Above The Rim Soundtrack Full Album
Giovanni Sealy
The album shipped over two million copies and won the Soundtrack of the Year award at the 1995 Source Awards.[4] The cassette version of the soundtrack contained three extra tracks that could not fit on the CD due to time constraints: "Pain" by 2Pac (with Stretch), "Mi Monie Rite!" by Lord G, and "Loyal to the Game" by 2Pac, Treach from Naughty By Nature, and Riddler. "Pain" was initially rejected for use in the film by Dr. Dre, but at the request of recording engineer Norman Whitfield Jr., the track was recut and remixed for the film by record producer Isaias Gamboa. Under Death Row, Above the Rim soundtrack was the third album under the label to reach number-one on the R&B Albums chart where it stayed for ten nonconsecutive weeks (Heavy D & the Boyz's Nuttin' But Love interrupted that streak for one week), while it went to second place on the Billboard 200 chart. Track 13 is a sensual remake of Rev. Al Green's classic "I'm Still In Love With You" by R&B recording artist Al B. Sure!
Above the Rim The Soundtrack is the official soundtrack to the 1994 film of the same name. The soundtrack, released by Death Row and Interscope Records on March 22, 1994, was executive produced by Suge Knight. Dr. Dre acted as supervising producer on the project.
Under Death Row, Above the Rim soundtrack was the third album under the label to reach number-one on the R&B Albums chart where it stayed for ten nonconsecutive weeks (Heavy D & the Boyz Nuttin' But Love interrupted that streak for one week), while it went to second place on the Billboard 200 chart.
RIAA 2x Multi-Platinum Album Award for the original soundtrack for the film Above The Rim, which starred 2Pac and featured his and other artists' music. The album was released on March 7, 1994 and by Aug. 31, 1994 was certified 2x Multi-Platinum by the RIAA. Remember 2Pac's life and legacy on the 25th anniversary of his untimely passing with this rare award.
The album contained singles including Nate Dogg and Warren G's "Regulate" and "Afro Puffs" (The Lady of Rage featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg)" and Al B. Sure! track "I'm Still In Love With You". It peaked at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and #1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart. See image above for RIAA sales certifications of this album through the years*.
Detailed Item Description: This RIAA 2x Multi-Platinum award is a first presentation award that would have been manufactured sometime after 1998, making it about 20 years old. It is presented to an artist manager who worked with an array of artists including 2Pac, DJ Quik, Everlast, Jadakiss, Jay-Z, Snoop Dog and others. His signed and notarized letter of provenance will provided with purchase. Provenance letter can be seen in images.
It is all original with unopened backing paper, Dejay Products manufacturer's sticker and all correct components. This award is in VG to Excellent condition with only minor mars on the plexiglass and frame.
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Notes on the condition of all vintage RIAA awards like this one: Please do not buy this item if you want a brand new piece of memorabilia. These are historical artifacts from the year they were produced. As a result they may show signs of wear. Frankly, if you see a 20 to 50-year-old award purported to be in 100% perfect condition, it might be too good to be true. After all, an antique should have "good' wear. If not, you might want to question the piece.
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Through Snoop and Dre, Death Row brought raw, uncut gangsta rap to MTV, elevating hip-hop to never-before-imagined commercial heights. And they did it while cultivating the most fearsome reputation in the music industry. To use a Star Wars metaphor the label was rap's Death Star, complete with its very own Darth Vader, football-player-turned-bodyguard-turned-CEO-with-street-gang-connections Marion "Suge" Knight. By 1994 Suge had the whole music industry shook.
Right out of the gate the soundtrack's biggest hit was "Regulate" by Warren G featuring Nate Dogg. Warren Griffin III grew up in Long Beach with Nate and Snoop Dogg where the three formed a group called 213 that broke up when Snoop and Nate signed with Death Row. Warren decided to focus on his solo career, which kicked into overdrive with the release of "Regulate," which was built around a moody sample from "I Keep Forgetting" by former Doobie Bro Michael McDonald. "I'm tweaking into a whole new era," Warren boasted on the track. "G-Funk step to this, I dare ya. Funk on a whole new level..." At which point Nate chimed in, cryptically, "The rhythm is the bass and the bass is the treble." Though the G-Funk sonic recipe would remain top secret, the song soared to No. 2 on Billboard's pop charts and eventually landed Warren G a deal with NYC rap powerhouse Def Jam. His solo debut album went on to sell over 3 million copies.
