"I got shot." "I always felt like I'd be shot." "Somebody was trying to do me some harm because a Iot of people don't like me." "But I didn't think it was gonna happen at that particular moment." "I'm surprised, but I'm happy." "I believe that, you know, this is all in God's hands." "And I'm very appreciative to God for everything I've gotten to do." "But also, about death, we look at death from the selfish side, Iike," ""That guy died." "Oh, it's so sad." Why is it sad?" "He's away from all of this bad stuff that's here on Earth." "I mean, at the worst, he's just somewhere quiet, no nothing." "At best, he's an angel...or he's a spirit somewhere." "What is so bad about that?" "Throughout my Iife, I just wanted to be like an angel for God." "Do something where I couId be of some help." "And I can do that." "I mean, I'm an artist." "It's not Iike I have to tell the truth." "I have to tell a story and reach you and get some kind of feeling from you." "And then try to get the moral across." "So this is my story." "A story about ambition, violence, redemption and love." "In my Iife, I was different things to different people." "What's up, nigga?" "Some people say I was a thug and a gangsta." "Other people remember me as a poet and a born leader." "But I'm saying to you, measure a man by his actions fully, through his whole life, from the beginning to the end." "Everybody's past is what made their future." "It's, Iike, my destiny." "My mother was a black Panther and she was really involved in the movement." "Power!" "Power!" "Power to the people!" "Power to the people!" "You know, just black people bettering themselves and things like that." "She had a high position in the Panther Party, which was unheard of, because there was sexism, even in the Panthers." "AII of my roots to the struggle are real deep." "I was named after this Inca chief from South America whose name was Tupac Amaru." "And I think the tribal breakdown means like, intelligent, warrior, something like that." "He's a deep dude." "If I go to South America, they're gonna love me." "My stepfather at the time, MutuIu Shakur, he was also, Iike, a weII-known revolutionary." "And then my godfather, Geronimo Pratt, had a top officiaI-rank position with the Panthers on the West Coast." "You can jail a revolutionary but you can't jail a revolution." "I think that my mother, Iike Fred Hampton, Mark clark," "Harriet Tubman, they felt like they were laying tracks for a generation to come." "Come in, little brothers, sisters." "Y'aII sit down and get something to eat." "There was always white people around helping out." "But still, you know, there's racism." "So when the Panthers hit, the government panicked." "And they felt like the Panthers were detrimental to American society." "Remember, this country had a man named J. Edgar Hoover, whose job it was to destroy the credibility of any black man coming up." " That's what they did to the Panthers." " Power to the people." "The government raided every Panther's house, especially the ones who they felt like could do the most damage as an orator." "So they just burst in and put a gun to my mother's head and said," ""Don't move." "You're under arrest."" "They treated her like less than human." "My mother was pregnant with me while she was in prison." "She was her own attorney, never been to law school." "She was facing 300 and something-odd years." "One black woman, pregnant, beat the case." "That just goes to show you the strength of a black woman and the strength of the oppressed." "And a month after she got out of prison, she gave birth to me." "So I was cultivated in prison." "My embryo was in prison." "When I was a little baby, I remember that one moment of calm peace, and three minutes after that it was on." "I rebelled against my mother because she was in the movement and we never spent time together." "She was speaking and going to colleges." "I used to feel like she cared more about the people than her people." "And then after that was over, it was more time spent with me, and we were like, "You're my mother." She was like, "You're my son."" "Then she was really close with me and really strict, almost." "My mother is totally brilliant, totally understanding and caring." "And she's human." "I mean, she'II be wrong a Iot, but we can talk about it." "She taught me how to be community-oriented, and to analyse society." "Me and my sister grew up good, and we have good minds and everything." "But we just didn't have money." "Poverty is..." "It's no joke." "If there was no money and everything depended on your moral standards and the way you treated people, we'd be millionaires." "We'd be rich." "But, since it's not Iike that, then we're stone-broke." "I can't always have what I want or things that I think I need." "Poverty, if I hated anything, it wouId be that." "You and me were born and raised in