KURT: Nearly a year after he was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, rapper Tupac Shakur was back on the radio this week with a new single — a track off a double album due out on November 25th, on a label started by his mother, Afeni Shakur.
The album contains previously unreleased material Tupac recorded for Interscope Records in the early 90s. The album’s called „Are You Still Down? (Remember Me)“ and the first single is „I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto.“
Neuste Beiträge über Tupac
Star rappers Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur spent a lot of time lately trying to stay out of jail. Unsuccessfully, in the case of Shakur, who is headed back to the slammer for a 4-month refresher course for disdaining to do road clean-up work for a parole violation. But the under-fire duo also have flourishing musical careers, and when they shot a video in Los Angeles last weekend for their duet track, „Two of America’s Most Wanted,“ we paid a visit.
TUPAC SHAKUR: The video is just as much a Snoop video as it is mine.
SNOOP DOGGY DOGG: It’s setting up my album.
TUPAC: We all move as one cause Death Row, we really like that, you know what I mean?
SNOOP: We’re a track and field team.
TUPAC: We’re gonna tag team all day.
MTV: And if there’s a tag team around that knows about being wanted men, it’s certainly Tupac and Snoop Doggy Dogg. „Two Of Americaz Most Wanted,“ was written when Snoop’s murder trial was beginning and just as Tupac’s jail sentence had ended.
SNOOP: When I wrote it I was so happy that Pac was outta jail. I wanted people to know that I was thinking about my case and I was thinking about him as well, because if they take me away they gotta let him go. You can take one of us , but you can’t take both of us and if you let us both go that’s where you really did f*ck up.
SOREN: Snoop, when you were in court I know you went off to shoot a couple videos. How does it finally feel to shoot a music video and not have to wake up and go to early court in the morning? Feeling a bit more relaxed?
SNOOP: I think I got too relaxed. I’ve been lazy. To these videos, I been lazy.
MTV: This time it’s Tupac calling the shots as the video’s director-instructing Snoop and other Death Row label mates like Nate Dogg and Tha Dogg Pound. But Tupac isn’t stopping there, he plans to make movies with Snoop as well.
TUPAC: We’re gonna be better than Lethal Weapon, better than Danny Glover and Mel Gibson, we’re gonna make you think about 48 Hours, we’re gonna hit you with something and it’s gonna be like, „da*n, there’s the future of black cinema. There’s the future of cinema in the ’90s.“ When Quentin Tarantino, when he put out his pictures, they all gangster pictures, and they all get critically acclaimed. We get treated like the bad messenger and he gets treated like King Solomon, which I don’t want no harm to come over Quentin Tarantino cause I enjoy his movies, but I’m just showing how we both doing the same thing and we’re both looked upon totally different.
SNOOP: You know what I think Pac, maybe he need to come get at us and put us in one of his movies.
TUPAC: I’m willing to say Quentin Tarantino and John Woo, can’t even f*ck with me and Snoop’s stories.
MTV: With a new movie division and a new east coast office in New York, plus a restaurant on the drawing board, Snoop and Tupac’s label, Death Row Records, is spreading it’s wings and these guys say they’re ready.
TUPAC: There’s not two more confident individuals in this business than myself and Snoop. When people go back and see what we was like living in 1996, and what was going on, I’m almost willing to bet my life and Doggs’s betting his life that’s it’s going to be our stories that they’re listening to, I can guarantee you.
On that video shoot, we asked Snoop and Tupac about the recent news that the gifted producer Dr. Dre, who introduced Snoop to the rap world and produced his records has left Death Row Records. And here’s what they had to say.
SNOOP: Basically, I don’t like to, you know, make too many comments on that. I’d just like to say that, you know what I’m sayin‘, I’m in the studio doin‘ my thing, you know? It’s goin‘ to be fly. It’s goin‘ to be real fly. And for the people out there who buy my album to support it, be on the lookout for the same thing, just with a new twist. And that’s how I’m going to leave that situation, like that. That ain’t for me to speak of.
TUPAC: Homeboys… I ain’t goin‘ to speak on that subject, I’ll just say in general. Homeboys need to stick together. And if your homeboy don’t show loyalty to you, or if your homeboy isn’t there when you need him most, he’s probably not going to be there through the kinda hard times. So that kinda like lets you know who you should be with and you shouldn’t be with. And, I always say, what’s done in the dark always comes to light.
