Tupac Shakur - A rapper against everyone

It’s just me against the world

Nothin’ to lose

It’s just me against the world, baby

I got nothin’ to lose

It’s just me against the world

Stuck in the game

Me against the world, baby

It's September 7, 1996, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bruce Seldon trades punches with Mike Tyson, in a bout for the heavyweight world championship. The match came about after George Foreman refused to challenge title contender Tony Tucker. Tucker, known as “The invisible champion” for having held the heavyweight title for just 64 days, is looking for renewed notoriety and is matched up with a boxer of modest fame, Bruce Seldon, who manages to beat him.

Mike Tyson is in the midst of his rise to the pinnacle of boxing, winning one fight after another with ease, and, to speed up his own triumph, he convinces Lennox Lewis to forgo a bout between them, for the modest sum of 4 million dollars, so he can challenge Seldon directly: Seldon is knocked down in the first round, in under two minutes, and will be so humiliated by the blatant defeat that he retires from the professional circuit for many years.

Mike Tyson's story, on the other hand, is worthy of a novel: he wins back the title he had lost, becomes infamous for biting Evander Holyfield's ear, and in 2002 loses the heavyweight world title after being knocked out by none other than Lennox Lewis.

The fight, however, doesn't go down in sports history alone - it also finds a place in music history books. Among the crowd gathered at the Mgm Grand in Las Vegas, one of the biggest and most luxurious hotels in the world, are two figures fundamental to the history of hip-hop: one is Marion Hugh “Suge” Knight Jr., co-founder and CEO of Death Row Records, the other is Tupac Amaru Shakur, one of the most famous rappers in the world.

Both have had run-ins with the law and are tied to the gangs of Los Angeles that terrorize the city with murders, robberies and drug dealing. In particular, Death Row counts several members of the Bloods among its ranks, a street gang locked in perpetual war with the equally ferocious Crips. When Tupac Shakur recognizes Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, guilty of having robbed him a few weeks earlier along with other Crips, he punches him in the face, sparking a brawl (caught on surveillance cameras).

After stopping at the Luxor hotel, Tupac and Suge head to Club 662 for a charity concert. Along the way, a Cadillac pulls up alongside them, the window rolls down, and shots are fired: Tupac is hit twice in the chest, once in the arm and once in the hip. He will die at just 25 years old, on September 13, 1996, from cardiac arrest brought on by the aftermath of the shooting. A few months later, another celebrated and famous rapper, New Yorker Notorious B.I.G., will die in a similar way.

The first suspects are the Crips, in particular Orlando Anderson himself, who, however, will die two years later in a shooting, without his involvement ever being confirmed or disproved by the courts. Despite countless theories, testimonies, rumors and denials, the murder remains unsolved to this day.

At the time of his death, Los Angeles transplant Tupac Shakur has already released four albums and made inroads into the world of film. He has had run-ins with the law, spent time behind bars, and already survived a shooting, without serious consequences, in 1995. His face is known to a broad, cross-generational audience, partly because he is one of the central figures in the famous feud within the hip-hop world pitting the two American coasts, east and west, against each other. But his premature, violent death has the power to turn a talented, successful rapper into a legend.

Becoming 2Pac: from East Harlem to Apocalypse (1971-1991)

Born Lesane Parish Crooks in 1971, in East Harlem, New York City, he changes his name to Tupac Amaru Shakur in honor of a Peruvian revolutionary. Both parents are members of the Black Panthers, the Marxist-Leninist movement fighting for the triumph of black power. Other relatives belong to the Black Liberation Army, a revolutionary paramilitary organization fighting for Black nationalism.

In part due to drug problems, his mother moves the family to Baltimore, Maryland, in the 1980s. There, Tupac attends school and begins dabbling in rap, cultivating his passion for music. In 1988 the family moves again, this time to Marin City, California.

He begins performing with Digital Underground in 1990, in a minor role while still very young, but in 1991 he appears as a rapper on "Same Song," going by the name 2Pac. Under this nickname he also releases his debut solo album 2Pacalypse Now (1991).

The tracks comment on society with a politicized edge and an aggressive tone, especially toward law enforcement. Lyrically, it will remain his most politically outspoken album, while later records will increasingly focus on his own life and personal affairs.

The production is overall disappointing, with simple funk rhythms and unsophisticated arrangements, closer to N.W.A. than to the explosive, cacophonous mix of Public Enemy. The real star, though, is the voice of the young rapper alongside his lyrics: he's a "young Black man," as he describes himself in one track, who already shows traces of the virile, deep tone that will make him famous, along with the skill to rattle off violent verses as well as more dramatic reflections. Some tracks, however, still sound naive, partly due to rhyme schemes and a flow that aren't always charismatic or polished.