Harlem." "And every time you put it down, you're not only putting us down, but Mama and Papa." "My real father was a black Panther, but when I was growing up, I never knew who my father was for sure." "My stepfather was a gangster, a straight-up street hustler." "My mom had a kid, he didn't even care." "He's like, "That's my son," took care of me, gave me money." "He was a criminal too, out doing his thing." "So he only came, brought me money and then left." "It's OK to go to Harlem and celebrate your birthday with your friends, but I don't think we would really fit in." "I hate saying this because whites love hearing blacks talk about this." "I know for a fact that, had I had a father," "I'd have had some discipline, I'd have had more confidence." "Your mother cannot calm you down the way a man can." "Your mother can't reassure you the way a man can." "My mother couldn't show me where my manhood was." "You need a man to teach you how to be a man." "When I was young, I was quiet, withdrawn." "I read a Iot." "I wrote poetry." "I kept a diary." "I watched TV all the time." "I stayed in front of the television." "And I couId see all these people out there in this pretend world." "And I knew I couId be part of it if I pretended too." "The way arnold looked on Diff'rent Strokes," "I used to like the lifestyle, the way he used to live." "So early on, I just watched and emulated." "I thought if I can be an actor and act like those characters," "I couId have some of their joy." "Oh, thank you, Mr D!" "If I couId act like I had a big family, I wouldn't feel as lonely." "My first acting job was at the apollo Theater when Jesse Jackson was running for president in 1 984." "It was a fundraiser, and I was a little kid." "Travis, from Raisin in the Sun." "When the curtain went up," "I just caught that bug that everybody talks about." "I was like, "Whoa, this is it."" "It was better than sex and anything, money, everything." "It was like, "Whoa," ""I want this."" "We moved out of New York because my mother lost her job." "We were, Iike, stranded." "So we moved to baltimore which was total ignorance town to me." "I mean, baltimore has the highest rate of blacks killing blacks in the country." "Then I auditioned for the baltimore school of Performing Arts." "Then I started to have good-Iuck times." "I spent three years in baltimore, high-schooI years." "I made friends," "like John cole and Jada Pinkett." "I Ioved my classes." "We were exposed to everything." "You know, theatre, ballet listening to different types of music, songs that became a soundtrack to my Iife." "But in my homeboys' high school, it's not Iike that." "They don't have trips to go see this Broadway play, they don't read things we read." "They didn't know when I was like," ""Yo, Shakespeare's dope." They don't have the same experiences we had." "Then I started thinking the arts school I went to was mostly for white kids and rich minorities." "I started going, "I would have been totally different" ""had I not been exposed to this."" "I was living in the ghetto." "We didn't have lights and electricity." " We was about to get evicted." " We want homes!" "We want heat!" "We want lights!" "We want something to do for our children!" "I thought, "We're not being taught to deal with the world as it is."" "The rich should live like the poor, the poor should live like the rich." "They should change every week." "The president stirred up a hornets' nest earlier this week when he suggested the problems of the hungry came about because they were uninformed about where to go for help." "How could Reagan live in a White House, which has a Iot of rooms, and there be homelessness?" "And he's talking about helping." "I don't believe that there is anyone that is going hungry in America simply by reason of denial or lack of ability to feed them." "It is by people not knowing where or how to get this help." "Why can't he take people off the street and put them in his White House?" "Then he'II have people from the streets to help him with his ideas." "Not helpless!" "homeless!" "Not helpless!" "They haven't been homeless forever." "They've done things in society." "The White House would be tainted, because he doesn't want to get dirty." "Growing up in America, I Ioved my childhood, but I hated growing up poor." "We live in hell." "We live in the gutter." "We live in a war zone." "We've got us stacked up 80-deep in one building." "When you get out your house, you're strapped to protect yourself." "The same crime element that white people are scared of, black people are scared of." "while they waiting for legislation to pass, we next door to the killer." "AII them killers they let out, they're in that building." "Just because we black, we get along with the killers?" "What is that?" "We need protection too." "Then I came to california to escape that violence." "Come to