While many of us have just finished celebrating Christmas, here’s another significant date that should be on your calendar: Today marks 20 years since colossal Tupac and Dr. Dre collaboration ‘California Love’ was released.

Back in 1995, this West Coast classic was Tupac’s first single on Death Row Records and also a comeback of sorts after his stint in jail. It reached Number. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and an eight-year-old Kendrick Lamar was also on the set of the track’s Mad Max inspired video, witnessing his heroes (and future collaborator in Dr. Dre) in action. The video was directed by Hype Williams and also starred emerging actor Chris Tucker.

In 2015, the making of this track was briefly reenacted in the N.W.A. biopic ‘Straight Outta Compton’, while it was also recently revealed that the track wasn’t originally intended for Tupac – although he recorded his verse in less than 20 minutes. Chris ‘The Glove’ Taylor explained the creation of the track to LA Weekly:

I was at Dr. Dre’s house in Calabasas one afternoon [in 1995] because he was always hosting barbecues at his spot. He had a studio in the back and he called me over to it so he could play a track for me, which turned out to be the beat for ‘California Love’… The sample and the drums were already in place but he told me that he was going to have come musicians come over and replay the horns that were in the original sample. The musicians came through and did their part and afterwards I laid down the keyboard parts heard throughout the track. After the track was complete, Dre told me that he was keeping this beat for himself.

As the party went on at the house, Tupac ended up coming through and he kind of snuck up behind me, because he was stealth like that. We said hello and shook hands and then he left to enjoy the party — or so I thought. A short while went by and I went back in to the studio to see what was going on, and I saw Tupac in the booth recording a verse to the beat we had just made. The entire process was about 20 minutes altogether and it was just amazing.

We’re hoping that we’ll get more of an insight into the making of the track in upcoming Tupac film ‘All Eyez On Me‘ – but in the meantime, listen to the classic below which has aged beautifully:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wBTdfAkqGU

Image by Steve Eichner/WireImage