Of the 13 tracks on the record, a few stand out above all. Certainly the opener "Young Black Male," which serves as an introduction to Tupac's rap persona, and "Soulja's Story," an early example of the more conscious storytelling also developed in "Words Of Wisdom," which stands in contrast to the more direct "I Don't Give A Fuck" and "Tha' Lunatic."

The most frequently cited track from this debut, however, is "Brenda's Got A Baby," about a pregnant twelve-year-old, which becomes a springboard for commenting on society and its injustices. Setting aside an arrangement that hasn't aged well, with intrusive soul vocal runs and a generic beat, this song is the first proof that, thanks to his storytelling skill, Tupac can reach a broad, crossover audience.

A rap star against the world (1992-1995)

The second album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... (1993), moves away from the debut's conscious leanings in favor of a far more explosive style, drawing equally on Ice Cube and Public Enemy, mixing street stories and political accusations without shying away from openings toward the broader world of pop. The shift is evident right from the opener "Holler If Ya' Hear Me," which could have come straight off "Fear Of A Black Planet" (1990), and is confirmed by the jarring edges of "Last Wordz" (featuring Ice-T and Ice Cube) as well as by the rhythmic layering of "Strugglin'." Closing out a long, 16-track sequence is "5 Deadly Venomz," a varied microphone assault featuring numerous guests and an array of police sirens.

Generally faster and denser, the album also dares a few stylistic quirks, like the distorted vocals on "Souljah's Revenge," but above all it marks the first tracks that embrace a style palatable to a mainstream audience, such as the crossover with r'n'b on "Keep Ya Head Up," at once a manifesto for the Black community and an intense song championing, once again, women:

Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice

I say the darker the flesh, then the deeper the roots

I give a holla to my sisters on welfare

2Pac cares if don’t nobody else care

And, uh, I know they like to beat you down a lot

When you come around the block, brothers clown a lot

But please don’t cry, dry your eyes, never let up

Forgive, but don’t forget, girl, keep ya head up

Another single remains etched in the genre's popular history: the festive “I Get Around,” not coincidentally the most jazzy and polished track on a tracklist that often aims for a gangsta aesthetic. The sophisticated production from the D-Flow Production Squad proves crucial here in bringing out Tupac's potential as a rapstar.

Rather than being remembered by posterity as one of the attempts to bridge L.A. gangsta rap with New York hardcore, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z… becomes the album of major commercial success, debuting at number 24 on the “Billboard” chart and earning platinum certification.

Tupac is credible when he raises his fist to protest society's injustices, but he also works in the role of a sensitive, reflective man, mindful of the message reaching his audience and armed with a good deal of shrewdness in exploiting his own charisma.

In 1993 the Thug Life project was also born, involving Tupac along with Tyrus “Big Syke” Himes, Diron “Macadoshis” Rivers, his half-brother Mopreme Shakur, and Walter “Rated R” Burns. They released only Thug Life, Volume I (1994), focused on the hardships of street life, caught between machismo and r’n’b/soul softness.

The relaxed g-funk style of the first single, “Pour Out A Little Liquor,” sums up the sound and spirit of the album well, while the driving “Under Pressure” represents the sharper, harder side of the formula.

Sometimes reassessed in hindsight as a hidden gem in the discography, the album is pleasant to listen to but has nothing particularly memorable about it, partly due to some bloated moments (for example, the six minutes of “Cradle To The Grave”) that weaken the overall result.

In 1993 Tupac met and became close friends with Notorious B.I.G., but in 1994 a shooting at Quad Studios cast a shadow over their relationship: Tupac became convinced that the New York rapper was somehow involved. His huge success was accompanied by increasingly serious legal troubles, including rape accusations, and a period of incarceration.

The third album, produced with the budget befitting a rapstar, is a landmark event: Me Against The World (1995) hits stores while he's still in prison and marks his consecration in the collective imagination. If the debut was a politicized album, this one is entirely personal, centered on his own experiences and his own life.

After debuting at the top of the “Billboard” chart, where it stayed for four consecutive weeks, the album temporarily outsold a greatest hits collection by Bruce Springsteen, confirming his now first-rate celebrity status. In talking about himself, Tupac finds his most anguished and heartfelt tone, a way of rapping that, without disowning its roots in the eighties, positions him as a harbinger of late-millennium trends. More than for the complexity of his rhyme schemes, the speed of his verses, or the rawness of his imagery, Tupac stands out for a tone that is as angry as it is pained, both aggressive and melancholic.