Marin City, and there's even more poverty." "I was starting to see that the one thing we have in common as black people, is we share that poverty." "I made it to where I had knowledge this wasn't just me." "It was a bigger picture." "It was my people getting dogged." "It wasn't just my family." "It was all of us." "Moving to baltimore and oakland and Marin and New York, and the poverty helped me to relate to everybody's struggle." "Don't get the wrong idea." "I feel like I'm being gloomy." "I don't mean just to be like, "Damn it, it's bad out there."" "I still try to be positive." "I know that good things are gonna come for me." " Where you go to school?" " Are you rolling?" " Yeah, rolling." " Go ahead, that's OK." "You dressed right for it." "He said he's been a little chilly, so this is good for him." " Somebody will enjoy the heat in here." " Any time." "OK." "My name is Tupac Shakur, and I attend TamaIpais High school." "And I'm 1 7 years old." "Oh, my God, I got the phattest déjà vu." "I chase girls and I bought the car and loud music, but I Iike to think of myself as really being socially aware." "I think there should be a class on drugs." "There should be a class on sex education, a real sex education class." "There should be a class on police brutality." "There should be a class on apartheid." "There should be a class on why people are hungry." "But there are not." "There are classes on gym." "physical education." "Let's learn volleyball." "How do you think you're most like your mom?" "I'm most like my mom because I'm arrogant." "totally arrogant." "You should see us when we get in our attitude moods." "We get in our tiffs and everything, but it's good." "My mom's my homey, but we went through our stages, where first we was mother and son, then it was like drill sergeant and cadet." "Then it was like dictator, little country." "Then I moved out and I was on my own." "I was broke, nowhere to stay." "I smoked weed." "I hung out with the drug dealers, pimps and the criminals." "They were the only people that cared about me." "And I needed a father." "I needed a male influence, and these were the males." "You could see where I spent time in the streets when you talk to me." "The words I say don't come from a mother's or father's mouth." "They come from a pimp's mouth or a prostitute or a hustler or drug dealer." "To me, these were my role models." "My mom was lost at that particular moment." "She was addicted to crack." "It was hard." "It was hard because she was my hero." "Not long ago in oakland, california," "I was asked by a group of children what to do if they were offered drugs." "And I answered, "Just say no."" "I was broke." "I didn't have enough credits to graduate, so I dropped out." "I said, "I gotta get paid." "I gotta make a living."" "I started selling drugs for maybe two weeks." "The dude was like, "Give me my drugs back," because I didn't know how." "The dope dealers used to look out for me." "They would give me money and be like, "Don't get involved with this." "Get out there, do your dream."" "So they was like my sponsors." "My dream was to make a living rapping." "Just to make music that was coming from my heart." "When I first started rapping, I needed the money, and I had to work." "That was me." "For me to get paid, I had to go out in bikini briefs and hop on top of this doll." "I was homeless." "That's what I had to do." "You have to work from one point to go to another point." "I admire the work ethic." "Shock was responsible for my success." "I'm the original two-tone, big-nosed, skinny rapper." "Shock G." "LeiIa introduced me to Atron who was managing digital Underground." "He was like, "I'II send you to digital Underground." "They're in the studio." ""Rap for Shock G on the spot." "If he like you, I'II pick you up."" "I walked in and rapped." "He was like, "Good." "You're in." Boom, boom. "See you later."" "And I Ieft, walked out of there like, "Dang."" "Shock was like, "Come on the road." "Be my roadie." "It ain't glamorous." ""You'II be working, meeting people." I said, "cool."" "Off the road, he said, "I'm gonna pay you and let you do Same Song."" "I did Same Song." "Ever since, it's been on." "I Iook back with the greatest fondness." "Those were some of the best times." "Watch this one." "I'm gonna fuck you up." "I'm gonna fuck you up." "Atron had been shopping my demo tape as a solo artist." "AII of a sudden, Interscope got in touch with us, and I was told that Ted field, this millionaire, muItimiIIionaire, his daughter had heard my demo, and she liked it." "So he was like, "That's how I picked you."" "And I was like, "well, tell your daughter thanks."" "So I went from being unknown to now having a platinum record." "2Pacalypse Now is a story of the young black male, from track one to track 1 3, whether it be about teenage pregnancy, police brutality or