Hey everyone, and welcome back to Rewind and React. I'm Adam Eltarhoni. And I'm Rob Fine. Today we have another one shot episode for you. Let's get in today's one shot pic. California Love with Tupac Shakur featuring Doctor Dre. Downloads for your new song A Party Down for you. Inside a party in the city.
Yes, California Love This was an anthem back in the 90s. This music video opens in the year 2095. DJ sets the stage with a wild dystopian imagery, modified vehicles, tribal punk costumes and warlords. Yes, we are in the mad Max universe world here, Tupac and Doctor Dre sneak into a large tent while its post-apocalyptic warriors hype one another up. They are dressed in scrap leather armor and eye patches, and Tupac and Dre release a pack of women being held hostage. A Fury Road style race erupts as the song begins, and we see Tupac and Dre rapping to the hit Inside of Thunderdome amidst their newly freed captive women, who are also decked out in post-apocalyptic outfits. Their pursuers catch up to the truck in a high octane sequence of war modded vehicles, flames and chaos. But Dre, Tupac, and the hostages fight off the Warriors and ride into the freedom of the open desert.
This is a fun video and it's funny, so I'll first start with the whole mad Max reference because Beyond Thunderdome came out in 1985. This video came out in 1995, and I don't remember music videos that well in some sense. But is this the first homage to mad Max and a music video? Oh man, I feel like there have been several, but this might have been the first. It's certainly the best known, I think. And you're wearing an eyepatch right now and homage to Doctor Dre here. How did you like this video? Oh, I love the video. I hate the eyepatch. I love the video. So? So I don't know how people wear it. Well, I guess they don't typically have choices. It's not a fashion thing. Yeah, it's very difficult to concentrate. I feel like I'm going to knock into this microphone at any moment. But yeah. Video. Amazing video. I remember growing up, this was one that was all over MTV when I was watching it, and I loved it every time it came on. I'd actually never seen mad Max at the time when I was watching it as a kid, and I have never seen Beyond Thunderdome to this date, actually. So when I'm watching the video, I see them in this race across the desert and I'm thinking Fury Road, which is, you know, my actually my only mad Max movie I've seen. So have you seen Beyond Thunderdome?
Yeah. So I have seen all the mad Max's. I will say you're right. I don't think you have to know, like Beyond Thunderdome. I mean, the Thunderdome is in the video, but Thunderdome is such a cultural term, right? You know, one man enters or two men enter, one man leaves. That's the whole, like, theme. And Thunderdome is such a term used today, so you didn't need to know it. But yeah, I've seen all of them. I saw Beyond Thunderdome maybe ten or so years ago, but it was cool to see the references. And one thing I noticed too, in my memory, there was a lot more action going on in the video. It's a lot more of them just singing, like rapping and going with the camera, going around them harder. That's probably because Doctor Drake couldn't move too much. Or his, you know, his eyepatch, which caused him to fall down. I don't know, but I as a kid I thought there was a little more action to it. Then when I when we were researching it, what there is now.
Yeah, I also remember this song being a lot longer. So what's the full length of the music video? Which has like the intro at the beginning, but I guess if you listen to the song, there's a very long version of the song that's like 8 to 10 minutes, and it's mostly just that guy on the vocal quartered saying that California and all the different, you know, ways. Roger Troutman is that guy. His name appears in the video as well. This is one of the guys in the buggy carts, but I knew enough about Thunderdome itself just from pop culture. I think Looney Tunes or Tiny Tunes had referenced it enough where I was like, I was familiar. But yeah, I don't even think you need to have seen it to appreciate how cool this video was. Yeah, I agree it's not. And you have to see it is a fun movie. I will say out of there, probably for mad Max movies. It's maybe like, well, I think Fury Road is the best one, and then Road Warrior and then probably Thunderdome and then the first one. The first one is weird and I wouldn't recommend watching it unless you're like a mad Max. And it's really funny because it's you watch it. It's not post-apocalyptic, per se. It's like it's about to be post-apocalyptic. So we're in the near future, and it was done on such a budget that it's a lot of like, George Miller was like, let's just film a lot of random scenes and then kind of stitch a movie together. Oh, no. That became such a like cultural hit in Australia at the time that it, like, kind of built that legacy. And then Road Warrior, they got a bigger budget. And then of course, Thunderdome, which stars Tina Turner, had a pretty big budget as well. So it's a fun movie. It's the Thunderdome was like a little bit different because again, you have the Thunderdome. But he discovers like a group of kids that are living out in the wilds or the outback, and he uses them to help kind of go chief his mission and things like that. So I don't want to say it's like kid oriented. It's kind of like how Star Wars The Return of the Jedi had the Ewoks. Well, this Thunderdome had like the little kid that, I guess if you're watching it as a kid, can relate to and enjoy, I see.
