Taking a walk down memory lane during his visit with the KDAY radio station in Los Angeles, DJ Quik shared stories about his time working with rap icon Tupac Shakur. Quik is credited with mixing and producing a track on Pac's All Eyez On Me, as well as posthumous records following the late rapper's unsolved murder.
“[All Eyez On Me is] one of my favorite [1990s albums] because I got to party with [Tupac], and at least try to talk to him, calm him down,” Quik said. “Just watchin’ him go in and kill every record like that, whether the mic was on or not, he was just on. Then he’d pop up with people. You’d be like, ‘You hangin’ out with this ni**a?'”
Quik also said, “It was a whos-who of people. All your favorite people. [From my session, Tupac would] run to Dre’s. Go from there and go to Johnny J’s session, be in there for two hours, finish and then just be walking around the hallway in a Versace shirt with [a bottle of] Hennessy like, ‘Ni**a, who else? Ni**a, I’m wipin’ all this sh*t down! We couldn’t go home. It was like, he’s got a message to relay, we’re gonna let him relay it. Dre stayed overtime. I stayed overtime. Daz and Kurupt, Method Man, Johnny J, and [Death Row engineer] Dave Aron, rest in peace, Snoop—everybody stayed overtime for this ni**a to get that sh*t off.”
“It was the biggest record in Hip-Hop, at that [time]. For a long time, it was the Thriller of hip hop," he said, adding "Yeah, I put my fingerprints all over it. Although I have this say this: we’re gonna keep it real. Dr. Dre pulled me to the side, and he gave me some advice. He was like, ‘Dude, you need to turn the f*ckin’ vocals up. Don’t keep them sh*ts down. We ain’t makin’ Jazz music.’ I’m like [snaps fingers], ‘Got it! Vocals up! All the time! Aight Dre!'”