Las Vegas police say they still have no leads on suspects or motive in the murder of rapper and actor Tupac Shakur, who died last Friday, the 13th, after being gunned down in a drive-by following the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon boxing match September 7th. Meanwhile, on Thursday night in Los Angeles, we spoke with Marion „Suge“ Knight, head of Tupac’s label, Death Row Records, and the man who was driving the car, sitting right next to Tupac when he was shot. Knight, who himself was grazed in the head by a bullet, was prevented by lawyers from addressing the shooting itself… But here, for the first time on television, he speaks publicly about its aftermath.
MTV: How are you feeling, and how are you doing physically?
MARION „SUGE“ KNIGHT, CEO, Death Row Records: I feel like this: I feel that the last word is always God, but Pac saved my life. He’s my… Pac saved my life. I got shot in the head — got grazed some other places — but I still got the bullet in my head. It’s still here…. Before, I was tryin‘ to get him to the hospital — didn’t make me realize that I was shot. Because usually, when you get shot in the head, the first thing the person do is panic. You know, BAM! I’m shot in the head! I’m about to die! And once you do that, you can’t drive nowhere. My whole thing was Pac — he was shot. I’m like, „You’re shot! Let me get you to the hospital.“ I’m driving, telling him I’m gonna get him to the hospital, kicked back, Pac looked at me and said, „You know what? You need a doctor more than me. You the one shot in your head.“ And we laughed the whole time finding our way to the hospital. That’s the conversation we had. It wasn’t… Pac was a man the whole time. It wasn’t that he was like, „OOOhhh, I’m shot!“ He crackin‘ jokes. He’s like, „Yeah, they shot me.“ But he said, „But you shot in your head. Look at your head. You see how much it’s bleedin‘? Look how much it’s bleedin‘.“ That was Pac. And I’m like, „Man, shut up, we’ll get you to the doctor.“
MTV: So he was conscious on the way to the hospital?
KNIGHT: He was conscious on the way to the hospital, he was conscious in the… labs, he was conscious after they did surgery.
MTV: What was the last thing that he said to you?
KNIGHT: That he loved me. You know, he was going… he was gettin‘ there. I’m like, „Pac, you’re gonna be the last one left.“ But we talked this out. We talked it. He said, „No, I’m straight. I love you, homey. I’m gonna be straight.“ „I love you too.“ That’s where he was.
MTV: There was a report earlier this week in „The New York Post“ that Tupac was looking to leave Death Row Records. Is that true?
KNIGHT: You should answer that. You don’t take a person like Tupac, who, if you listen to every song on „All Eyez On Me,“ every song on „Machiavelli,“ every time he do an interview, what’s the first thing he say? Death Row. Tupac loved Death Row. Tupac loved me. I loved him. I mean, Tupac took Death Row to the next level. I mean, we worked hard, we laid the foundation down, Snoop took the baton and he ran with it. And he did a great job with it. But Tupac got the baton, not only did he win the race, he finished so fast he able to sit back and drink some thug passion in, and come up with another play. If you’d asked Tupac that question that was he planning on leaving Death Row, he definitely would have cussed you out.
MTV: A lot of people in the hip hop community have said that this incident will change hip hop. This is a really landmark event — tragic event, at that. And that the music will probably never be the same. Do you see the direction of Death Row changing? Is there going to be a different type of music put out?
KNIGHT: Not at all. We gonna do thing we’ve been doing, and set our records like I said before. My main goal is fulfill Tupac’s dreams. And Tupac would definitely never want the music to change…. So we’ll keep it the way he would like it. I feel like that it’s my job to make sure all Pac’s dreams is fulfilled, and he stay alive, and keep Death Row alive. I’m not gonna go and say, „Well, just ‚cause it’s a little crazy in this world, so, I’m gonna sit down somewhere.“ I’m not gonna sit down nowhere. I’m gonna walk the pattern, talk the same talk, fulfill all his dreams, and lay real low.
