Shakur’s shooting and subsequent death in Sin City is still unresolved and if you watched the biog film Resurrection on MTV this week, it was as if the twenty five year old could see it coming. What he’d make of the 10th anniversary of his death being marked with a waxwork being revealed at Madame Tussauds (19th Sept) you can only guess. Like so much of his life, he it was all so complex.

This complexity wasn’t restricted to the tunes that he sampled for his own recordings. While you can never argue with James Brown, Sly Stone, Funkadelic, Zapp there was a big element of current flavour of the month, the ‘Guilty Pleasures’. To give Harmless their due, they’ve not shyed away from this and I suppose we should get these out of the way first.

The obvious one is Bruce Hornsby’s ‘The Way It Is’ and ‘Broken Wings’ is probably worst of the set; have WaveFM ever played ‘Until The End Of Time’ or ‘Changes’? I suspect not.

And with MOJO this month reassessing the John/Taupin’s early ‘Americana’ period, like Madman Across The Water, it’s easy for us to mock the former Watford FC chairman singing about roaming Buffalos. But 2Pac saw something different in ‘Ghetto Gospel’ and his track is one of his best. Possibly Elton’s first foray into hip hop and now he’s threatening to work with Marshall Mathers on an all-new hip hop album. Let’s hope this is just tabloid press talk and doesn’t get any further.

With the Hectic gripes out of the way, the stack load of other tracks more than make up for this. Tupac’s classic ‘California Love’ used both openers and it’s good to hear Joe Cocker singing something without ‘Friends’ in the title.

For the Sunday soul sessions, there’s the magic Bobby Caldwell classic ‘What You Won’t Do For Love’, ‘Never Gonna Stop’ (Linda Clifford) and ‘Minnie Riperton’s ‘Inside My Love’. Not so keen on ‘A Dream’ by DeBarge which seemed to be overlooked even in the 80s. And while Zapp’s ‘Computer Love’ was originally out at the time of mainframes, it’ll do nicely on the iPod now.

‘All Eyez On Me’ took Linda’s track into Thug Life and you must wonder what she thought of 2Pac appreciation, or Dennis Edwards on ‘Hit Em Up’. It certainly seemed that it was 2Pac vs. the rest of the world to him. James Brown’s tracks get twisted into ‘Trapped’ — another anthem.

All the funk tracks on Gold Digging are great and will sort out any party, even if Cameo’s ‘Candy’ has also since been used by Mariah Carey. The album climaxes with ‘Do It Anyway Your Wanna’ and by then it’s time to get your 2Pac collection out.

The other two compilations so far in the Gold Digging series are Kanye West and Jay-Z. What 2Pac would have thought of Jay-Z’s ‘Farewell’ 2003 concert at Madison Square Gardens (also on MTV this week) is yet another what if question.

Tupac Amaru Shakur (b. 16.06.71, Brooklyn d. 13.09.96, Las Vegas), until the end of time, RIP.

Reviewed: Various - Gold Digging - As Sampled By 2Pac (Harmless) Release date: September 2006
Tracklisting:
1 Ronnie Hudson - West Coast Poplock (3:11)
2 Joe Cocker - Woman To Woman (4:27)
3 Five Stairsteps - Ooh Child (3:17)
4 Elton John - Indian Sunset (6:44)
5 Mr. Mister - Broken Wings (4:39)
6 Bobby Caldwell - What You Won’t Do For Love (4:44)
7 Bruce Hornsby And The Range - The Way It Is (4:57)
8 Sly & The Family Stone - Sing A Simple Song (3:56)
9 James Brown - Blind Man Can’t See It (2:20)
10 Dennis Edwards - Don’t Look Any Further (2:47)
11 Minnie Riperton - Inside My Love (4:41)
12 DeBarge - A Dream (4:24)
13 Zapp - Computer Love (4:47)
14 Funkadelic - Get Off Your Ass & Jam (2:25)
15 James Brown - The Spank (3:05)
16 Cameo - Candy (5:39)
17 Quincy Jones - Body Heat (3:58)
18 People’s Choice - Do It Anyway You Wanna (3:11)
19 Linda Clifford - Never Gonna Stop (4:35)

Links:
www.harmlessrecordings.co.uk
www.tupac-resurrection.com
Tupac: Resurrection (2003)
www.myspace.com/tupacshakur
www.minnieriperton.com
MOJO October 2006 with The Quiet Revolution : A Summer Folk Compendium wwwmojo4music.com
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