"Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.
For every dark night, there's a brighter day.
You know it's funny when it rains it pours They got money for wars, but can't feed the poor."
Shakur began recording using the stage name MC New York in 1989. That year, he began attending the
poetry classes of Leila Steinberg, and she soon became his manager.
Steinberg organized a
concert for Shakur and his rap group Strictly Dope. Steinberg managed to get Shakur signed by Atron
Gregory, manager of the rap group Digital Underground.
In 1990, Gregory placed him with the
Underground as a roadie and backup dancer.
Under the stage name 2Pac, he debuted on the
group's January 1991 single "Same Song," leading the group's January 1991 EP titled This Is an EP
Release, while 2Pac appeared in the music video. It also went on the soundtrack of the February
1991 movie Nothing but Trouble, starring Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Chevy Chase, and Demi Moore.
Rising star: 1992–1993
2Pac's debut album, 2Pacalypse Now—alluding to the 1979 film Apocalypse Now—arriving in November
1991, would bear three singles.
Some prominent rappers—like Nas, Eminem, Game, and Talib
Kweli—cite
it as an inspiration.
Aside from "If My Homie Calls," the singles "Trapped" and "Brenda's
Got a
Baby" poetically depict individual struggles under socioeconomic disadvantage.
US Vice President Dan Quayle partially reacted, "There's no reason for a record like this to be
released. It has no place in our society.
" Tupac, finding himself misunderstood,
explained, in
part, "I just wanted to rap about things that affected young Black males.
When I said that,
I
didn't
know that I was gonna tie myself down to just take all the blunts and hits for all the young Black
males, to be the media's kicking post for young Black males.
" In any case, 2Pacalypse Now
was certified Gold, half a million copies sold.
The album addresses urban Black concerns
said
to
remain relevant to the present day.
2Pac's second album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z..., arrived in February 1993.
A critical and
commercial advance, it debuted at No.
24 on the pop albums chart, the Billboard 200 An
overall
more hardcore album, it emphasizes Tupac's sociopolitical views, and has a metallic production
quality.
It features Ice Cube, the famed primary creator of N.W.A's "Fuck tha Police," who,
in his
own solo albums, had newly gone militantly political, along with L.A.'s original gangsta rapper,
Ice-T, who in June 1992 had sparked controversy with his band Body Count's track "Cop Killer".
In fact, in its vinyl release, side A, tracks 1 to 8, is labeled the "Black Side," while side B,
tracks 9 to 16, is the "Dark Side." Nonetheless, the album carries the single "I Get Around," a
party anthem featuring Digital Underground's Shock G and Money-B, which would render 2Pac's popular
breakthrough, reaching No. 11 on the pop singles chart, the Billboard Hot 100. And it carries the
optimistic compassion of another hit, "Keep Ya Head Up," an anthem for women empowerment.
This album
would be Certified platinum, with a million copies sold. As of 2004, among 2Pac albums, including of
posthumous and compilation albums, the Strictly album would be 10th in sales, about 1 366 000
copies.
Stardom: 1994–1995
In late 1993, Shakur formed the group Thug Life with Tyrus "Big Syke" Himes, Diron "Macadoshis"
Rivers, his stepbrother Mopreme Shakur, and Walter "Rated R" Burns.
Thug Life released its
only
album, Thug Life: Volume 1, on October 11, 1994, which is certified Gold. It carries the single
"Pour Out a Little Liquor", produced by Johnny "J" Jackson, who would also produce much of Shakur's
album All Eyez on Me. Usually, Thug Life performed live without Tupac.
The track also
appears on
the 1994 film Above the Rim's soundtrack. But due to gangsta rap being under heavy criticism at the
time, the album's original version was scrapped, and the album redone with mostly new tracks. Still,
along with Stretch, Tupac would perform the first planned single, "Out on Bail," which was never
released, at the 1994 Source Awards.
2Pac's third album, arriving in March 1995 as Me Against the World, is now hailed as his magnum
opus, and commonly ranks among the greatest, most influential rap albums.
The album sold
240,000
copies in its first week, setting a then record for highest first-week sales for a solo male
rapper. The lead single, "Dear Mama," arrived in February with the B side "Old School." The
album's most successful single, it topping the Hot Rap Singles chart, and peaked at No. 9 on the pop
singles chart, the Billboard Hot 100.
In July, it was certified Platinum. It ranked No. 51
on the year-end charts. The second single, "So Many Tears," released in June, reached No. 6 on
the Hot Rap Singles chart and No. 44 on Hot 100. August brought the final single,
"Temptations," reaching No. 68 on the Hot 100, No. 35 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks,
and No. 13 on the Hot Rap Singles. At the 1996 Soul Train Music Awards, Tupac won for best rap
album. In 2001, it ranked 4th among his total albums in sales, with about 3 million copies sold
in the US.