Also Thursday night, Tupac’s label-mate Snoop Doggy Dogg told us that this is a very emotional time right now for him, as well. Snoop’s new album, „Tha Doggfather,“ is due out November 5th, the same day as Tupac’s EP „Machiavelli.“ Meanwhile, as expected, in the wake of Tupac’s death, sales of his latest album „All Eyez On Me“ soared — 40,000 copies moved in the past week; and on Monday’s „Billboard“ pop albums chart the album leaps from number 69 to number 18. Tupac’s previous album, „Me Against The World,“ also got a sales bump, and re-enters the chart at number 99. As for Tupac’s posthumous „Machiavelli“ EP, its cover will bear a painting, commissioned by Tupac before his death, that will seem prophetic: it shows Shakur on a cross, with bullet holes in his body, and light pouring through the holes along with his blood. Also stuck to the cross are notes naming the many cities in which Tupac had run-ins with the law.
Speaking of prophetic, Wednesday night MTV premiered the latest video from „All Eyez On Me,“ for the track „I Ain’t Mad Atcha,“ directed a month ago by Tupac himself, with the help of J. Kevin Swain. The video opens with Tupac being shot to death by an unknown assailant, then follows him to heaven, where he’s greeted by a Redd Foxx look-alike, and raps against a background populated by likenesses of Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Sammy Davis Junior, and other deceased black music stars.
Two memorials to Tupac were announced this week: one, for Thursday morning in Los Angeles. It was promptly canceled by its organizer, Death Row Records, which said it could not find a venue big enough to satisfy fan demand. The Nation of Islam set Sunday as a „Hip Hop Day of Atonement“ at a mosque, once used by Malcolm X, in New York City’s Harlem district. The Nation’s youth coordinator Conrad Mohammed said the event would „call for an end to the maddening destruction of the black community“ — sentiments echoed in a letter to Tupac, acquired by MTV News, that his step-father Mutulu Shakur wrote upon learning of Tupac’s death. Mutulu, a Black Panther in jail for helping another Panther trying escape prison, wrote, „Will your levitation be the awakening of us all? The division unsettling to our dreams and goals… Your passing demanding repentance and resistance.“ We got more reaction to Tupac’s murder last weekend in Las Vegas, where fans held a vigil at the intersection where Tupac was killed, and from rappers in Los Angeles who were taping MTV next „Rock and Jock“ game.
DAPHNE, 36: We know what his music was about. Lot of people, some people don’t. But we know his music was down for our people. We listen to it. We have it. We know the messages, y’know, the words that he’s saying and everything. And, you know, we miss him. Its just like I’m losing a son.
EMMITT, 22 (gesturing to a large tattoo on his stomach): That’s for like, all the pain that we done went through. I suffered the same life he just suffered, living that street life, that thug life. All of it’s real. Just ‚cause you get famous don’t mean nothing. Enemies still catch up with you.
MAN 1: I looked up the night Tupac died, they pronounced him dead, and I seen one star in the sky and it was kind of hazy ‚cause it was cloudy. but you know what I figured is that was Tupac… you know what I’m sayin‘? That’s how I looked at it.
WOMAN 1: Only God should judge Tupac. We should not, nobody should say whether he was a thug, he didn’t represent this, he didn’t represent that. God should judge that man, you know? And I just say, I hope he rests in peace. I’ll see him at the crossroads.
SPINDERELLA, Salt N‘ Pepa: I hope his life is an example to a lot of kids out there. He spoke of a lot of things in his music, and that’s because he went through a lot, y’know? So, the things that he said, hopefully, it’ll teach these kids out there that are tryin‘ to run around, doin‘ this, doin‘ bad things and everything, that there is life ahead. Life goes on.
METHOD MAN: This is an eye-opener right here. Hopefully, for all the youth, kids, I mean, even the grown-ups, everybody, I hope this is an eye-opener, man. Word up. ‚Cause they should see, right now, the violence is not the key, and that it’s real. Bullets is real, guns is real, you know, all that stuff is real, man. It’s up to us as artists to take responsibility for what we’re saying in our records and on our albums and things of that nature, you know. But it’s like, you can’t water down the hip hop, you can’t water down the ghetto. It’s like, when those shots go off, the kid, the average kid in the ghetto can’t close his eyes to it. This is not a television show, this is reality, real-life drama.
