Tupac Shakur left one of the most important musical legacies of his era
and helped to redefine the hip-hop genre. His last year was spent attempting to take
control of his turbulent life, before meeting a violent end in September 1996.
This is what the last 12 months of Tupac's life were like.
The first couple of months of the final year of Shakur's life were spent in the
Clinton Correctional Facility in New York,
where he was finishing a stint after being convicted on sexual assault charges.
In November 1993, Shakur and three other men were charged with sexually assaulting a fan in
the artist's New York hotel room. In February 1995, the rapper/actor was found guilty of
first-degree sexual assault and sentenced to 18 months to four and a half years in prison.
"If I have to go to jail, I-I don't even wanna be livin'."
Up until his death, Shakur denied all the charges and accusations against him.
At the trial, Shakur apologized but also said,
"I'm not apologizing for a crime. I hope in time you'll come forth and tell the truth."
Judge Daniel P. Fitzgerald did not believe Shakur and told him that his crime was, quote, "an act of
brutal violence." And in time, the woman did come forward, publicly revealing in a 2018 interview
all the terrible details of the sexual assault perpeatrated by Shakur and his associates.
Shakur's time in prison lasted from February to October 1995
before he was released on a $1.4 million bail posted by Death Row Records' CEO Suge Knight.
Despite being convicted of sexual assault on a female fan and being in prison for a lot of 1995,
Tupac's relationship with his girlfriend Keisha Morris continued. Tupac and Morris met in June
1994 at a Chippendale's Club, and the night ended with the pair dancing and exchanging numbers.
You'd expect that the pair's relationship would hit a snag
when Shakur was sent to prison, but during that time, Shakur became more reliant on Morris. He
asked her to take care of all his finances. As Morris later recalled in an interview:
"Tupac asked me to handle all of his business [...] because he wanted me to represent him,
he felt it would be better and easier if I were married to him.
I was kinda hesitant but I agreed."
On April 29, 1995, in front of 2Pac's mother and his cousin, the pair got married. However, the
whirlwind romance did not last long. In late July of the same year, Shakur and Morris unofficially
divorced. They officially split a week after he was released from prison that October.
While incarcerated in prison, Tupac asked Morris to call the CEO of Death Row Records, Suge Knight,
and relay a message: He needed help. Because of the financial strain of lawyers and being
unable to tour, make new music, or act, not only was Shakur going broke,
but his mother, Afen Shakur, was close to losing her house.
Reggie Wright Jr., the head of security at Death Row, said that Knight sent the jailed rapper
$15,000 to alleviate Shakur's financial struggles. After that act of generosity,
Shakur and Knight set up a meeting in prison, at which Knight and Death Row's lawyer, David Kenner,
said they would help him get released on an appeal bond.
Knight would have seemed like an angel from Heaven for Shakur.
Kevin Powell writes about a conversation he had with Shakur in December 1995 in his memoir,
The Education of Kevin Powell. Shakur told him that he trusted Suge Knight to protect
him from his enemies. Powell also said that Shakur talked about being angry with a number of people.
From a business perspective, it made sense for Suge Knight to try to entice one of the best
rappers around to his label. Shakur signed with Death Row on September 16, 1995. A month later,
Shakur was released on $1.4 million bail, paid by Knight, as they appealed his conviction.
The rivalry between Los Angeles-based Death Row Records and the New York-based label,
Bad Boy Records, was the height of the rivalry between the East and West Coasts in hip-hop.
Hip-hop music was born and developed in New York City,
and when the genre exploded in popularity and began to spread around the country,
the East Coast remained its base. However, West Coast performers felt that their music was ignored
and downplayed on New York radio, while East Coast performers felt the same way on the West Coast.
Suge Knight both unintentionally and intentionally
threw gasoline on this fire. First, with the unprecedented success of his Death Row Records,
the center of hip-hop shifted from New York to California. The company's first two albums,
Dr. Dre's The Chronic and Snoop Doggy Dogg's Doggystyle, sold more than 13 million copies.
Knight intentionally stroked the flames at the 1995 Source Awards that August,
when he took some not-so-subtle shots at Bad Boy Records' CEO Sean "Puffy" Combs. Thus, when Shakur
stepped out of jail to join Death Row Records, he immediately became a target in the ongoing feud.
The final 12 months of Tupac's life were marked with several feuds,
with his beef with The Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace,
the most well-known. His disputes extended to several rappers from the East Coast,
as well as an influential politician and a former Death Row colleague.
Tupac's feud with his former friend, Wallace, began when Shakur was shot at Quad Studios in
November 1994. He believed that Wallace and Sean Combs, who were in the studio at the time,
were responsible for the shooting. Both Combs and Wallace denied the accusations,
but that didn't stop Shakur from claiming to sleep with Wallace's wife, singer Faith Evans,
which she denied, and releasing the diss track "Hit 'Em Up," which called out Wallace and Combs.