poverty." "also, I tell my own personal problems." "AII my songs deal with the pain that I've felt from my childhood." "That's what makes me do what I do." "My inspiration for writing music is, Iike, Don McLean when he did Vincent," "Lorraine Hansberry with Raisin in the Sun," "Shakespeare when he does his thing." "Like deep stories, you know, Iike raw human needs." "I just try to speak about things that affect me and our community." "Sometimes I'm the watcher and sometimes the participant." "Sometimes it's just aIIegories or fables that have a moral or theme, Iike the ghetto lifestyle." "I seen that, the crack babies, what we had to go through," "losing everything and being poor and getting beat down." "Being the person I am, I said, "No, I'm changing this."" "I'm trying to think of a good analogy." "It's like, you've got the Vietnam War, right?" "And just because the reporters show us pictures at home of the Vietnam War, that's what made the Vietnam War end when it did, or the shit probably would have lasted longer." "If no one knew exactly what was going on, we just thought they were just dying vaIiantIy, in some beautiful way." "But because we saw the horror, that's what made us stop the Vietnam War." "I thought, "That's what I'II do as an artist, as a rapper." ""I'm gonna show the graphic details of what I see" ""in my community, and hopefully they'II stop it." "Quit."" "hello, I'm Tanya Hart, and welcome to our show." "My guest today has experienced a truly horrendous life to just be 20 years old." "His family portrait could well be a poster for America's Most Wanted." "His lyrics are controversial but also a reality of Iife as he has seen it." "My ear is to the streets." "I represent 20 years on this planet Earth and what I've seen." "This is my report." "It's like my battle cry to America." "In my album, the number one enemy is the crooked police officer." "And the ironic thing is that it never happened to me." "I was speaking from the stories of my peers." "I mean, I said all of these things, and then it happened to me." "I had no record, all my Iife, no police record, until I made a record." "As my video was debuting on MTV, I was behind bars, getting beat up by the police department." "Good morning." "My name is John Burris, and I am here today with my client, Tupac Amaru Shakur, as well as other members of the digital Underground rap group and some members of the digital Underground rap group, a combination of the various groups." "basically, I walked across the street at 1 7th and Broadway." "The police officers stopped me on the sidewalk and asked to see my ID." "They sweated me about my name." "The officers said," ""You have to Iearn your place."" "They were charging me with jaywalking." "I was riffing, arguing about why would they charge me with a petty crime." "I kept yelling, asking them to give me my citation and let me go." "Next thing I know, my face was being buried into the concrete and I was laying face down in the gutter, waking up from being unconscious in cuffs, with blood on my face." "And I'm going to jail for resisting arrest." "That's harassment to me, that I have to be stopped in the street and checked," "like we're in South Africa and asked for my ID." "Officer Boyavich repeatedly slammed my face into the floor, while Rogers put the cuffs on." "That's not called for, for jaywalking." "I got a ten-miIIion-doIIar lawsuit." "They said they would settle, but nobody cared." "That wasn't blew up all over the news." "They didn't see me on TV with my eye and head busted." "There are pictures." " In oakland?" " Yes." "You don't see them." "You see pictures of Tupac coming out of jail in cuffs." "You don't see pictures of police beating my brains in." "You don't see that." "But I see that." "That's what I see." "We have seen what they did to Rodney King." "The whole world has seen what happened to Rodney King." "Baby, Iet me show you what they did to Tupac Shakur." "AII that movie, that didn't mean nothing to OPD." "I was still an N-I-G-G-A, and they proved it." "And if you can see this, Mr Cameraman," " this is scars I'II go to my grave with." " I can see it." "These are "learn to be a nigger" scars." " You're suing them?" " For ten mil." "What else can I do?" "See what happens." "You know how that go." "Rodney King's still fighting for his, and they got it on tape." "They got it on tape." " They settled with me." " They did?" "They gave me 42,000." "I had to pay my lawyer a whole bunch and bought a car." "I settled because I was tired of court." "I couId have won more, but I was tired of going to court." "I felt like any dollar from any police department was good money." " So you got $42,000 for jaywalking?" " That's a hell of a ticket." "After that case, people perceived me as a menace." "I've had chief of police, vice president, the leader of the black national Women's