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Neue Single von Greg Nice, die auch vor 15 Jahren rausgekommen sein könnte...

DX: One of the things I feel people get misconceived about 2Pac’s legacy is how much he knew about Hip Hop. You guys had a special relationship. As a pioneer of east coast Hip Hop, can you tell me about 2Pac the Hip Hop fan?

Greg Nice: [2Pac] loved everything. He loved everybody’s music. The last 30 days of his life, I lived with him in his crib. I was out there, in L.A., at the crib. I was actually with him when he got the crib.

This is some real shit right here: I was actually sittin’ in my crib, in the Bronx. I got on the phone, called Information. “Please give me the number to Death Row Records in Beverly Hills, California.” They gave me the number, I called. “My name is [Greg Nice] and I want to leave a message for Tupac.”] Fifteen minutes, my beeper’s beepin’. I’m lookin’ at it, “3-1-0? What’s 3-1-0?” That’s a new area code out in California. Everything used to be 2-1-3 and 8-1-8. [I call and say,] “Somebody paged me?” [The voice on the other line says], “Yeah, mothafucka! What’s up, my nigga!” He asked me what was goin’ on. I said, “Right now, ain’t nothin’ goin’ on. Actually, [the industry] is actin’ like I [haven’t] done shit.” He said, “Are you crazy? Get over, right now.” I said, “’Pac, I ain’t got no $1,000 plane ticket.” He goes, “I don’t want you to pay for no mothafuckin’ ticket. Write this number down and call it in five minutes.” Call back and a woman tells me they’ve got a plane leaving that night. There was a friend of mine in my crib then. It was [his idea] for me to call [2Pac]. I said, “You know what? He’ll take you [too]. I want you to meet my boy.” The next morning at [L.A.X. Airport], there was a sign with a lady holdin’ it with my name on it. Walk to the limousine, get in. She asked, “Do you want to go [by way of] the freeway, or do you want to go to the hood?” I asked her what she meant. “Well, Mr. Knight has me ask all the passengers which way they want to travel.”

[We were headed] to Pasadena to the [Gridlock’d] movie set. I was [teasing him] that my man’s a movie star now. [Because the last time I saw 2Pac, we had to judge a bikinin contest in San Diego in the early ‘90s, and he was still getting on.] There was security, there was [Fruits of Islam] there, there was gang-bangin’ dudes there, sheriffs there, all that shit. By the time I get to the holding area, who comes runnin’ around the trailer? [2Pac, going] “Ahhh! Greg-mothafuckin’-Nice! You came? Ahhh! I love you, mothafucka!” All those bodyguard dudes that was havin’ stone faces start gigglin’. [We started talking about business. He asked] “How much you get for your last album at Def Jam? … Oh word? I’ma get these mothafuckas [at Death Row] to give you $30,000 more! Fuck that! Let’s start a new album today. We’ll start tonight. Your first single, let me do the hook. We’ll bug the world out.” I was like, “Aight, let’s get busy.”

[Later on], one night we were sitting at the crib. He said, “Greg, I can’t believe you used to let me hang out. You didn’t know who the fuck I was, man.” I told him, “Real recognize real, baby.” He remembered everything. [He paid for me to stay in a room at the Ritz Carlton, and bought all our food, drinks, weed.]

2Pac was the kind of guy that’d be leaning against a wall on 145th Street in Harlem. Chillin’. I seen him one day, just like that. I’m drivin’ by. “What are you doin’, mothafucka?” Boom. He’s in the car, we’re drivin’. That was the second time he did that. The first, I was drivin’ by the [loading] dock at The Apollo. Digital Underground [was in town]. 2Pac was like, “Yo Shock, I’ll see y’all later, at the hotel.” He jumps in the car, and we’re goin’ to the Bronx, White Plains Road. 2Pac said, “Yo, pull over there. I used to live there. I went to school right here. My moms lived in that building.” Shit like that, all day long. He was dying to meet my man Vance Wright, Slick Rick’s original deejay. He was [at Vance’s house], buggin’. When [2Pac] passed away, Vance came to see me. “Yo Greg, I got something for you.” He pulled out a picture of me and ‘Pac on the couch at his house [taken] when Juice had just come out.

DX: 1991, 1992…

Greg Nice: If you look at the Juice movie, at the beginning, when they’re walking down the street, Omar Epps and them dudes, and the guy was robbin’ the bar. You know he’s rhymin’ right. You remember what rhymes he said, right?

DX: I don’t.

Greg Nice: He said my rhymes from “Funky For You.” Look at Poetic Justice. There’s this room where [2Pac’s character’s cousin] has the equipment at. Look at the wall, over the bed: there’s a poster of me and Smooth. I was on the soundtrack for that movie too. I got four other records that haven’t even come out, that I’m on with [2Pac].

DX: From One Nation?

Greg Nice: Yep. All of that One Nation, I brought everybody. Everybody he wanted to see, I’m like, “You want [DJ] Premier to come up with you?” [2Pac] was like, “What? Hell yeah!” I called ‘Preme. [He was like], “Hell yeah!” I called Fat Joe. “Hell yeah!” Buckshot and [the Bootcamp Clik], “Hell yeah!” Everybody started comin’.

DX: All those names you just mentioned, were they able to come out?

Greg Nice: Yeah. The only who didn’t come was Joe.

DX: So Premier and 2Pac actually had the opportunity to work together?

Greg Nice: Yeah, and [DJ Premier] loved [2Pac] as well. To the point where that’s all he takes about. “Man, 2Pac came to my fuckin’ house!” Showbiz too, “Greg brought 2Pac to my living-room, man, sittin’ with me, chillin’.”

DX: I have to tell you, Greg, that’s a crazy story, man. I’m glowing, man. Nobody knows this. You worked on those four records. Do you personally want to see them release, or are they better left to mystery and memory?

Greg Nice: It depends on how it sounds. It depends on how it’s mixed. I assume, if it were to be mixed, it’d be mixed with a different flavor now. It would be a whole new sound. One is actually on this Pac’s Life [release] that they did. One of those songs [“International”], I got the publishing credit on the record, ‘cause they took different inserts of records we did and made that one song. They put [Nipsey Hussle and Young Dre The Truth] on there, rappin’. [Afeni Shakur] sent me the paperwork, saying, “My son would’ve wanted his friends to get that money. I want to take care of it the right way.” That’s what she did.

DX: For all these years, people always knew you were involved, Busta Rhymes was, the Boot Camp Clik, but even down to what you just said about Joe and Premier, that’s stuff that people have never spoken about…

Greg Nice: Because a lot of people wasn’t around, and I was the dude on the phone makin’ it happen.

DX: Because this is history, who else was on One Nation?

Greg Nice: Busta wasn’t on that project. It ain’t Busta [that you’ve heard on the leaks], it’s a guy named L.S. I knew L.S. from Busta, that was his boy. When I picked up Busta from his house, that was his boy. He’d be with him everyday. Eventually, as time went down the line, they had a falling out with each other, and I didn’t stop bein’ his friend just ‘cause you don’t talk to him no more, Bus’. He was tryin’ to make amends with Bus’ and do everything with him. For whatever reason, he didn’t want to see eye-to-eye with homeboy. Then I brought my man Asu to California. He was a rapper from New Jersey. I remember when Buck and them first got there. Snoop [Dogg] was on a record with us too.

DX: You need to write a book, with these stories…