According to an interview with MTV, Eminem was so moved by Tupac's life and work that he wrote a letter to Tupac's mother, Afeni Shakur, asking her to consider letting him produce the album. Shakur agreed, giving Eminem the go ahead. The album featured two singles: "Thugs Get Lonely Too" featuring Nate Dogg and "Ghetto Gospel", which contained a sample of Indian Sunset by Elton John.
Production
Eminem used various unusual production techniques during the creation of this album, namely modifying the pace and pitch of Tupac's voice to better suit the beats produced. There were also various uses of the cutting and pasting of vocals to produce new words synonymous with rap culture at the time, such as saying "G-Unit", "Obie Trice" and "Em" instead of "LG", the original producer of "Out On Bail". Originally recorded with Thug Life member Big Syke, this track was remixed with a new beat and verses from Treach and Riddler for the Above the Rim soundtrack. Producer Reginald Heard lifted 'Say You Love' from DJ Rogers to create a slow tempo, synth powered beat. While the track did not make the final soundtrack, it was included on the cassette edition. It is from this song that Eminem based his Tupac Loyal To The Game album. The remix project contained two remixes of this song, but did not include this original soundtrack version. DJ Quik made a remix, the tempo of which is the same as the original, that was added as a bonus track; DJ Quik also suggested to Tupac's mother, Afeni Shakur, that the title track be known as "Loyal to the Game". The original versions of the songs were originally recorded for 2Pac's debut album 2Pacalypse Now, for his second albumStrictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z, for ' and for Me Against The World'', but were cut. In 1993 2Pac recorded a track named "Po Nigga Blues"" with a rapper named The Governor. Later 2Pac's producer Shock-G produced a remix of the song, which is still unreleased. However Scott Storch made a remix of the song, which was added as a bonus track. The original "Ghetto Gospel" features two unreleased 2Pac verses that were not issued on the album. This is due to 2Pac recording the song twice for the 1992 MTV Christmas album. The latter recording only had the first two verses by 2Pac and verse 3 and 4 by a rap group called "The Kidz". Due to the master reel being recorded over, Eminem was only able to use the latter recording that only had the two verses.
Commercial performance
Loyal to the Game debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-week-sales of over 330,000 copies in its first week. On February 15, 2005, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over a million copies in the US. As of September 2011, the album has sold 1,204,124 copies in the United States.
Track listing
; Sample credits
"Ghetto Gospel" contains a sample of "Indian Sunset" performed by Elton John
"Don't You Trust Me?" contains a sample of "Do You Have a Little Time" performed by Dido