council..." "Everybody against me." "Why?" "Why me?" "I have not brought violence to you." "I have not brought Thug Life to America." "I didn't create Thug Life." "I diagnosed it." "What's up?" "When I did Juice, my image got even more scary." "Everything starts from now." "We all go down unless we stay together." "No one's above the crew." "You know that shit." "You're crazy, man." "When I auditioned for Juice, that was another good-Iuck time." "It was my first big part, and I just took everything and internalised it." "You're right." "I am crazy." "But you know what else?" "I don't give a fuck." "Bishop is a psychopath, but more true to his character," "Bishop is a lonely, misguided young kid." "His heroes are James Cagney and Scarface, those kind of guys." " Made it, Ma." "Top of the world." " "Made it, Ma." "Top of the world."" "Know what I'm saying? "Shoot them up, go out in a blaze"-type gangsters." "If you've gotta go out, that's how you go out." "That motherfucker took his destiny in his own hands." "When I get a part, at first I just try to find out, how does this character feel?" "Like, I make the person up in my mind." "What he looks like, try to put a face to him." "Even though it's my face, I'II give him a walk and give him an attitude." "AII you have to do is relate to your character." "Even away from the set, I just let myself go." "I just stopped caring." "I stopped worrying about what people thought and started staring people down more." "I really just got into the part." " Yo, Bishop, man, give me the piece." " No." "No?" "What the hell you mean, no?" "Give me the gun." "I mean I'm holding onto this till I say so." "I'm not playing." "Oh, really?" "When I'm playing a character, I'm really that character." "There's nothing fake." "Oh, shit!" "I just took everything and internalised it." "tell us about your character." "I know you're the villain." "Yo, I play me, straight ruthless villain, straight killer, straight take no sszzz-s." "You know what I'm saying?" "Straight popping partners." "Yo, Tupac will go ahead and rock this." "Juice helped me because it gave me that trust." "It let me trust my instincts." "I was confident about what I couId do and what it wouId look like afterwards." "My next guest has not only become one of today's most talented new stars, but he's becoming one of today's most taIked-about new stars." "please welcome Tupac Shakur." "I know what I feel like when I'm in the zone, when I'm there." "So I was just trying to get that feeling." "Why are you always so mad?" "The exciting performance in the film is the one of Tupac Shakur." "What do you want from me?" "I think you're kind of fly." "Shit." "We could start with your phone number." "This is a 22-year-oId young actor, Tupac Shakur." "He's been in the film Juice, and I hope to see him again soon." "When I was doing Poetic Justice, I had to tone myself down a Iot to be Lucky." "Lucky is doing the opposite of Bishop." "He's working, responsible, deliberate about things, caring for his daughter." "I'm a Gemini, so I got both sides." "See, I get a feeling there are two Tupacs." "See, I mean, you're this kind, sensitive, friendly guy, yet you're involved in so much controversy." "I'm talking about Tupac Shakur, who had an incident with a limo driver during a taping of ln Living Color." "Tupac Shakur is free on bond tonight after his arrest this weekend in atlanta." "The 22-year-oId singer and actor was charged with shooting two off-duty police officers." "The wounds were not serious." "The fight that led to the shooting in Marin City reportedly broke out in this field on Saturday night." "Marin festival USA was in full swing." "Neighbours say Tupac should not have let anyone bring a gun here." "Since he got big, they claim he's changed." "That change has broken some hearts." "Tupac was homeless." "He's from here." "We helped him out." "Over my career, I got arrested, Iike, 1 2 times, some by mistake, some fate and some unwarranted." "But for whatever reason, I got to see police more than I wanted to." "In some of my cases, they dropped the charges." "But because of trouble in these court cases, it was hard at that point for me to be trying to do a movie." "I wasn't professional." "I think I was talented, but I didn't have the concentration." "And I was immature, and my ego was out of control." "Harry Connick ain't got nothing on me." "Check it." "I had to get humble again before I couId do this." "More hot water may await Tupac, based on what he tells the new issue of The Source about co-starring with Janet Jackson in her film debut, Poetic Justice." "Among other complaints," "Tupac says Janet's people asked him to take an AIDS test" " before shooting a love scene." " I don't know if it came from Janet, but suddenly they wanted me to take an AIDS test for this love scene." "I did not disagree if we were really gonna