On Sept. 15, 1996, "I Ain't Mad At Cha," the fourth single from 2Pac's acclaimed double album, All Eyez On Me was released.
The single was the fourth to drop from the project and arrived two days after the rapper's tragic, untimely death. Produced by legendary producer/rapper Daz Dillinger, who flipped a sample of DeBarge's "A Dream" for the track, and with vocals from Pac's regular collaborator, Danny Boy, the poignant song was especially eerie given the timing of its arrival.
In the video, which was shot weeks before his death and was released on Sept. 18, 1996, Pac is gunned down leaving a party with actor Bookem Woobine, and upon arriving in heaven is eventually surrounded by famous Black artists who'd passed on, including Red Foxx, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Billie Holiday, and more.
"I first met ‘Pac when I got the call that he wanted me to be in his video," Woobine said in an interview with XXL. "The way it went down is they sent the car for us and they dropped me off to the set where he already started shooting the 'I Ain’t Mad At Cha' video. Some of his people ushered me to meet him. He was very, very cool and one of the first things he said to me was that he was so happy that I was gonna be involved in the video and that his management, some people close to him, suggested other actors that they wanted to be in the video. He said, 'I wasn’t gonna do this video with anybody but you.' Right then and there I realized that I gotta try to do the best job I can in this video because this brother specifically wanted me to play the part."