Las Vegas police have told MTV News that they believe they know who murdered Tupac Shakur in a drive-by shooting on September 7, but that they still do not have a prosecutable case to present due to a nearly total lack of cooperation from witnesses.
A police spokesperson says everyone connected with the case has been interviewed including Death Row Records chief Marion „Suge“ Knight. Suge was driving Tupac’s car that fateful night, and was grazed in the head himself with a bullet. Contrary to persistent rumors, police say Knight is not a suspect.
The Vegas police department says that it considers its case pretty much complete, and hopes witnesses willing to testify will come forward, so it can name its suspect.
Two weeks after the drive-by shooting death of Tupac Shakur near the glittery main strip of Las Vegas, a very public murder that no one present can seem to recall much about — a memorial service for the trouble-prone rapper and actor was held in New York City last Sunday by the Nation Of Islam.
It was called „A Hip-Hop Day of Atonement,“ apparently intended as a mass meditation on the black on black violence that now claims so many young men’s lives. It was originally scheduled to be held at Harlem’s Mosque Number Seven, a venue presided over in the sixties by the fiery black leader Malcolm X, who was himself gunned down by fellow black Muslims after he split with Nation of Islam Leader Elijah Muhammad. The memorial service wasn’t open to everyone, but here’s what we saw on the scene.
FEMALE MEMORIAL PARTICIPANT: I wish I had a chance to actually meet Tupac. His music meant a lot to our people.
MALE MEMORIAL PARTICIPANT: Tupac is just one of many who die on the streets everyday, this is an opportunity to — another coming together for the community.
MTV: Due to a larger than anticipated turnout organizers were forced to move the event across the street to the more spacious Dempsey multi-service center where neither cameras nor white people were allowed. However, the message being delivered inside was broadcast to the hundreds waiting outside.
MALE MEMORIAL PARTICIPANT: Whether I go inside and actually hear the words that are being spoken, or if I’m out here feeling the energy from people around here and other people just standing on line that want to see more positive things happen in our community, then my mission has been accomplished.
MTV: Out on the street, event organizer Conrad Muhammad of the Nation of Islam and some hip hop reformers reiterated some of the sentiments being expressed inside.
Q-TIP, A Tribe Called Quest: Hopefully, this will be a wake up call to motivate some of the youngsters — because that’s what this is all about. To do something more in a positive light.
MINISTER CONRAD MUHAMMAD: We will commit ourselves, from this day forward, to stop the negativity, to work hard to use brother Tupac’s life, not in vain, but to be a turning point for the hip hop nation.
SPINDERELLA, Salt N‘ Pepa: We want the media to know, you know, being that you guys were not inside that this is something that we’re trying to do constantly and our kids that are writing those lyrics are living that life.
GRAND MASTER FLASH: It’s a black owned art form but it was made for the whole world to listen to, and if we as a community do not take responsibility for what this is then it’ll be gone.
While everyone in Tupac’s entourage the night he was murdered appears to have been looking the other way when the shots were fired, Las Vegas police say they are now getting phone tips from other possible eye-witnesses. As for Tupac’s musical legacy, Death Row Records says that, contrary to some reports, Shakur left behind only a handful of unreleased tracks, six of which will be released on November 5th, on an EP called „Machiavelli.“ His latest album „All Eyez On Me,“ meanwhile, pole-vaults to number 6 on Monday’s „Billboard“ albums chart up from 18 this week, and 69 two weeks ago.
by Adario Strange
It was the latter half of 1993, just one week before Tupac made headlines by being accused of rape in a Manhattan hotel room. I had just come back from a six month stay in the Bay Area, and I was now producing tracks at a Mid-town, Manhattan studio on 36th street called Skyline Studios. One night I was sleeping over at my cousin’s house in the Bronx when something told me to call my friend Arzie Hardin (who I sometimes worked with on studio projects) at the studio. Turns out he was at Skyline working on a session with the then un-signed and unknown female rapper Queen Pin (who later joined Teddy Riley & Blackstreet). He was doing her demo and asked me to come down and sit in on the session.
