Back on June 16th of 2020, E.D.I. Mean celebrated Tupac’s 49th birthday by going on IG Live and playing original unreleased music, including a never-before-heard version of “One Day At A Time.”
Since the release of Tupac’s ‘The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory,’ Shakur’s music continued to surface via bootleg mixtapes to official posthumous releases. Tupac’s work ethic was second to none and was able to record hundreds of songs leading up to September 13th.
Many of those unreleased records was played by E.D.I. Mean during the special live session as he celebrated Tupac’s 49th birthday with the fans. (Watch: Tupac’s Birthday Celebrated By E.D.I. With OG Songs, Stories Shared) One of those songs played was E.D.I’s version of Tupac’s ‘One Day At A Time.’
On this particular version of ‘One Day At A Time’ Keyshia Cole, Krayzie Bone, Kastro, Young Noble and E.D.I. Mean join Tupac. On the E.D.I. and Darryl Harper produced beat, Tupac’s unreleased verse stemmed from Spice 1’s “Gotta Take It (One Day At A Time)” which was later released in 2004.
“Sometimes it’s hard
– Tupac
Wake up in the mornin’ mind full of demons
I don’t want to hear them anymore
Got me heartbroken, find, so many babies screamin’
Cause they seeing destruction before they see a human being,”
E.D.I.’s version was meant for Tupac’s 2003 Resurrection documentary soundtrack. “When I played it for Jimmy Iovine, true story, we was in his office at Interscrope. I played this song, the sh*t was beating so hard it started knocking sh*t down off his shelf,” E.D.I. recalled on IG Live. “Couple weeks later we got the call that Eminem did a version. He so graciously allowed us to be on it. So shoutout to that.”
According to E.D.I., Keyshia Cole was not happy with the decision as her part did not make the final cut. Four years later and Keyshia Cole was given the opportunity to work on a Tupac song. This time around it was just Cole and Tupac on the posthumous release of ‘Playa Cardz Right.’
Listen below to hear E.D.I. Mean play more original Tupac music and share behind the music stories! Follow Outlaw 4 Life on AudioMack here for more exclusives, new music, mixtapes and more coming soon!