The 1995 Source Awards are usually cited as the initial flashpoint in the East Coast versus West Coast rivalry. Between Death Row CEO Suge Knight subliminally taunting Puffy from the awards podium to Snoop's outburst after Dr. Dre's producer of the year award received a mixture of cheers and boos, the rivalry was out in the open from that day forward. But tensions had been simmering beneath the surface for years. Above The Rim was a movie set in Harlem's Rucker Park, the legendary NYC street-ball mecca, and its soundtrack album, produced by Death Row, did not include a single New York rapper (with the exception of the Wu features on SWV's "Anything" and Treach's guest verse on one bonus track).
Illmatic would drop just four weeks later, and Bad Boy Records' first release was still months away at the time, but the subliminal message here was that New York rap was irrelevant. It didn't help matters when the trophy for Soundtrack of the Year at the 1995 Source Awards went to Above The Rim: The Soundtrack.
A member of the late 80s rap crew Live Squad, Randy "Stretch" Walker linked up with Tupac Shakur during his Digital Underground days and the two remained close friends. They collaborated on "Crooked Ass Nigga" from Pac's debut album 2Pacalypse Now, and Stretch produced Pac's hit single "Holler if you Hear Me." They would go on to make several other tracks together, the best of which was "Pain," which included such unforgettable bars as "I'm drinkin' Hennessy / Runnin' from my enemies / Will I live to be 23?"
Eight months after the song's release as a bonus track on the Above The Rim soundtrack, Pac and Stretch made a fateful trip to Quad Studios in New York where they were ambushed, beaten, shot, and robbed. Pac later gave an incendiary jailhouse interview which suggested that Biggie and Puff had something to do with the robbery, and also questioned Stretch's loyalty for not defending him against the attackers. Exactly one year to the day later, Stretch was shot to death at age 27 in Queens following a car chase that left his green minivan flipped over. Although the murder remains unsolved, many insiders believe that the date of his death was no coincidence.
During the fall of 1993, Tupac began hanging out in New York to film Above The Rim. Riding high off the release of his album Strictly 4 My Niggas, the rap star attracted the attention of street dudes like Haitian Jack and a few of his associates. "I was kicking it with him the whole time I was in New York doing Above The Rim," he told Kevin Powell from a jail cell on Rikers Island, where he was doing time on sexual assault charges stemming from a young lady he met through his new friends. "He said 'I'm going to look after you. You don't need to get in no more trouble.'" Famous last words.
"I got close to them," Pac told Powell. "I used to dress in baggies and sneakers. They took me shopping; that's when I bought my Rolex and all my jewels. They made me mature. They introduced me to all these gangsters in Brooklyn." He met their families and even tried to get one in the movie, but he didn't want to do it. "That bothered me," Shakur said. "I didn't know any nigga that didn't want to be in the movies."
Maybe Pac should have trusted his instincts. During the sexual assault trial he was invited to Quad Studios to lay down a verse by one of his new acquaintances. As he walked into the lobby, he was ambushed, robbed of his jewels, beaten, and shot. Because Biggie and Puffy happened to be in the studio that night, Pac assumed they had something to do with the set-up, and threw their names in the press, ratcheting up the tensions between Bad Boy and Death Row. Biggie, who tried to warn Pac to be careful about the friends he was associating with, always insisted he had nothing to do with the shooting. Although his release of the song "Who Shot Ya" didn't do much to clarify the situation. Within three years, the East-West beef escalated to tragic proportions leaving Pac and Big dead.
Three years later, on his posthumously released The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, Pac (in Makaveli mode) aired out his former friends on the track "Against All Odds" (aka "the realest shit I ever wrote"). "Set me up, wet me up, niggas stuck me up/Heard the guns bust but you tricks never shut me up."
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