Author Topic: Was this verse on 2Pac's "Loyal to the Game" the worst of that era? (Read 187 times)

sweetdudejim · « **on:** May 29, 2025, 10:04:46 PM »

Hey so I was listening to the song "Loyal to the Game" from the Music From Above the Rim release. It's a nice semi-rare slice of early mid '90s West Coast hip-hop. A nice, energetic, if somewhat self-parodic verse from 2Pac (enemy and decent verse from Treach make this a nice little cut. And then Riddler's verse.

Here's a little taste....

"Poppin' after poppin', the fools be droppin', the hoes be hoppin'
On my thing 'cause it hangs like the nets from Above the Rim"

Then there's "now I puts the crime behind me" and all that. Ouch. Painful.

Honestly shame on 2Pac, Treach and producer Reginald Heard for letting this amateur get on this otherwise, pretty nice track.

Or am I being too rough? That Above the Rim reference is just so bad, trying to needlessly connect the song to the movie. Such a corny move, especially on a gangsta track.

Sccit · « **Reply #1 on:** May 29, 2025, 10:23:52 PM »

naah dude could flow

not a bad verse .. maybe a bit corny at parts but a lot of 90s classix got corny lyrics in retrospect

Soopafly DPGC · « **Reply #2 on:** June 02, 2025, 08:39:37 AM »

Quote from: sweetdudejim on May 29, 2025, 10:04:46 PM

Hey so I was listening to the song "Loyal to the Game" from the Music From Above the Rim release. It's a nice semi-rare slice of early mid '90s West Coast hip-hop. A nice, energetic, if somewhat self-parodic verse from 2Pac (enemy and decent verse from Treach make this a nice little cut. And then Riddler's verse.

Here's a little taste....

"Poppin' after poppin', the fools be droppin', the hoes be hoppin'
On my thing 'cause it hangs like the nets from Above the Rim"

Then there's "now I puts the crime behind me" and all that. Ouch. Painful.

Honestly shame on 2Pac, Treach and producer Reginald Heard for letting this amateur get on this otherwise, pretty nice track.

Or am I being too rough? That Above the Rim reference is just so bad, trying to needlessly connect the song to the movie. Such a corny move, especially on a gangsta track.

You are being too harsh. Dude could flow. I remember he had a few other songs out and maybe even an album (not on Death Row obviously) and it didn't seem that bad.

I don't understand the issue with the line "now i put the crime behind me". He's saying he's moved on from what he did and living life moving forward. To me that doesn't sound corny at all.

Now the line about how his nuts hang like the nets from Above the Rim. Yeah, that one is funny, but i've heard WAAAY worse lyrics than that.

I'd argue at the time, Treach was the biggest star of the 3. It's easy to look back at history in hindsight, but in 94, Pac was far from a household name. Riddler could've easily been the one to blow up and Pac could have faded off into obscurity, and then we'd be having this same conversation asking why Riddler put a nobody like Pac on this song. Just happened to work out in the other direction.

The fact that Suge put both of Pac's songs as cassette bonuses and didn't even feature him on the main CD tells me that Suge didn't have a whole lot of faith in Pac to sell records either at the time. When i bought the soundtrack in 94, i looked at both the Pac songs (And Lord G's Mi Money Rite) as throwaways not even good enough to be on the main soundtrack.

dnjp4life · « **Reply #3 on:** June 03, 2025, 03:59:17 AM »

I respectfully disagree with your take. I really like Riddler's verse on this and when I first heard it it was one of the first times I thought 2Pac may have been outdone on his own track.