He has the ability to put all of this at the service of his audience, effectively meeting their sensibilities, even with compromises that, with a touch of cynicism, could be called crowd-pleasing.

The first anthem is “If I Die 2Nite”, opening with two lines destined to go down in history:

A coward dies a thousand deaths

A soldier dies but once

Over a square beat decorated with organ, Tupac writes a rap testament, made even more powerful in light of his premature death.

Going insane, never die, I live eternal, who shall I fear?

Dark in its themes and often explicit, Me Against The World strikes a difficult balance between loud beats and sophisticated arrangements, as in the case of the title track. The frequent sung passages, the refined samples and the blues intensity of the lyrics are the trojan horse through which gangsta aesthetics enter pop culture.

The run of classics, after the aforementioned “If I Die 2Nite” and “Me Against The World”, continues with “So Many Tears”, another melancholy track with gloomy shades, with samples of Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones forming a mesmerizing blend of soul and funk.

Other examples of this gangster blues, like “Temptations” and “Lord Knows”, set up the album's softest track, “Dear Mama”, a dedication in the form of elegant r'n'b to his mother, which joins the songs written for women on previous albums, surpassing them in tenderness. In his open-hearted narrative, Tupac manages to sketch out a difficult childhood, between poverty and drug addiction, writing an anthem for all the mothers who, against a thousand hardships, raise their children alone. With this song Tupac reaches a place where explicit lyrics and the most gangsta sound could never have taken him, writing a song that avoids slipping into saccharine territory only by countering the nostalgic arrangement and the sugary dedication with some bitter doses of real life. The epitome of this balance perhaps lies in the lines:

And even as a crack fiend, mama…

You always was a black queen, mama

“Dear Mama” would go on to earn three platinum certifications and remains to this day among Tupac's most streamed songs on Spotify, where it has comfortably passed the 200 million plays mark.

The fact that the album continues after this dedication is perhaps anticlimactic, and the rest of the tracklist suffers by comparison with the classics already discussed. Even the sensuality of “Can U Get Away” and the tribute to his idols “Old School”, though trying different paths, end up weakening rather than perfecting an album that, if judged on its first nine tracks alone, comes close to genre perfection.

Me Against The World would go on to achieve double platinum status and was also included in Robert Dimery's famous “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die”. The world's most important magazine devoted to hip-hop, The Source, placed it on its list “The 100 Best Rap Albums of All Time”.

All Eyez on 2Pac: the definitive gangsta double album

After Suge Knight helps him get out of prison, Tupac signs a deal with Death Row that obligates him to release three albums. Surpassing even Me Against The World in ambition, and setting a new production benchmark for all of hip-hop, the decision is made to release a double album, the first in the genre's history.

The sheer scale of resources deployed is impressive, with heavyweights like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, George Clinton, Method Man and Redman contributing to the writing and production of the 27 tracks on the album. The main producers, Johnny “J” and Daz Dillinger, opt for generous funk and soul borrowings, building lavish arrangements.

The title All Eyez On Me (1996) also sums up Tupac's egolalia and vanity during this period, a far cry from the conscious themes of his earlier days. More brazen than ever, the rapper opts for a decidedly more gangsta aesthetic, turning himself into a living monument of the West Coast, as the “w” gesture on the cover also demonstrates. The manifesto of this transformation is the album's opening track, “Ambitionz Az A Ridah”:

I won’t deny it, I’m a straight ridah

You don’t wanna fuck with me

Got the police bustin’ at me

But they can’t do nothin’ to a G

The swagger on display in this gangsta-rap classic is also a way of underlining to listeners Tupac's maturity as a rapper, which had fully come into its own by 1996. The track, with over half a billion streams on Spotify, has the merit of summing up in under five minutes the aesthetic adopted across the double album, and it's a key passage for understanding West Coast hip-hop of the era. Other tracks scattered across the two discs reinforce the image of a violent, aggressive Tupac, such as “Only God Can Judge Me” (feat. Rappin' 4-Tay), also making use of innovative productions, like the electronic one DeVante Swing crafts for “No More Pain”.

The other side of this gangsta lifestyle is the glittering hedonism of “All About U” (feat. Snoop Doggy Dogg, Nate Dogg, Dru Down), “How Do U Want It”  (featuring K-Ci & JoJo) and above all “California Love” (feat. Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman). The latter, here in its remix version, had already become one of the anthems of Californian rap back in 1995, thanks in part to a now-legendary vocoder turn from Roger Troutman and a lush production from Dr. Dre, layering synths, soul vocals and a danceable beat. The remix version, meanwhile, is credited to producer Laylaw.

