it was a 12-inch maxi single on some Australian label. We offered the dude big US bucks to buy it, but he wouldn’t sell it. I was like, "Man, we need this for live shows!".Oh well, I shoulda kept copies of all that ish. Back then I didn’t bother makin copies of the stuff we were for sure would get put out by the labels. If it was hot and in-demand, which I Get Around fit the criteria, then we just waited to see the test-pressings and the final masters which they normally sent to us to approve the sound quality anyways. Or with Pacs stuff, I just waited to hear/see the finished manufactered/packaged version. If I woulda thought that those mixes would never see the public light, I woulda kept personal copies.But anyone who’s at Interscope or diggin through the TNT crates, here’s what to look for:2 ADAT copies of the entire playlist, which was.."I Get Around"1. Album mix2. Radio mix3. Club mix4. InstrumentalI turned over the ADATs and the half-inch reels to the Interscope rep that night, who immeadiately flew back to Los Angeles to master the Strictly for my Niggaz album.Anyone out there with a copy of the "club" or "instrumental" please hit me up, I’d love to hear those again, haven’t heard ’em since that night we made ’em.SHKG
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