Warner Brothers Publications is releasing a songbook called The Tupac Shakur Collection this spring. The 84 page glossy contains piano, vocal and chord arrangements for fifteen of the slain MC’s most popular songs, including “California Love,” “I Get Around” and “Dear Momma.” Product Manager, Janet Delissa, worked with Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, and explained the company’s motivations. “It was created with the idea that the subscribers to his lyrics and poetry would buy this more than a musician,” she said. “But if somebody wanted the music for the purpose of the rhythms and down beats, the music is more of a guide than a verbatim recall. The focus was his content rather than the music. That was the focus taken by his mother and his organization.” This is the first time that Warner has come out with a publication of this nature and Delissa admits that a song book for an MC is “left of center.” But they are hoping to appeal to Tupac’s almost cult like following. Though a book of his lyrics may seem more logical she feels that this songbook will, “give the full authentic interpretation. The intent is that if they want to get the key it was performed in and accompanying patterns, they will buy our book.” According to Delissa, The Tupac Shakur Collection is part of a greater push to reintroduce Tupac to a mainstream audience in time for an HBO special airing later this year.
Warner Brothers
Publications is releasing a songbook called The Tupac
Shakur Collection this spring. The 84 page glossy contains piano,
vocal and chord arrangements for fifteen of the slain MC’s most popular
songs, including “California Love,” “I Get Around” and “Dear
Momma.” Product Manager, Janet Delissa, worked with Tupac’s mother,
Afeni Shakur, and explained the company’s motivations. “It was created
with the idea that the subscribers to his lyrics and poetry would buy this more
than a musician,” she said. “But if somebody wanted the music for
the purpose of the rhythms and down beats, the music is more of a guide than
a verbatim recall. The focus was his content rather than the music. That was
the focus taken by his mother and his organization.”
This is the first
time that Warner has come out with a publication of this nature and Delissa
admits that a song book for an MC is “left of center.” But they are
hoping to appeal to Tupac’s almost cult like following. Though a book of
his lyrics may seem more logical she feels that this songbook will, “give
the full authentic interpretation. The intent is that if they want to get the
key it was performed in and accompanying patterns, they will buy our book.”
According to Delissa, The Tupac Shakur Collection is part of a greater push
to reintroduce Tupac to a mainstream audience in time for an HBO special airing
later this year.