make love." "I said, "If we can make love, I'II take four AIDS tests."" "But if I'm doing a love scene with her just like somebody else did, and they didn't take a test, I'm not." "Not only am I not taking a test, but get out of my trailer." "And they sent, Iike, four different people to ask me." "First they sent the producer, then the black dude, then John, then a girl." "It don't matter who you send, I'm not taking one." "To me, it was just like an insult." "We had a good experience on the set." " You look like the type of guy to care." " What's the type?" "I thought I made a friend." "I thought, "I know Janet Jackson for life."" "When the movie was over, it was like, "This number has been changed."" "And it was like a movie." "I mean, it was like the day after the movie wrapped." ""I'm gonna call you." "AII right."" ""This number's been changed." I said, "Oh, OK."" "still, when I see her again, I'd run up and hug her." "We was real cool." "I Iove women." "I'm not gonna lie." "I Iove women with a passion." "I do." "I do." "Sometimes I just wanna call Prince and be like, "Can we hang?"" "Because I Iove women like he love women." "hold on." "I've been talking to little girls all day." "Seeing somebody my age." "How you doing?" " Fine, how you doing?" " yourself?" "I have ultra respect for women." "I Iike being around females," "I'm comfortable with them on every level." "I don't get a predator thing going when I'm around demure females." " Don't be shy." " Y'aII making me blush." "You got me blushing." "I'm not uncomfortable around strong women." " Sorry." "I'm not enough." " No, I'm looking you up and down." "On TV, they'II go, "Look how he looking at Tabitha."" "Don't do that." "Madonna is real nice." "She's a good person." "She helped me a Iot." "She was real cool, Iike any one of my homeboys." "Jasmine Guy, she helped me." "She's a good supporter." "Jada Pinkett." "Jada's my heart, you know what I mean?" "She will be my friend for my whole life." "Well, I'll scoop you up later in life if you ain't all shrivelled up." "We'II be old together." "Be like Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee." "Pic, you always got a place in my heart." "She can have my one heart, my liver, my lungs, my kidneys, my blood, marrow, all of that." "My mother taught me to understand women a Iot more than my peers can." "When I was young, I was surrounded by strong women." "My sister's the bomb." "She's my biggest critic." "She's real smart, funny as all hell." "She's real funny." "My mother was a matriarch." "If you raised by a woman, you're gonna think like a woman." "But I'm not a woman." "I'm just a normal man." "To me, I'm the hardest man around, the hardest nigga, because I'm real." "But I'm also very soft." "I'm very sensitive, but that's why I'm so harsh, because I'm so sensitive." "And that's what I think has made me successful and famous." "So sensitive." "Don't be so sensitive, Tupac." " well, basically..." " BugaIoo." "BugaIoo?" "BugaIoo?" "marion Wayans, I am playing the role of BugaIoo." " What is BugaIoo?" " Where did that name come from?" "Some white guy's sitting there, "What's a homeboy hip-hop name?" "BugaIoo!"" ""What are they calling each other these days?"" "When I got famous, I got famous friends." "Mickey Rourke was a good friend, good person." "He's really funny." "My memory of him is the night he's arguing with Carré, his wife." "He didn't know what to do." "I was like, "Man, buy her some CristaI." ""CristaI will make someone forgive you, trust me."" "They be like, "What was we fighting about?"" "He's like, "That's a good idea, 'Pac." I was like, "He gotta be twice my age." ""I'm giving him ideas."" "I always gave Biggie a Iot of props." "The Notorious B.I.G." "I thought at the time he was my friend." "Mike Tyson, we used to kick it." "He's a real cool brother, a big brother." "The only difference in us is that he's big and I'm small." "But I got the same heart he got." "I want to knock everybody out." "My brother, I'm telling you, you were good." " I enjoyed your performance." " Appreciate it." "Thank you very much." "I Iike that people come to me and go, "You did a good job."" "I was loving that somebody said, "Tupac, you a great actor."" " I'm telling you, Tupac a real nigga." " Being famous gave me confidence." " Is Tupac a sexy motherfucker?" " The crowd gave me confidence." " Go Tupac, go Tupac, go." " Let me hear you say," " "Go Thug Life, go Thug Life, go."" " Go Thug Life, go Thug Life, go." " That's what I wanna hear." " Now, I'm my own man." "I got you now!" "I got you now!" "I put it down." "I wanna get into the head seat." "excel at it." "Do it one more time, clear as possible." "Can we double it, see what it sound like?" "I'm a naturaI-born leader." "If not, everybody lose their jobs." "Everybody lose their jobs!" "Back to servant." "playing the drums in the