Dr. Dre still delivers one of the album's classics, “Can't C Me”, with George Clinton guesting for textbook g-funk. The brisk, easygoing “What's Ya Phone #” (feat. Danny Boy) shows Tupac's more crowd-pleasing side, while “Thug Passion” (feat. Jewell, Dramacydal and Storm) overdoes it to the point of becoming almost laughable.

Rounding out the stylistic range are more melancholic, nostalgic tracks, such as “Life Goes On”, “Tradin' War Stories” (feat. Dramacydal, C-Bo and Storm) and “Ratha Be Ya Nigga” (feat. Richie Rich); it tips into the saccharine on “I Ain't Mad At Cha” (feat. Danny Boy).

There's a kind of symbolic passing of the torch on “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted”, paired with Snoop Dogg, and the title track with Big Skye helps, near the very end of the tracklist, to tie the whole project together after more than two hours of listening.

All Eyez On Me is an album that has gone down in hip-hop history for its boundless ambition, an attempt to surpass its predecessors with a double work that could present a new Tupac, cocky and gangsta. Viewed simply as a product of the music industry, it still stands out today for the sheer scale of resources involved, its colossal proportions and the sheer weight of the result.

From the standpoint of Tupac's career, this fourth album could have marked a rebirth after the troubled period of Me Against The World, embracing the aesthetic of Californian hip-hop and potentially steering it into the new millennium. His untimely death, however, turned All Eyez On Me into an artistic testament capturing Tupac at the peak of his powers as a rapper, fully in command of his craft yet also capable of showing an emotional, sensual side.

That said, All Eyez On Me is an album that struggles to justify its total running time of 132 minutes. Precisely because some tracks are genre classics, it's hard to ignore the presence of lesser episodes, which betray either a muddled sense of planning or, perhaps, the need to justify the double-album format. While the first disc, with its 14 tracks, is remarkable even taken on its own, the second opens with the exceptional “Can't C Me” but struggles to justify another 13 tracks. This sense of bloat is heightened by the songs' general tendency to stretch past the five-minute mark (in as many as 12 cases) and even past six minutes (in two instances).

Passing judgment on All Eyez On Me is therefore no simple task, requiring a careful weighing of contradictory elements. The album certainly gains particular significance as a touchstone at the time of the tragic shooting of September 7, 1996, casting the weight of Tupac's previous albums forward into the present. This tragic circumstance, too, contributed to the album's extraordinary commercial success, which saw it achieve the coveted diamond certification at home.

Precisely because of the tragic end Tupac met, and the eerily similar one later suffered by Notorious B.I.G., All Eyez On Me also marks a breaking point within the more aggressive strand of hip-hop.

All Eyez On Me can be labeled the definitive album, if not of gangsta-rap as a whole, then at least of a certain strand of gangsta-rap. Along the long arc connecting Ice-T's single “6 In The Mornin'” (1986), the genre's first classic, to All Eyez On Me, one can trace a trajectory that comes to a close with Tupac's death. The most violent and explicit strand of hip-hop, far from disappearing, would have to change shape to adapt to the mainstream context into which rappers like Tupac had steered it. It would be Sean “Puff” Daddy's “No Way Out” (1997) that would symbolically seal this shift, pointing the way toward the sound of compromise needed to climb to the top of the charts.

By the time of his death, Tupac had already finished his third album for Death Row, released under the pseudonym Makaveli and titled The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996). The product of an intensive seven-day session, it explores above all the darkest, most violent side of gangsta life, and it's a work that has often been read in light of what happened to the rapper. The funereal "Hail Mary," with its gothic tolling, and the energetic "Toss It Up," a more muscular take on "California Love," are two of the record's standout tracks.

The anthemic "To Live And Die In L.A." might sound out of place on such a dark tracklist, but it stands as one last example of Tupac at his most melancholy. "Me And My Girlfriend," on the other hand, is gangsta-pop of the kind he excelled at, at one of its peaks: a track so skilled at balancing power and palatability that it was reworked by Jay-Z in 2003, a tribute to a crossover appeal while staying credible that the Brooklyn rapper would go on to perfect.

Sparer than All Eyez On Me and dismissed on release as a mere cash-in on the prematurely deceased rapper's fame, The Don Killuminati lacks the grandeur of its predecessor, which isn't necessarily a flaw, but it doesn't deserve to be written off as an album to skip for anyone wanting to get to know Tupac. It is, in fact, the last body of unreleased original work for which it still makes sense to speak of a discography rather than pure speculation.