Once I got there, to my surprise, Tupac and his entourage were on the scene. At this point Tupac’s entourage consisted of a then unknown Biggie Smalls (who came off very shy and introverted), and Stretch of the group Live Squad. I soon found out that Queen Pin had managed to get Tupac (then riding high on his first real hit „I Get Around„) to rhyme on her demo tape. But after an hour of trying to find a track that suited Tupac, everyone was getting a frustrated, and Tupac was threatening to leave. At the time, I was known for always carrying around a tape of my beats; so I pulled Tupac to the side and gave him an impromptu listening session while everyone else was taking a stress break in the lounge area. To my advantage, my recent stay in California had turned me from an East Coast only beat-maker into a West Coast funk-rap producer, so Tupac soon found a track on my tape that got him excited. Unfortunately for Queen Pin, Tupac liked the track so much, he decided he wanted it for himself. So after a depressed Queen Pin accepted the detour, we went to work on „Who Do You Luv?“
Originally, the track was supposed to feature Tupac, Stretch, „and“ Biggie. But while the other two whipped up their verses in 30 minutes, Biggie just couldn’t seem to come up with a flow, and finally trudged out of the studio session never to be seen again. We wound up working on the song for about three days, and when we were done we knew that this was the perfect marriage of West Coast beats with East Coast grittiness. Interscope made a check out to me and my boy Arzie (who engineered and co-produced the session) and that was that. To this day „Who Do You Luv?“ is one of my favorite Tupac tracks not because I produced it, but because he was using a particularly unique rhyme style that he generally abandoned when he went to Death Row Records. The sound quality on the song is poor because over the years my reference recording has been through some wear and tear. Subsequently I got to hang out with Tupac at various times, most notably right after his release from prison in 1995. Our last time together, we were in an apartment in Los Angeles with the rest of his Outlaw Immortal crew, and Tupac was raging with energy now that he was free of prison life. I hate that he left the world the way he did, in a hail of bullets in Las Vegas. But I respect the fact that he’s one of the few people I’ve ever known who truly lived life on their own terms.
Trouble-plagued rapper and actor Tupac Shakur is dead at the age of 25 — just about a week after sustaining 4 bullet wounds last Saturday night in Las Vegas. Shakur spent the week in the hospital on a respirator in critical condition. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, members of the Nation of Islam, and fellow Death Row Records artist Hammer visited Shakur’s bedside on Sunday, when he had one of his lungs removed. Shakur’s mother, Afeni — featured in his „Dear Mama“ video — and other family members kept a vigil at his hospital room in the intensive care unit of University Medical Center in Las Vegas. Early in the week, doctors rated Tupac’s chances of survival at one in five, then said his chances had improved on Tuesday, then on Thursday declined to speculate on his prognosis at all. Chris Connelly was on the scene to reconstruct the ultimately fatal events of last Saturday night.
CHRIS CONNELLY: I’m here in Vegas, where the most violent portion of Tupac Shakur’s Saturday night was supposed to take place behind me, over there at the MGM Grand Hotel, where Tupac saw Mike Tyson pound Bruce Seldon into submission less than two minutes into their heavyweight bout. The fight ended around 8:55 PM local time, and from there, Tupac headed off to the home of Suge Knight, which is about 5 miles away from here. He’s the head of Death Row Records. From there, they were supposed to go to Club 662, that’s Knight’s club, for a celebration in honor of Tyson, that was going to feature entertainment by people like Run DMC. But the caravan of cars from Knight’s house never got to the club.
Tupac and Suge Knight left Knight’s home at around 10:30 PM to go to Club 662. By 11:15 that evening, they were heading east on Flamingo, just coming to this intersection here at Koval. They were driving a black BMW 1996 model. Knight was driving, Tupac was in the passenger’s seat. Along the passenger’s side came a late model white Cadillac. From inside, shots were fired, 14 of them. Tupac was hit four times, twice in the chest, once in the arm, and once in the thigh. Knight was mildly injured by some bullet fragments; but he promptly floored the car, spinning it completely around and took a U-turn so it instantly headed east on Flamingo.
