Tupac Shakur was one of the greatest rappers of all-time, but he had a lengthy filmography as well, includes roles in Juice, Poetic Justice (alongside Janet Jackson), and Gang Related. The 1997 crime thriller also starred Jim Belushi, who recently shared a genuinely sweet memory about his time with the late rapper. “Every time I watch the sunrise, I think of Tupac,” he tweeted. “We once watched the sunrise together after a long night. It was quiet for a second then he looked at me and said ‘I’m a thug, I prefer the sunrise.’ I really don’t know what that means, but I still live by it to this day.”
And I still think about that tweet every day. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Belushi was asked to expand on his friendship with Shakur — he did not disappoint. “As prolific as he was as a musician, Tupac had never really heard Frank Sinatra,” the According to Jim star and weed farmer said. “So I brought my The Golden Years CD [to set] and we listened to it in the trailer. When we hit ‘Fly Me to the Moon,’ I said to him, ‘Come on, man, let’s write a song. We can do ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ with you rapping, a blend with an old ballad and your style of rap.’ We worked on it between scenes.”
I have never seen Gang Related, and while I’m sure it’s a fine film, I would much rather watch a three-hour documentary about Jim Belushi trying to convince Tupac Shakur to rap along to Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon.” Alas, it wasn’t meant to be:
“He was so impressed by Sinatra… We were talking about it during that sunrise. But he later said, ‘I can’t do it.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean you can’t do it?’ He said, ‘It’s too melodically beautiful to interrupt. There’s just no way. It’s too perfect of a song to mess with.’ My response to him was, ‘Well, now you get Frank, don’tcha?’ We didn’t get far into this project, but we toyed with the idea of collaborating. We entertained each other on the set.”
In case you were wondering, one of Belushi’s favorite Tupac songs is “Wonder Why They Call You Bitch.” He listens to it when he’s not watching anime.
(Via EW)