thug life: volume 1 is the only studio album by american hip hop group thug life, started by rapper tupac shakur, it was released on september 26, 1994 by interscope records. the group featured big syke, macadoshis, mopreme, the rated r and tupac shakur. due to heavy criticism on gangsta rap at the time, the original version of the album was scrapped and re-recorded with many of the original songs being cut. the album only contains ten tracks because interscope records felt many of the other recorded songs were too controversial to release. it has been said that 2pac created two other versions of this album, with many of the songs still remaining unreleased.. several of these unreleased recordings include a 4 verse solo version of bury me a g with two new 2pac verses, a radio version of bury me a g with another new unreleased verse by 2pac and two alternate recordings of str8 balllin', which include never before released adlibs by the rapper.