Well, I remember when Fury Road came out, I was so like, I loved it. It's an amazing movie. And so I went back and I watched the trailer for the first mad Max, and I was like, I don't, I don't think this one's going to hold up. It was, oh man, that trailer is rough. Yeah, yeah. Again, it's a it's a rough movie, but it's still enjoyable just because we've both made movies and videos and things like that. So just like watching that early process of a director that's trying to make something work. Yeah, I. Know he's famous. Yeah, I do enjoy that. And that is always fun. So another thing I'm not very familiar with is the East Coast, West Coast rivalry that was happening around the time this came out. I have to imagine though, this song was like an anthem for the Western Front. You got Tupac, you got Dre in there. It's set in California and it's literally a war song right? Well, it's interesting because I think the song is more of enjoying California and we're hitting the dance floor and we just have a lot of great things. So it's a more like PG version of the battle. But you are right. And for listener they can. There's a million things out there videos, books, movies about East Coast, West Coast battle at the time. The short of it is Tupac was in jail when the song was written and Doctor Dre actually produced it, and he was actually going to produce it as a solo song. He's going to leave Death Row, which was the new record label that Tupac was joining, and you can go through the history of Suge Knight, who's the one that ran Death Row Records. But basically Doctor Dre, I think was going to try to leave, but they wanted Tupac for this song or the production of it, and then they came together and they made this video. So there was a little bit of like internal conflict there, not between Dre and Tupac, but more of like the record label and Dre and everything involved there. So this was definitely, though, a big West Coast anthem, right? Like he's talking about Oakland, Sacramento, the Bay area, things like that. I guess that's the anthem you can play on the radio for the rivalry.
Yes. True, true. And you know, I feel like almost every time I go out to LA at some point is on the radio when I turn on the car stereo. So that's always fun. I do have a fun story related to this song. I was in LA for work in 2006. I'm in a rental car and I'm having to return it to the airport. I have to gas it up so they don't charge me like $8 a gallon or whatever. And I'm at the gas station. It's a very dimly lit gas station in the middle of nowhere. But I do know I'm in Inglewood based on where like this, what the signs had said. And some guy comes up to me at like the Darkness. He's like, hey, I'll wash your car for a dollar. I was like, I don't, I mean, it's a rental, I don't need it was. And the only thing I know about Inglewood is from this song that they're up to no good. So I was like, you know what? Here is here's a dollar. And I kept telling him he didn't need to wash the car, but he got a like, squeegee. It just like, wiped it a few times and left other right. That's nice. You know. Yeah. That he wasn't just, like, gonna let you get away with just giving him money. I know, I was like, yeah, you don't need to do it. You don't need to do it. So a lot of cool cameos. Of course. The most famous one is Chris Tucker. At the beginning. He wasn't even that famous at the time. This is like before he hit it big.
Well, that's a good question, because when did Friday come out? Because that was his big breakout moment. And this video, if you hadn't figured it out in 1995 because it's 2095 in the beginning and I thought Friday was like 1994, but I could be wrong. Friday came out in 95 as well. Okay, okay. So yeah, this is kind of cool then. You're right. It's the same year he's still kind of an unknown. He still has that energy. I mean, of course he's like young and full of energy anyway. But the way he's in that video and he's just yelling. And the one thing I like about that shot is he's yelling and like, you're looking at the camera, and then you look around and the people are like, lesson from him in this tiny tent. And I'm like, you don't have to yell at them. But I get it. It's for the video. And I think Chris Tucker's just that's his personality. He's got to yell, yeah, it is perfect. It was. Yeah, I as soon as he I forgot he was in the video till I rewatched it recently, I was like, oh my god, Chris Tucker. Amazing. It was so Chris Tucker like, that's just his whole energy, right? I thought that was Busta Rhymes, the next guy that comes in. But it's not. You know who that is? Isn't that George Clinton? George Clinton? Yeah, yeah. The hair wasn't right for Busta Rhymes. And I was like, was he even around at this point? I don't know. But yeah, George Clinton in this video. Amazing.