Tupac after Tupac: the posthumous albums, between tribute and exploitation

His sixth studio album, the double R U Still Down? (Remember Me) (1997), put together at the behest of his mother Afeni Shakur Davis, collects unreleased material from previous years. "Hellrazor," "Definition Of A Thug Nigga," and the more ambitious "16 On Death Row" are among the most promising tracks out of the 26 on the tracklist, but even these still feel like they needed polishing to stand alongside his classics. In some cases, the production choices are, to say the least, curious, such as the reggae track with disguised vocals "When I Get Free," or the decision to include a four-and-a-half-minute interlude, "Where Do We Go From Here."

Above all, these tracks, reworked without Tupac's consent and drawn from wildly different creative periods, come across as a watered-down broth with the bitter aftertaste of commercial exploitation, starting with the title itself and extending to a single like "I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto," which is even presented in two versions (as is the case with "When I Get Free").

The operation continues with Until The End Of Time (2001), which collects remixes and unreleased tracks. "Ballad Of A Dead Soulja," "Fuck Friendz," and "Breathin'" (feat. Young Noble, Napoleon, Kastro & E.D.I.) are the most interesting tracks on yet another double album, needlessly long-winded. It will become a triple album with Better Dayz (2002), split between a more gangsta disc and another of milder r'n'b and pop-rap.

Only Pac's Life (2006), ten years after his death, would put an end to this run of posthumous releases, collecting 13 more tracks that see the rapper duet with collaborators who have little in common with him, from Ludacris to T.I. to Ashanti, over productions that bear no resemblance to Tupac's original sound.

If there is a line beyond which the recovery and reworking of archival material becomes pure exploitation, in this case it was decisively crossed. Exploitation that crosses every boundary with Nu-Mixx Klazzics (2003) and Nu-Mixx Klazzics Vol. 2 (2007), which heavily rework the original recordings to offer new instrumentals, unreleased duets, and unexpected guest appearances.

Eminem produces Loyal To The Game (2004), with Tupac's recordings immersed in far more modern productions, featuring numerous guest rappers. More than part of Tupac's discography, this postmodern experiment of grafting old recordings onto beats in line with Shady/Aftermath productions should really be considered an oddity within Eminem's catalog.

Also arriving, a rarity for hip-hop, are some live documents: 2Pac Live (2004) and Live At The House Of Blues (2005) are recommended only for collectors.

Added to these releases are also readings of some of the rapper's poems, voiced by other artists of varying degrees of fame: The Rose That Grew From Concrete (2000) is a tribute that's moving mainly for the cast assembled for the occasion, though it's hard to consider these poetic texts much more than a curiosity for Tupac completists; The Rose, Vol. 2 (2005) repeats the formula, stripping away even the little emotional impact the first installment managed to evoke.

The double Greatest Hits (1998, diamond-certified at home), with four unreleased tracks, has the merit of summing up his entire career in a lavish run of hits and genre classics, including the important inclusion of the original mix of "California Love." It's a perfect starting point for new listeners, and it also contains "Changes":

I see no changes, wake up in the morning and I ask myself

Is life worth livin'? Should I blast myself?

I’m tired of bein’ poor and, even worse, I’m black

Less essential are the compilation Beginnings: The Lost Tapes 1988–1991 (2007), which gathers tracks from the period before his debut, and the various The Prophet: The Best Of The Works (2003), The Prophet Returns (2005), and Best Of 2Pac (in two volumes, 2007), which rehash the hits-collection formula without ever surpassing the 1998 Greatest Hits.

The Outlawz, a group Tupac was part of from 1995 onward, also cash in on the numerous posthumous releases. Having never managed to put out an album before 1999, they make up for it with Still I Rise. Despite the risk of being branded as yet another speculative cash-in, this is an example of gangsta rap that weaves some of Tupac's final recordings into a tracklist that, far from astonishing, stands as a late-period example of this hip-hop style. "Letter To The President," "Hell 4 A Hustler" and "Killuminati" hold up against the minor tracks of his main discography.

Tupac's life, and his tragic death, were also brought to the screen: Tupac: Resurrection is a 2003 documentary whose soundtrack draws heavily on previously released tracks along with a few minor unreleased ones.

The proliferation of posthumous releases, however brazen an exploitation it may at times seem, is a testament to the icon status Tupac has attained. Many of these releases have achieved remarkable commercial success, helping to make him one of the best-selling artists of all time and cementing his presence in popular culture, far beyond the boundaries of hip-hop.

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