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Tupac
Amaru Shakur was born in Bronx in 1971. He moved to Baltimore where he
went into a High School for Performing Arts, where he began writing rap.
Then he moved to Marin City, California. As a member of the Grammy-nominated
group Digital Underground he appeared in 1991 on the track "Same Song"
from "This is an EP Release" and on the album "Sons Of The P." That same
year Shakur spawned the successful singles "Trapped" and "Brenda's Got
A Baby." The album, with references to police officers being killed, drew
notoriety when a lawyer claimed a man accused of killing a Texas trooper
had been riled up by the record. Then-Vice President Dan Quayle targeted
"2Pacalypse Now" in his 1992 battle with Hollywood over traditional values.
Shakur followed up in 1993 with the strong selling album "Strictly 4 My
N.I.G.G.A.Z...," which produced the singles "I Get Around," "Keep Ya Head
Up," and "Papa'z Song." That year he was nominated for an American Music
Award as best new rap hip hop artist. The next year he appeared with Thug
Life on the "Above The Rim" soundtrack and on the group's album "Volume
1." In a photo on the album liner he framed his face between his two extended
middle fingers. While in prison last year he indicated he was rethinking
his lifestyle. "Thug Life to me is dead. If it's real, let somebody else
represent it, because I'm tired of it," Shakur told Vibe magazine. "I represented
it too much. I was Thug Life. While serving his sentence for sexual abuse,
Tupac's third solo release, "Me Against The World," spent four weeks at
number one.
After
eight months, Tupac's case was appealed, and Death Row head Suge Knight
promptly bailed Tupac out of jail, and took the opportunity to sign him
to Death Row Records. Tupac turned his troubles to a career that was bigger
than ever. His double album Death Row debut, "All Eyez On Me," sold more
than 5 million copies, scored a number one single, and included tracks
with new label mate, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Dr. Dre. With three years past
since Snoop's last solo release, and the departure of Death Row Co-Founder,
Dr. Dre, to start his own label, Tupac became Death Row's artistic centerpiece,
as well as its biggest mouthpiece. Death Row and Tupac shared a common
enemy: the New York-based Bad Boy Entertainment. Tupac had earlier implicated
Bad Boy Producer, Sean "Puffy" Combs, and star artist, the Notorious B.I.G.,
in his 1994 shooting. But despite his taunts, Tupac realized danger could
be around the corner. Back in New York City for this year's Video Music
Awards, just three nights before he was shot in Las Vegas, Tupac surrounded
himself with bodyguards and clutched a walkie talkie throughout the evening
as a security precaution.
The
media's portrayal of Tupac Shakur as a tattooed thug has focused public
attention on his alleged crimes instead of his music. In reality, this
rapper, raised in Marin City, California, by a Black Panther mother, is
more complex than his detractors like to admit. Shakur (who performs as
2Pac) is a talented lyricist with a gift for storytelling. He continues
to grow as a writer on his hard-hitting new album, All Eyez on Me (Death
Row/Interscope), which benefits from West Coast-style production by such
artists as Dr. Dre. Recorded shortly after Shakur was released on bail
from a prison sentence for sexual assault, the double album shows a relatively
contemplative rapper who's ready to make peace with some of his demons.
I
thought my father was dead all my life. After I got shot, I looked up there
was this nigga that looked just like me. And he was my father; that's when
I found out. We still didn't take no blood test but the nigga looked just
like me and the other nigga's dead so now I feel that I'm past the father
stage. I do want to know him and I do know him we did talk and he did visit
and help me when I was locked down, but I'm past that. What I want to do
is form a society in which we can raise ourselves; so we can become our
own father figures and the big homies can become their father figures and
then you grow up then it's your turn to be a father figure to another young
brother. That's where I want to start. Nine times out of ten though we
would want them to be there, they can't be depended on to be there. Now,
some of the mothers can't be there because they doing their thing[working]
I can't blame them, they gotta do what they gotta do. So I think the youth
should raise themselves since they got lofty ideas about what's theirs
and their rights, what they should deserve. Since you can't whup their
asses, these muthafuckers should get out and work at fifteen. I want to
be apart of the generation that builds the groundwork for us to raise each
other.
That's
so much nonsense, Poppycock! (laughs) It's not a new allegiance to the
west coast, I've been on the west coast all this time. Some people, not
all, some people on the east coast are on their dicks so hard, they never
heard me say that I'm living on the west coast. It's just by me keeping
it real, I always said where I come from. I always gave New York their
props. On Me Against The World, I took a whole song to give it up. So now
on teh next alvum, whin I wanna give it up, for my home, where I'm at,
everybody got a problem. Why don't they have a problem with Biggie saying
Brooklyn in th e house every fucking show he do. They just did a Sprite
commercial with the "Bridge" and KRS, why isn't it hip-hop when I do it?
Everybody else can have a beef within the music, talk about differences
and it's ok. It's music, it's hip-hop, it's groundbreaking. When I do it,
it's war. That's all I'm doin g. All I'm doing is saying that I'm tired
of you talking about where you're from; If that's what we're gonna do now.
