Tupac's Pimpin Page
   
Rest In Peace 1971-1996
 



Love him or hate him, there is no denying that Tupac Amaru Shakur has left a distinct
impression on American culture. In his twenty five years, Tupac has touched the lives of
millions through his music and movies. But, many fail to acknowledge the work Tupac did for his community or his strong commitment towards improving life for the people after him. This page is dedicated to preserving the memory of Tupac Shakur the man as well as Tupac the
rapper. Please email me if you have comments or suggestions for my page.



Tupac's Music Career in Short

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in 1971 in the Bronx. He moved to Baltimore to attend its
High School for the Performing Arts, where he began writing rap. He then moved to Marin
City, Calif., near Oakland, and continued to write and record. 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 achieved individual recognition with the album "2Pacalypse Now," which 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.

Life after Prison

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.

Tupac's Good Side

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. The following list of positive lyrics from Eyez and 2Pac's previous albums certainly
doesn't make him a saint, but it does reveal surprising emotional depth:

1. "Life Goes On," All Eyez on Me (Death Row/Interscope): In one of the most touching
[music: 336Kbytes .wav] moments on his new album, the rapper with "Thug Life" tatooed on
his chest shows that he isn't insensitive to the loss of those he loves: "How many brothers fell
victim to the streets / Rest in peace young niggaz / Is there heaven for a G? / Be a lie if I told
ya that I never thought of death / My nigga, we the last one's left / And life goes on."

2. "Dear Mama," Me Against the World (Interscope): An insightful 2Pac repents [music:
301Kbytes .aiff] the stress that he's caused his mother: "Mama, I finally understand / For a
woman it ain't easy trying to raise a man / You always was committed / A poor single mother
on welfare / Tell me how you did it / There's no way that I can pay you back / But the plan is
to show you that I understand. / You are appreciated."

3. "Keep Ya Head Up," Strictly 4 My Niggaz (Interscope): With a kind of compassion that
is rare from any performer - let alone a gangsta rapper - 2Pac advises: "Be real to our
women / And if we don't we'll have a race of babies / Who hate the ladies / That make the
babies / And since a man can't make one / He has no right to tell a woman when and where
to create one." Hard to believe this is the guy who wrote "Wonda Why They Call U Bitch."

4. "Brenda's Got a Baby," 2Pacalypse Now (Interscope): This tearjerker [music: 301Kbytes
.aiff] from 2Pac's first album tells the story of a 12-year-old trapped in the hopelessness of
ghetto life and a teenage pregnancy. "Now Brenda never really knew her moms / And her
dad was a junkie putting death into his arms / It's sad because I bet Brenda doesn't know /
Just cuz you're in the ghetto / Doesn't mean you can't grow."

5. "Can U Get Away," Me Against the World (Interscope): Playing the knight in shining
armor, 2Pac expresses his love for a woman who is mistreated by another man: "I refuse to
give up / Because I believe in what we share / You're living in prison / And what he's giving
can't compare."

6. "I Ain't Mad at Cha," All Eyez on Me (Death Row/Interscope): Despite the "fuck-it-all"
persona he often projects, 2Pac shows that he can also forgive [music: 258Kbytes .aiff].
Over a catchy beat, he raps, "I moved up out of the ghetto / So I 'ain't real now' / They got
so much to say / But I'm just laughing at cha / Niggaz just don't know / I ain't mad at cha."
Pretty charitable for a guy who has been shot five times.

Tupac's Relationship with his Family

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 a part of the
generation that builds the groundwork for us to raise each other.

The East Coast / West Coast Feud

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 the 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 the 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 doing. 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.

How Long Will they Mourn Me?

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."

Tupac on Religion

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.
 
All you Folks Keep It Real
 
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