With Tupac bleeding profusely in the passenger seat, Suge Knight was able to get his vehicle just about a mile away from the site of the shooting, something of a miracle given his condition, the condition of the car — which had a flat tire — and the fact that the traffic on the strip after a heavyweight fight in Vegas is something to behold. They made it to this corner here, Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue, where they were finally pulled over by the Bike Patrol, who radioed ahead to paramedics, who swept them off to University Medical Center — their evening out in Las Vegas ending just a few steps away from where it had begun, the MGM Grand.
Shortly before midnight, Tupac was brought here, to UMC’s Trauma Center, where he was immediately operated on, and then again about 20 hours later.
DALE PUGH, University Medical Center of Southwest Nevada: He’s had a right lung removed, he’s back in his room, and again, he remains in critical condition. He’s in the intensive care unit.
CONNELLY: Is he conscious? Can he communicate with his doctor?
PUGH: He has been conscious, he is under a lot of medication, so he’s pretty sedated at this time. He’s severely injured. Suffering multiple gun shot wounds is obviously a terrible insult to the human body, so he’s in very critical condition, and he’s requiring intensive care, and he is receiving that, right now.
Once again, Tupac Shakur died of those bullet wounds at the age of 25 on Friday, September 13.
Suge Knight, who was released from the hospital Sunday night, finally spoke with police on Wednesday, and told them he „heard something, but saw nothing“ last Saturday night, leaving the cops with, as one spokesman put it, „nothing“ in the way of leads towards suspects or motives. Police also looked at security camera tapes from the Tyson fight at the MGM Grand, where Tupac and his entourage got into a scuffle with someone, who was ruled out as a suspect, since he was still held by security when Tupac left the building. Because there’s a possibility of Tupac’s shooting being gang-related, Vegas police got in touch on Thursday with Los Angeles police regarding two shootings that happened in LA this week. The Vegas P.D. has also been in touch with New York City police, for it was there that Tupac Shakur was shot two years ago. Of course, Tupac and trouble have hardly been strangers. Here now is a look back at his turbulent life and career.
MTV: Tupac Shakur’s public life began when he joined the seminal Bay Area rap ensemble, Digital Underground, first as a tour dancer, then as a rapper. Tupac demonstrated his range as a performer when his first solo record, „2Pacolypse Now,“ was on the charts at the same time as his critically-acclaimed feature film debut in the violent, coming of age drama, „Juice.“ While he maintained a thug image, Tupac was a man of contradictions, recording sentimental raps in support of black women, including „Brenda’s Got A Baby,“ and „Keep Ya Head Up.“
(From an interview, March 9, 1994)
TUPAC SHAKUR: Because I was raised by a woman half my life in the… streets, it’s like I got the woman’s side, then I got real rough, manly values, like, forced on me.
MTV: As Tupac’s film credits grew, with John Singleton’s „Poetic Justice,“ he faced the possibility of doing time for assaulting director Alan Hughes, who had dropped him from the cast of „Menace II Society.“
TUPAC: If I have to go to jail, I don’t even want to be living. I want to just cease to exist for however long they have me there, and then when I come out, I’ll be reborn, you know what I’m saying? I’ll be taking less problems, and that my mind would be sharper, and the venom would be more potent. So, they shouldn’t send me there. They should really try to… It’s like, you don’t want to throw gasoline on a fire to put it out.
MTV: What followed was a cross-country tour of courtrooms and jail houses: 10 days in a Michigan prison for assaulting a fellow rapper with a baseball bat (April 5, 1993); an arrest for allegedly shooting two off-duty Atlanta police officers, in which charges were eventually dropped (October 31, 1993); and sexual abuse, sodomy — both, allegedly, against a fan — and weapons charges in New York City (November 18, 1993). The day before he was convicted of sex abuse in New York, Tupac was shot five times in the lobby of a Times Square recording studio. The crime was officially classified as a robbery; and the police dropped their investigation when Tupac failed to cooperate.
(From an interview with Tabitha Soren, October 27, 1995)
TUPAC: That situation with me is like, what comes around, goes around… karma, I believe in karma. I believe in all of that. I’m not worried about it. They missed. I’m not worried about it unless they come back.
MTV: While serving his sentence for sexual abuse, Tupac’s third solo release, „Me Against The World,“ spent four weeks at number one.