corner." "But nobody could call me a seII-out." "I'm not going for that." "I didn't want to change." "I Ioved that even though I was with Janet Jackson in big movies," "I'II be up at the dirtiest house party in the 'hood." "people could not believe it." "I used to thrive off that." "Being up in the party, and somebody go, "Oh, my God, that's Tupac."" "Going crazy because I'm in a dirty party, no security," "lights out, drinking, hella drunk." "Drunk with everybody else." "But that's what kept my sanity, kept me right, kept me going." "My fans know that I'm real." "My fans go to jail just like me." "They understand me." "half my fans are white." "The white fans listen as much as the black fans." "The ones that have approached me have been genuine fans." "These people will have jobs in the future and will hire my family." "Get down, man!" "But many of my fans don't have ID." "Some have jobs, some don't." "Some are on welfare, you know?" "Some are not." "Some are rich and some are poor, but they all share that hopeless feeling." "I got the underdogs on my side." "I'm almost more in awe of the people in awe of me than they are of me." "outlaw, outlaw, outlaw" "Everybody just be screaming, and I get uncomfortable." "It's similar to a deer caught in the headlights." "It's like a battle to find the right words to say at the right time." "It was cool." "I got to speak to young black males all over the country about this new idea called "Thug Life" which is a new kind of black Power." "When I say, "Thug Life", I mean that shit, because these white folks see us as thugs." "I don't care if you think you a lawyer, a man, an African-American." "If you whatever the fuck you think you are, we thugs and niggas to these motherfuckers!" "until we own some shit, I'II call it like it is." "How you gonna be a man and we starving?" "walk about five different houses, there ain't a man in either one of them motherfuckers." "How we gonna be African-Americans if we all need a gun?" "We thugs and niggas until we set this shit right." "Trust me when I tell you that shit." "Young black males identify with Thug Life, but I couldn't handle it." "I couId handle it, but not right away." " Mr Shakur, can we get a comment?" " hell, no." "Thug Life." " Pardon me?" " Thug Life." "That's my comment." "What's that mean?" "I don't understand." " What did happen?" " Thug Life." "Imagine you have 1 4,000 people ready to do whatever you want." "You have, all over the country, people waiting to hear what you wanna do." "I got people in the penitentiary, big-time OG criminals, calling me, telling me they want me to lead their movement." "I mean, I'm gonna have a problem." "So they told me to watch my language." "Fuck that." "I'm gonna have a small identity crisis." "I felt like, "I got every man in America" ""who wants to take orders from me, who wants to know what I wanna do."" "Wants to know my plan for young black males." "That makes me scared." "I'm 22." "I was having concerts sold out, white boys, Mexicans, blacks, and they would do what I say." "I couId tell them to turn in a circle, and they would do it." "I was having love," "like, undeniable love, and I was scared." "I was scared, but so was America, so was somebody else." " I'm a liberal Democrat." " I'm a conservative republican, but we both worry about the society our children live in." "But that makes me want to rise to the occasion." "It makes me want to give my whole life to it." "And I will give my whole life to this plan that I have for Thug Life." "That's my new posse, my new way of thinking." "That's how we rolling in the nine-three." "Thug Life." "By "thug", I mean, not criminal, someone that beats you." "I mean the underdog." "The person that had nothing and succeeds is a thug, because he overcame all obstacles." "It has nothing to do with the dictionary's version." "To me, thug is my pride, not being someone that goes against the Iaw, not being someone that takes, but being someone that has nothing, and even though I have nothing and no home to go to, my head is up high." "My chest is out." "I walk tall." "I talk loud." "I'm being strong." "I'm against racial, ethnic entitlements." "I think they are un-American." "I don't understand why America doesn't understand Thug Life." "America is Thug Life." "How is me saying, "I don't give a fuck,"" "different than Patrick Henry saying, "Give me liberty or give me death"?" "What makes my freedom less worth fighting for than Bosnians or whoever they wanna fight for this year?" "They should give money to the ghetto." "Even gangs can be positive." "It just has to be organised." "It has to steer away from being self- destructive to being seIf-productive." "I organised the OGs on the East and West Coasts in penitentiaries to come up with codes of ethics for criminals." "It's called the Code of Thug Life." "It's a code, putting order to