Other New York emcees that Tupac had beefs with included Mobb Deep, Nas, the Fugees, and Jay-Z.
Even Dr. Dre, who produced Tupac's hit song, "California Love,"
two months after he left prison and helped establish Death Row with Suge Knight,
was in Shakur's scope after leaving the label in March 1996.
Two songs he released in 1996, including "How Do You Want it?",
attacked Congresswoman C. Dolores Tucker, who had launched a campaign against gangsta rap
and the labels producing the music. Shakur's attacks against
the congresswoman ultimately led to a $10 million lawsuit against his estate.
Almost immediately upon being bailed out of prison by Suge Knight and signing a three-album
deal with Death Row Records, Tupac recorded his first album at his new Death Row home.
All Eyez on Me became Shakur's fourth studio album and the last he would release during his life.
In an interview with LA Times journalist Chuck Phillips,
Shakur described his focus and commitment with his first album since leaving prison:
"I have been in the studio since the day after
I got out. [...] About twelve hours a day. Up until they kick me out."
In just two weeks, Shakur recorded 27 tracks for the double album, which would eventually hit
diamond status. Upon finishing the album, Shakur still was very much focused on making music.
"I feel like I'm doing God's work."
Producer Johnny J said that the rapper had started working on something similar to his third album,
Me Against the World, before focusing on another project.
Tupac Shakur was far from a one-trick pony. He began his career in the entertainment industry
as a dancer for the Oakland, California, hip-hop group Digital Underground. In 1992,
Tupac premiered in his first leading role as Bishop in the critically and commercially
successful film Juice. In the final year of his life, he found time between recording music
to act in his two final movies, Gang Related and Gridlock'd, both released in 1997.
Preston Holmes, a producer for Gridlock'd, had this to say about Tupac's on-set work ethic:
"Tupac never seemed to rest. While we were shooting Gridlock'd, he was working
every day on a tough low budget film. Then, he was recording, doing music videos,
and writing nonstop. [...] He felt like he had to make the most of what time he had left."
Filming for Gang Related ended on August 31, 1996, a week before Shakur would be
fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting. In the film, Shakur co-stars with Jim Belushi,
and both men play corrupt cops who look to frame someone for the death of an undercover DEA agent.
The murder of Tupac was the beginning of the decline of Death Row Records.
While the company was marred with scandals and a reputation for violence,
as well as losing one of their biggest names in Dr. Dre that March, Shakur's star power
could have kept the label afloat. However, the decline of Death Row might have been inevitable,
as Shakur's relationship with the company was far from happy by the time of his death.
In an interview with The Independent, singer Keyshia Cole, who was being mentored by Tupac,
said Shakur expressed interest to her in leaving the controversial Death Row
and signing with legendary producer Quincy Jones. Perhaps not coincidentally,
Tupac was also dating Jones's daughter, Kidada, during this period. According to Cole,
who was 16 at the time, Shakur warned her that, quote, "Death Row was not the place for kids."
On top of that, Suge Knight's management style, as described in a Trapital article,
was, quote, "like a neighborhood pimp." His behavior would have been tolerated by younger,
more inexperienced artists but not veterans like Dr. Dre and Tupac.
On the night of September 7, 1996, Tupac Shakur,
Suge Knight, and others traveled to Las Vegas to watch Tupac's friend,
Mike Tyson, fight Bruce Seldon. Tyson won in a first-round knockout. Following the match,
Shakur and his entourage got into a fight in the lobby of the MGM Grand. Shakur returned to his
hotel room at the Luxor, before leaving with Suge Knight and his entourage for a night on the town.
At a red light, a vehicle pulled up next to them and fired into their car before speeding off,
hitting Shakur, who was in the passenger seat, four times.
Knight, who was driving, was hit with debris.
"Lately I've been feeling like my luck's been running out."
Shakur would die six days later at the age of 25.
Many theories and allegations of conspiracies have emerged since that day in 1996,
especially connecting the murder to the shooting death of The Norotious B.I.G. in 1997.
In August 1996, Tupac returned to the studio to record the second of his contracted three
albums for Death Row. The album, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory,
was released on November 5, two months after his murder.
The album has also led to theories that Shakur faked his death and is still alive.
According to The Source, the album was highly influenced by the Italian philosopher and
writer Nicollo Machiavelli, who is also believed to have faked his own death.
Tupac dons the name "Makaveli" for the album,
which was much darker and more focused on death than his previous album with Death Row.
The last 12 months of Tupac Shakur's life were marred with controversy. Still, Shakur was able to
fulfill his dreams as a multi-talented artist. Six months following his death, his coastal rival and
former friend The Notorious B.I.G. would die in a similar drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, marking
the end of the East/West rivalry and closing a tragic chapter in the history of hip-hop.
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