We was doing it like hip-hop was one nation. I have proof to say what I
was doing-I've done more for the east coast than the east coast did. I
put more guns in east coast niggas hands than east coast niggas did when
they came out here. I put them niggas on to more weed gates and weed spots
and safe havens and safe spots than the east coast did. I put more rappers
on than they did. I gave Biggie his first shows! I was that bridge that
niggas used to walk on to get over here. I explained it, I the one that
told you. I'm why all these niggas are running around with a gangbanger
on their payroll now.
LAS
VEGAS (AP) - Tupac Shakur, the rapper whose raw lyrics drew on the rage
of a coarse urban existence and seemed a blueprint of his own violent life,
died Friday from wounds suffered in a drive-by shooting. He was 25. Shakur,
known as 2Pac, was one of the most successful - and scorned - "gangsta"
rappers. Fans bought millions of records; others denounced him and gangsta
rap lyrics for glorifying violence and drugs and degrading women. He was
pronounced dead at 4:03 p.m. PDT at University Medical Center of respiratory
failure and cardio pulmonary arrest, a hospital spokesman said. Marion
"Suge" Knight, chairman of Los Angeles-based Death Row Records, was driving
Shakur on East Flamingo Road when a gunman pulled up along side them and
emptied a semiautomatic pistol into the passenger side. Shakur was hit
four times in the chest and abdomen. Police believe he was the target.
Knight was hit by shrapnel but was treated and released from the hospital.
It's been six days since Shakur was shot. He underwent surgery twice on
Sunday and once on Monday, and his right lung was removed. George Pryce,
Death Row Records spokesman, said they were preparing a statement. "Give
people a moment to get over the shock"
I'm
the religion that to me is the realist religion there is. I try to pray
to God every night unless I pass out. I learned this in jail, I talked
to every God (member of the Five Percent Nation) there was in jail. I think
that if you take one of the "O's" out of "Good" it's "God", if you add
a "D" to "Evil", it's the "Devil". I think some cool motherfucker sat down
a long time ago and said let's figure out a way to control motherfuckers.
That's what they came up with-the bible. Cause if God wrote the bible,
I'm sure there would have been a revised copy by now. Cause a lot of shit
has changed. I've been looking for this revised copy-I still see that same
old copy that we had from then. I'm not disrespecting anyone's religion,
please forgive me if it comes off that way, I'm just stating my opinion.
The bible tells us that all these did this because they suffered so much
that's what makes them special people. I got shot five times and I got
crucified to the media. And I walked through with the thorns on and I had
shit thrown on me and I had the theif at the top; I told that nigga "I'll
be back for you. Trust me, is not supposed to be going down, I'll be back.
I'm not saying I'm Jesus but I'm saying we go through that type of thing
everyday. We don't part the Red Sea but we walk through the hood without
getting shot. We don't turn water to wine but we turn dope fiends and dope
heads into productive citizens of society. We turn words into money. What
greater gift can there be. So I belive God blesses us, I belive God blesses
those that hustle. Those that use their minds and those that overall are
righteous. I belive that everything you do bad comes back to you. So everything
that I do that's bad, I'm going to suffer for it. But in my heart, I belive
what I'm doing in my heart is right. So I feel like I'm going to heaven.
I think heaven is just when you sleep, you sleep with a good conscience-you
don't have nightmares. Hell is when you sleep, the last thing you see is
all the fucked up things you did in your life and you just see it over
and over again, cause you don't burn. If that's the case, it's hell on
earth cause bullets burn. There's people that got burned in fires, does
that mean they went to hell already? All that is here. What do you got
there that we ain't seen here? What, we're gonna walk around aimlessly
like zombies? That's here! You ain't been on the streets lately? Heaven
now, look! (reffering to his plush apartment) we're sitting up here in
the living room-big screen TV- this is heaven, for the moment. Hell is
jail I seen that one. Trust me, this is what's real. And all that other
shit is to control you. If the churches took half the money that they was
making and gave it back to the community, we'd be alright. If they took
half the buildings that they use to "praise God" and gave it to motherfuckers
who need God, we'd be alright. Have you seen some of these got damn churches
lately? There's one's that take up the whole block in New York. There's
homeless people out here. Why ain't God lettin' them stay there? Why these
niggas got gold ceilings and shit? Why God need gold ceilings to talk to
me? Why does God need colored windows to talk to me? Why God can't come
where I'm at where he sent me? If God wanted to talk to me in a pretty
spot like that, why the hell he send me here then. That makes ghetto kids
not belive in God. Why? So that's wrong religion-I belive in God, I belive
God puts us where ever we want to be at. They didn't make sense that God
would put us in the ghetto. That means he wants us to work hard to get
up out of here. That means he's testing us even more. That makes sense
that if you're good in your heart, you're closer to God but if you're evil
than your closer to the devil; that makes sense! I see that everyday all
that other spooky shit, don't make sense. I don't even belive, I'm not
dissin' them but I don't belive in the brothers, I've been in jail with
'em and having conversations with brothers; "I'm God, I'm God." You God,
open the gate for me. You know far the sun is and how far the moon is,
how the hell do I pop this fuckin' gate? And get me free and up outta here.
Then I'll be a Five Percenter for life.