Superstardom: 1995–1996
While imprisoned February to October 1995, Tupac wrote only one song, he would say. Rather, he
took to political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli's treatise The Prince and military strategist Sun
Tzu's treatise The Art of War. And on Tupac's behalf, his wife Keisha Morris communicated to
Suge Knight of Death Row Records that Tupac, in dire straits financially, needed help, his mother
about to lose her house.
In August, after sending $15,000 for her, Suge began visiting
Tupac in
prison.
In one of his letters to Nina Bhadreshwar, recently hired to edit a planned
magazine,
Death Row Uncut,[80] Tupac discusses plans to start a "new chapter." Eventually, music
journalist Kevin Powell would say that Shakur, once released, became more aggressive, and "seemed
like a completely transformed person.
2Pac's fourth album, All Eyez on Me, arrived on February 13, 1996. Of two discs, it basically was
rap's first double album – meeting two of the three albums due in Tupac's contract with Death Row –
and bore five singles while perhaps marking the peak of 1990s rap.
With standout
production,
the album has more party tracks and often a triumphant tone.
As 2Pac's second album to hit
No. 1
on both the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and the pop albums chart, the Billboard 200, it sold
566,000 copies in its first week and was it was certified 5× Multi-Platinum in April. "How Do U
Want It" as well as "California Love" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. At the 1997 Soul Train
Awards, it won in R&B/Soul or Rap Album of the Year.
At the 24th American Music Awards,
Tupac
won Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist. The album was certified 9× Multi-Platinum in June 1998, and
10× in July 2014.
Tupac's fifth and final studio album, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, commonly called simply
The 7 Day Theory, was released under a newer stage name, Makaveli.
The album had been
created in
seven days total during August 1996.
The lyrics were written and recorded in three days,
and
mixing took another four days. In 2005, MTV.com ranked The 7 Day Theory at No. 9 among hip hop's
greatest albums ever,[91] and by 2006 a classic album.
Its singular poignance, through hurt
and
rage, contemplation and vendetta, resonate with many fans. But according to George "Papa G"
Pryce, Death Row Records' then director of public relations, the album was meant to be
"underground," and "was not really to come out," but, "after Tupac was murdered, it did come
out." It peaked at No. 1 on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and on the Billboard
200, with the second-highest debut-week sales total of any album that year.
On June 15,
1999, it was certified 4× Multi-Platinum
Death
On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur was in Las Vegas, Nevada, to celebrate his business
partner Tracy Danielle Robinson's birthday and attended the Bruce Seldon vs. Mike Tyson boxing
match with Suge Knight at the MGM Grand.
Afterward in the lobby, someone in their group
spotted
Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, an alleged Southside Compton Crip, whom the individual accused of
having recently in a shopping mall tried to snatch his neck chain with a Death Row Records
medallion. The hotel's surveillance footage shows the ensuing assault on Anderson. Shakur soon
stopped by his hotel room and then headed with Knight to his Death Row nightclub, Club 662, in a
black BMW 750iL sedan, part of a larger convoy.
At about 11 pm on Las Vegas Boulevard, bicycle-mounted police stopped the car for its loud music and
lack of license plates. The plates were found in the trunk and the car was released without a
ticket. At about 11:15 pm at a stop light, a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac sedan pulled
up to the passenger side and an occupant rapidly fired into the car. Shakur was struck four times:
once in the arm, once in the thigh, and twice in the chest with one bullet entering his right
lung.
Shards hit Knight's head. Frank Alexander, Shakur's bodyguard, was not in the car at
the
time. He would say he had been tasked to drive the car of Shakur's girlfriend, Kidada Jones.
Shakur was taken to the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada where he was heavily sedated
and put on life support. In the intensive-care unit on the afternoon of September 13, 1996,
Shakur died from internal bleeding. He was pronounced dead at 4:03 pm.
The official causes
of
death are respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest associated with multiple gunshot wounds.
Shakur's body was cremated the next day. Members of the Outlawz, recalling a line in his song "Black
Jesus," (although uncertain of the artist's attempt at a literal meaning chose to interpret the
request seriously) smoked some of his body's ashes after mixing them with marijuana.
In 2002, investigative journalist Chuck Philips, after a year of work, reported in the Los
Angeles Times that Anderson, a Southside Compton Crip, having been attacked by Suge and Shakur's
entourage at the MGM Hotel after the boxing match, had fired the fatal gunshots, but that Las Vegas
police had interviewed him only once, briefly, before his death in an unrelated shooting.
Philips's
2002 article also alleges the involvement of Christopher "Notorious B.I.G." Wallace and several
within New York City's criminal underworld. Both Anderson and Wallace denied involvement, while
Wallace offered a confirmed alibi.
Music journalist John Leland, in the New York Times,
called
the evidence "inconclusive.
In 2011, via the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI released documents related to its investigation
which described an extortion scheme by the Jewish Defense League that included making death threats
against Shakur and other rappers, but did not indicate a direct connection to his murder