TUPAC: It was a trip. Every time they used to say something bad to me, I’d go, „That’s all right. I got the number one record in the country.“
MTV: 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 (counting a handful of money after being signed to Death Row Records): If you come to Death Row, you will see your art brought to a bigger plateau, and you will be paid one of these days. Death Row…
MTV: 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.
TUPAC: Bad Boy Records. That’s for Bad Boy Records (he winks and holds up the handful of money from signing with Death Row). I love you all.
MTV: 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.
(From an interview at the MTV Video Music Awards, September 4, 1996)
TUPAC: We are businessmen. We are not animals. It’s not like we’re going to see them and rush them and jump on them. If they see us and they want drama, we’re goin‘ to definitely bring it like only Death Row can bring it…
We spoke this week with Ernest Dickerson, who directed Tupac in his big screen debut, „Juice,“ and asked him what about Tupac might surprise people. Here’s what Dickerson told us.
ERNEST DICKERSON, Director, „Juice“: I think that he’s very introspective. I mean, when we were shooting „Juice,“ in between takes, he would spend a lot of time by himself, writing. You know, he thinks a lot. He thinks about what’s going on in the world, he thinks about what’s going on in the neighborhoods. He thinks about what’s going on in this country and around the world, and he talks about it in his music. And the thing that I really got from Tupac was that he was always thinking, always at work. His mind was always going.
Tupac Shakur recently finished shooting another movie, called „Gridlock,“ in which he and Tim Roth play heroin addicts trying to kick their habits. Described as „a buddy film for the 90’s,“ it’s due out early next year.
by Adario Strange
It was the latter half of 1993, just one week before Tupac made headlines by being accused of rape in a Manhattan hotel room. I had just come back from a six month stay in the Bay Area, and I was now producing tracks at a Mid-town, Manhattan studio on 36th street called Skyline Studios. One night I was sleeping over at my cousin’s house in the Bronx when something told me to call my friend Arzie Hardin (who I sometimes worked with on studio projects) at the studio. Turns out he was at Skyline working on a session with the then un-signed and unknown female rapper Queen Pin (who later joined Teddy Riley & Blackstreet). He was doing her demo and asked me to come down and sit in on the session.
Once I got there, to my surprise, Tupac and his entourage were on the scene. At this point Tupac’s entourage consisted of a then unknown Biggie Smalls (who came off very shy and introverted), and Stretch of the group Live Squad. I soon found out that Queen Pin had managed to get Tupac (then riding high on his first real hit „I Get Around„) to rhyme on her demo tape. But after an hour of trying to find a track that suited Tupac, everyone was getting a frustrated, and Tupac was threatening to leave. At the time, I was known for always carrying around a tape of my beats; so I pulled Tupac to the side and gave him an impromptu listening session while everyone else was taking a stress break in the lounge area. To my advantage, my recent stay in California had turned me from an East Coast only beat-maker into a West Coast funk-rap producer, so Tupac soon found a track on my tape that got him excited. Unfortunately for Queen Pin, Tupac liked the track so much, he decided he wanted it for himself. So after a depressed Queen Pin accepted the detour, we went to work on „Who Do You Luv?„
Originally, the track was supposed to feature Tupac, Stretch, „and“ Biggie. But while the other two whipped up their verses in 30 minutes, Biggie just couldn’t seem to come up with a flow, and finally trudged out of the studio session never to be seen again. We wound up working on the song for about three days, and when we were done we knew that this was the perfect marriage of West Coast beats with East Coast grittiness. Interscope made a check out to me and my boy Arzie (who engineered and co-produced the session) and that was that. To this day „Who Do You Luv?“ is one of my favorite Tupac tracks not because I produced it, but because he was using a particularly unique rhyme style that he generally abandoned when he went to Death Row Records. The sound quality on the song is poor because over the years my reference recording has been through some wear and tear. Subsequently I got to hang out with Tupac at various times, most notably right after his release from prison in 1995. Our last time together, we were in an apartment in Los Angeles with the rest of his Outlaw Immortal crew, and Tupac was raging with energy now that he was free of prison life. I hate that he left the world the way he did, in a hail of bullets in Las Vegas. But I respect the fact that he’s one of the few people I’ve ever known who truly lived life on their own terms.