Warner Brothers To Release Tupac Songbook

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 […]

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.