Yeah. Yeah. And he does a funny. So this is kind of a little bit of a reference in when he says, can you dig it. Yeah. And he yells out a few times that, have you seen the movie The Warriors. I've not. No. Okay. So that's a it's a movie from the 70s. I think it's really good. I don't know if you would like it per se, because it's a little low budget and the pacing is a little slow at points. But general premise is there's all these gangs in New York that get together, and Cyrus, who's the leader of them, is trying to rally them all together to fight police. He like, there's 60,000 of us. There's only 20,000 police. We can take this city like, oh, there's a bunch of gangs. And he yells, can you dig it multiple times? And is it like a rallying call? And I think it become became a meme and everything like that fun movie, though, because basically the Warriors are like one of the gangs from Coney Island. Cyrus gets murdered at the beginning. This is not much of a spoiler, and there's a hit out on the Warriors, so they have to make it back to their turf from wherever they are in Manhattan, Coney Island, and along the way they meet a bunch of different gangs, and it's a little silly. There's like a baseball gang, so it's like a bunch of people dressed up in baseball uniforms and uses baseball bats to beat up people and stuff like that, but it's kind of a fun adventure movie. It sounds like a fun one. I might check that out when he when he said that, I was like, is that the Honey Smacks frog? Is that what he says? Dig him. I think it's his name. Like, didn't he say something like, can you dig it? I don't know.
You. You know, you might be right. It's funny. You know, if it was made now, it probably would be like product placement. Oh, yes, of course. Yeah. There's one other cameo in here. Well, we mentioned Roger Troutman, who does the talk box vocals, but Tony Cox, best known for Bad Santa, probably he's like the little. Yeah, I think he's credited as Dwarf Warrior or something like that. Oh, they. Oh yeah. Wow. Look at this. Another guy. Yeah. It's funny. And that's probably another of Thunderdome reference because in the movie there's a villain called Master Blaster and it's like a big guy. And then there's a little guy and I don't know if he's on it's shoulder or they're paired together, but there's like a codependency there in the movie. And they argue Max has to fight in the Thunderdome. So it's only a little reference there. Yeah, there's a family Guy scene where he goes like, Sears isn't like that, and it's like a post-apocalyptic world. And yeah, what you just described, there's a huge guy with, like, a small little guy on top of him. Yeah, that's got to be what that references there. But I'm learning so much. I should probably just watch Thunderdome.
So a couple cool facts about this. So first of all, this video idea was actually thought out by Jada Pinkett of Jada Pinkett Smith fame. She was a friend of Tupac at the time, and she was actually set to direct it. And according to one of Tupac biographies, she was dating well at the time. And he said, I don't want you to do this for whatever reason. And so she didn't direct it. So Hype Williams, who we've talked about in the Missy Elliott episode, Supa Dupa Fly and legendary director has done a million videos, took over. Yeah. This is one of his first big budget music videos to it. Speaking of that, it's cool to see and I'd have to see how many other rap videos before this were like bigger budget. But we've talked about that Run-DMC Christmas video. The TLC Chris Christmas videos are a little different, but the budget for some of these rap videos were probably not as high. And this was such a cool concept in the sense that it's like, different than what you expect, and it's high budget. They're in the desert, so they had to, you know, bring everyone out to the desert and film this and film that at night. And there's a lot of setup involved, and I can only imagine how horrible the lighting is to get right for like a video in the middle of the night, that you have to use a lot of flames and stuff like that to light up your talent, but everything hit right. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, they nailed it with this video in mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, did they have to race across the desert with the cars?
So I don't think there's a race scene. I will say in Road Warrior, which is the previous movie, his car gets destroyed in that one. So this might have started with him without a car. I can't remember though. Okay, because I was watching it and I was like, I wonder if that scene came from the previous mad Max movies, or did it inspire Fury Road? Because they are like doing the whole thing where they're throwing things at the other car, leaping on from car to car. So I was like, that's pretty cool. Again, I don't know which came first. You know, it is funny, though, because I do think Fury Road did take a little bit from it, because they take the girls that were held captive, you know, to help them dance with them. And I was like, oh, this is like Fury Road where they're trying to save the girls. So, you know, maybe George Miller got a little inspiration from this video. Yeah, it goes both ways, right? Yeah. That car chase scene was amazing to do in a music video. Like, they got people diving from car to car and they're, you know, shooting rockets or whatever. And I was like, wow, this is like beyond something you do typically see in a 90s music video, much less I mean, maybe not even the 2000. We weren't seeing this kind of stuff. Especially before like heavy CGI days.
Speaking of CGI, what did you think of the beginning with the like computery font and like the little typing noise and like. I mean it felt right for the time for a 95. Yeah. Like it's what we knew sci fi to be at that moment right. Yeah. You're right. And it is fine because of course this video is over 30 years old. But I did think it threw me off because they're probably in a world without computers anymore. And this using that like computer font. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. We go like so post-apocalyptic. There's no computers, but we represent that with a computer. That's funny. That's I didn't think of it that way, but I like that. What did you think about the end. So the end where like, the little camp is exploding. Well, and he wakes up and he thinks it's a dream. Oh right. The video I watched didn't have that. Maybe I didn't watch the full full length one. Oh my gosh. Well so the camp explodes at the end. And then you see a little like go kind of back and forth flashes and Tupac's in bed and he wakes up out of bed and it's three frames of this has to be continued. Oh, I didn't my video didn't have that. That's bizarre.
