Writing and Background
"California Love" was one of two songs produced by Dr. Dre on All Eyez on Me -- the other one being "Can't C Me". The first session of the song has three verses featuring Dr. Dre's rapping. The only copy of this session is now in the possession of DJ Jam, Snoop Dogg's personal concert DJ. Dr. Dre's first session was unedited and home-studio recorded, and therefore differs to the version later included in 2Pac's Greatest Hits as well as the "How Do U Want It" (CD Maxi Single).
2Pac first heard Dr. Dre's session while at Dr. Dre's in-house studio and asked Dre to put him on the song. Dre did an additional mix for All Eyez on Me as Dre wanted to use the original on his album, so All Eyez on Me received the remix version while the original was going to come on Dre's album.
Videos were shot at the same time for both versions and released and played seamlessly on MTV in late December 1995. The original version was produced Hype Williams with a Mad Max Theme (Part 1 of the video), the remix version starts out with Pac waking up from a dream, which is the Mad Max themed original video and is a house party celebrating 2Pac's welcome to Death Row.
Musically, it is based on the Ultramagnetic MCs single "Funky" from their debut album Critical Beatdown in which they use a Joe Cocker piano sample.
In the song where Roger sings "shake it, shake it baby", he interpolates the chant he used on his 1982 Zapp single, "Dance Floor".
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