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Instrumental
Here we go again right ��. Just like the last mix I did for 2Pac's "Breathin'", I decided to revisit "How Do U Want It" one more time.
I'll never forget during my 8th and 9th grade yr of school this song was on constant rotation. My sister bought the cassette tape version of "All Eyez On Me" from a random corner store. (it might have been a bootleg) I was drawn to "How Do U Want It", but to be honest, it wasn't exactly because of 2Pac himself, I was actually blown away by the production of Johnny J and the singing of K-Ci & JoJo. I remember in high school I saw a friend of mine had the Maxi-Single and I noticed that it had the original version of "California Love" on it. (At that time I hated the remix that was on the album only because I preferred the original. It's funny that's probably the beginning of my preferation for 2Pac's OG material ��) I never did get a copy of it, but I later heard what was on it. I immediately noticed that the "How Do U Want It" track on the single was different from the album version, not only because it was edited but I noticed it had extra guitar instrumentation that didn't appear on the album version. Not to sound like an old man ranting, but that's definitely something that is missing from music today where an "Edit Version" of a song has extras in it as far as more instrumentation and extra vocals in it to differentiate it from an "Uncensored Version" to where it makes one actually want the "Edit Version" as much as the "Uncensored Version". Two of the main things I noticed was some of the K-Ci & JoJo ad-lib vocals were missing and 2Pac redid all of his vocals and some lyrics were changed here and there, but the 3rd verse had completely different lyrics almost halfway into it to where it almost felt like it was an alternate version of the song. I liked both versions for different reasons. Fast forward a few years, the demo version came out that had 2Pac and Natasha Walker singing the hook originally. I was like ��hmm... Yet another version to listen to for different reasons. Can't forget the video had 3 different versions and each mix was slightly different from each other. Another thing that I noticed over the years as I'm sure most of y'all have noticed as well, 2Pac would often have lines in his verses here & there that would randomly reference titles to songs he did. I sometimes wondered while listening to his songs if every word of a verse had a clue to some unreleased song I haven't heard yet �� (Now that's crazy). The opening line of the 2nd verse to this song mentioned "Is It Cool 2 Fuck". I thought it would be interesting to somehow blend the "Get It Up" sample by Prince's group The Time into the "Body Heat Remix" I did previously. As an added bonus, I happen to get a copy of the acapella to the "Uncensored Version" of 2Pac's vocals to add into the mix as opposed to the "Edited Version's" vocals that I used in the other 2 mixes, but I did reuse the "Edited Version's" 3rd verse for a transitional section towards the end of the mix and sprinkled a lil bit of the Earl Klugh "Living Inside Your Love" sample when 2Pac says the line " They wonder if my lifestyle's changed, and am I through with all the pain, surviving in this game, it's still the same". I also added an extra guitar layer to make the mix even "Funkier" but slightly changed the riff from constantly repeating the "Duhn, Da-Da, Duuuhn, Da-Duhn, to a riff that accentuates this version of the "Body Heat sample. So this version has almost everything in it to make a cool "Extended Mix". (If y'all don't know by now, I absolutely love "Extended Versions" of songs that run past 5 minutes). Thanks again to MrMind for the acapella for the K-Ci & JoJo chorus. Ibemikeymike from 2pac-forum.com for the extra K-Ci & JoJo vocal layers and Enya for the open hat cymbal��.
Instrumental
Here we go again right ��. Just like the last mix I did for 2Pac's "Breathin'", I decided to revisit "How Do U Want It" one more time.
I'll never forget during my 8th and 9th grade yr of school this song was on constant rotation. My sister bought the cassette tape version of "All Eyez On Me" from a random corner store. (it might have been a bootleg) I was drawn to "How Do U Want It", but to be honest, it wasn't exactly because of 2Pac himself, I was actually blown away by the production of Johnny J and the singing of K-Ci & JoJo. I remember in high school I saw a friend of mine had the Maxi-Single and I noticed that it had the original version of "California Love" on it. (At that time I hated the remix that was on the album only because I preferred the original. It's funny that's probably the beginning of my preferation for 2Pac's OG material ��) I never did get a copy of it, but I later heard what was on it. I immediately noticed that the "How Do U Want It" track on the single was different from the album version, not only because it was edited but I noticed it had extra guitar instrumentation that didn't appear on the album version. Not to sound like an old man ranting, but that's definitely something that is missing from music today where an "Edit Version" of a song has extras in it as far as more instrumentation and extra vocals in it to differentiate it from an "Uncensored Version" to where it makes one actually want the "Edit Version" as much as the "Uncensored Version". Two of the main things I noticed was some of the K-Ci & JoJo ad-lib vocals were missing and 2Pac redid all of his vocals and some lyrics were changed here and there, but the 3rd verse had completely different lyrics almost halfway into it to where it almost felt like it was an alternate version of the song. I liked both versions for different reasons. Fast forward a few years, the demo version came out that had 2Pac and Natasha Walker singing the hook originally. I was like ��hmm... Yet another version to listen to for different reasons. Can't forget the video had 3 different versions and each mix was slightly different from each other. Another thing that I noticed over the years as I'm sure most of y'all have noticed as well, 2Pac would often have lines in his verses here & there that would randomly reference titles to songs he did. I sometimes wondered while listening to his songs if every word of a verse had a clue to some unreleased song I haven't heard yet �� (Now that's crazy). The opening line of the 2nd verse to this song mentioned "Is It Cool 2 Fuck". I thought it would be interesting to somehow blend the "Get It Up" sample by Prince's group The Time into the "Body Heat Remix" I did previously. As an added bonus, I happen to get a copy of the acapella to the "Uncensored Version" of 2Pac's vocals to add into the mix as opposed to the "Edited Version's" vocals that I used in the other 2 mixes, but I did reuse the "Edited Version's" 3rd verse for a transitional section towards the end of the mix and sprinkled a lil bit of the Earl Klugh "Living Inside Your Love" sample when 2Pac says the line " They wonder if my lifestyle's changed, and am I through with all the pain, surviving in this game, it's still the same". I also added an extra guitar layer to make the mix even "Funkier" but slightly changed the riff from constantly repeating the "Duhn, Da-Da, Duuuhn, Da-Duhn, to a riff that accentuates this version of the "Body Heat sample. So this version has almost everything in it to make a cool "Extended Mix". (If y'all don't know by now, I absolutely love "Extended Versions" of songs that run past 5 minutes). Thanks again to MrMind for the acapella for the K-Ci & JoJo chorus. Ibemikeymike from 2pac-forum.com for the extra K-Ci & JoJo vocal layers and Enya for the open hat cymbal��.
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