Well, here's so here's it's bizarre. But then here's what's kind of weird. Actually, it's a little weirder than that. So they filmed another video for this song. Same lyrics and everything, but like a different beat. The one in the mansion? Yes. Okay. Yeah. And that was supposed to be the part two. So apparently he wakes up from this dream in part, you know, the dream he wakes up for to be continued in. And part two is like redoing the whole song. But he's at a mansion. I don't I don't understand the logic or why they did it like that. Maybe they thought the mad Max theme was too too much of a swing and they wanted to like because the other dimension videos. Fine. It's very generic. It's like, you know, a bunch of people dancing in the mansion. It's as boring as it can get. But maybe that was like the safer bet. So I'm wondering if they filmed both of these. We still worry that this one won't resonate with the audience. And so they need to have a mansion video as a backup. One. But still weird to connect them as like a two parter. For. One song. Yeah. That's bizarre. Yeah I, I did learn about the Mansion Party video, but I didn't get that little waking up clip for some reason. Interesting.
Yeah, I will say, when you search on YouTube, the top clip is not from like the Tupac channel or the top video, it's from other channel. So you have to like scroll to find the one from the Tupac channel because there are a few like, yeah, I guess more popular ones that came up. Yeah. What's the Uproxx one? Let's see. Yeah. Whoops. I know that's all good overall, you know. And award wise, this was nominated for Best Rap Video at the 1996 MTV Music Awards. It's cited as one of the best videos, but also it might be like the best rap video album. We haven't watched enough to be definitive on that, but there's a lot of accolades for this video. Oh, absolutely. And I think an iconic rap song for the 90s, I'd say top five rap song of the 90s and the video that goes along with it, right up there in the top five as well. Of all the rap videos that we've broken down on this podcast, this has got to be the best. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely yeah, definitely one of the most fun to watch. Yeah, absolutely.
Rob I'm going to do another trivia game with you. So we've talked about Tupac Shakur and we're going to talk about another 90s rapper Will Smith. Okay. All right. We'll try to give you two facts or two a statement and see if you can tell me which one it is. We'll start a little easy and then we'll work our way from there. So this person gained fame as a rapper known as the Fresh Prince. Oh, will Smith. Yes. Okay. Perfect. This artist's parents were active members of the Black Panther Party. Oh. It just feels like a trick. But I'm going to say Tupac. And that's correct. That's correct. I told you he's going to start easy. So I think I overdo it. This artist was born Alassane Parrish Crookes Tupac. Yeah that's correct. And just for anyone listening, this is all sourced from like Wikipedia and stuff. I could be wrong. It can be wrong. You know, we're not the definitive source of this. All right? This artist was featured as a hologram during a music festival. Oh, Tupac. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I remember that. Perfect. This artist was born in Philadelphia. Will Smith. Okay. This artist once boycotted the Grammy Award due to lack of recognition for rap music. I feel like Will Smith didn't boycott something. Not the Oscars, but there was something else that he boycotted. But I don't think it was for that. I'm going to say two part. It was Will. Smith. Oh, okay. Yeah.
But you are right. When Will Smith goes to the Oscars, he slaps. The Oscar king more for anyone there. It's funny. It's funny that he would do you know what. What year that was. So according to the notes, it was 1989. Okay, good. So this is probably when he was big. Yeah. When you think of Will Smith rap, I think most people now think of like Y2K or will two K and Wild Wild West like some of the goofy stuff. But I guess, you know, he had a whole career before that with The Fresh Prince and everything. So yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Final question. This artist is in wax form at Madame Tussauds in London. Oh man. They probably both have wax sculptures somewhere. But I'm going to say two for this one. You are right. Nice. Yeah. This was like the trivia challenge and you know your rappers. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you went easy on me this time. Yeah. After the Natalie incident, I had figured we had to keep it. That was so hard. It was hard. It's super hard.
And we're calling these, one hits, these episodes. One shot, or one shots. Yeah. And we kind of reference that some of these artists that we're doing don't have a lot of good videos. Doctor Dre and Tupac certainly have their fair share of great videos out there. We're just picking out one of their best ones to talk about, really. And somebody mentioned to me that so yeah, we did Gangnam Style and said, yeah, this is one video, but it's actually he's got several videos there just so we're just picking out one video to highlight. Oh, you're wrong. We are the truth. Anyone listening? So if we say they only had one video, don't look it up. Just trust us. But you're right, there's a lot out there about we want to give them their shots. Yes. Yeah. Well great. Well that's all we had for this episode. Thanks for listening to Rewind and React and we'll talk to you soon. See you guys next time.