the violence on the streets." "In Watts, Compton, Chicago, wherever." "people all over the country say, "We go by this code." ""We're against attacks on people not involved with the street gang," ""the drug trade or the illegal business at all." ""AII that kidnapping and shooting drive-bys, we against that."" "Thug Life ain't just a bunch of niggas going crazy." "We wanna patrol our streets." "So all we saying is, if every motherfucker out here right now gave up one dollar to this Thug Life fund, the money don't go to me, it go to somebody from y'aII neighbourhood, and we do this shit every month." "I'II bring new rappers," "I'II bring Snoop, whoever y'aII want." "I'II go snatch them niggas." "For that shit to happen, we can't have violence, and everybody gotta be down for that shit." "We gonna start slowly but surely taking our communities back." "regulate our community." "Organise." "Start taking care of our own." "We gotta start somewhere, and I don't know about anything but this." " What is the message, though?" " AII the people you threw away, the dope dealers, criminals, they will be legit next to you in first class, thanks to your boy." "You know those little things for mice, where they go through and there's little blocks?" "well, society is like that." "They'II let you go as far as you want, but when you ask too many questions and you're ready to change, boom, that block'II come." "There is no reason for a record like this to be published by a responsible corporation." "Never before has there been such a will to use music to advertise seIf-destructive violence." "It glorifies violence." "It's creating a culture of guns and rape." "Adding insult to injury, she says, is rapper Tupac Shakur being nominated for an NAACP Image Award." "I got the whole world fearing me, and I ain't even started." "I don't have my plan, and they're trying to stop me." "I challenge the view that those who revel in violence and depravity, on the screen or in the song, bear no responsibility when that spirit spreads into our culture." "No disrespect to Bob dole." "He don't know what he talking about." "He's just talking." "Some card somebody gave him, he's just reading off a card." "But he's cute, you know?" "He's my grandfather." " Right." " He's an old dude, talking mess." "You don't have to use vile and ugly language." "WPGC in Washington D. C. dropped violent or demeaning lyrics." "KACE in Los Angeles followed suit." "They're yelling, "Shoot!" in a community that is crowded with guns." "I'm not looking for approval from the black community." "We are a part of it." "I'm a thug, and I rap about the oppressed fighting back." "Yes, my raps are filled with rage." "You have to be logical." "You know?" "If I know that in this hotel room they have food every day, and I'm knocking on the door every day to eat, and they open the door, Iet me see the party," "let me see them throwing salami all over," "I mean, just throwing food around, but they're telling me there's no food." "Every day, I'm standing outside trying to sing my way in." "We are hungry, please let us in We are hungry, please let us in" "After about a week that song is gonna change to," "We hungry, we need some food" "After two, three weeks, it's like," "Give me the food Or I'm breaking down the door" "After a year you're just like, I'm picking the lock Coming through the door blasting" "It's like, you hungry, you reached your level." "We asked ten years ago." "We was asking with the Panthers." "We was asking with them, the civil Rights Movement." "We was asking." "Those people that asked are dead and in jail." "So now what do you think we're gonna do?" "Ask?" "There's a bad part because kids see that and mimic you." "I haven't figured that out yet." "But the positive side is the kid who lives in a house where the mother is a crackhead, he hears the rap." "He's like, "That's every day." ""So I don't have to feel ashamed." It cuts both ways." "To me, it's like, when I sing, I live the Thug Life Baby, I'm hopeless" "One person might hear that and just like the way it sounds." "But I'm doing it for the kid that lives a Thug Life and feels like it's hopeless." "So when I say, "hopeless", and when I say it like that, it's like I reach him." "And even if, when I reach him, it makes it look glorious to the guy that doesn't live that life," "I can't help it." "It's a fad." "He'II drop the Thug Life soon." "But for the person I tried to reach, he'II pick it up, and I'II be able to talk to him." "I try to be responsible, but it's hard." "If you worry about what you're saying, I get writer's block." "Kind of like, "I can't say that." "That's too harsh." "Can't say this."" "I have to block it out and trust my heart that I'm doing the right thing." "Pretty spit I was spitting." " chill out." "ChiII out." " That's my style." "That's my new style." " That's my new style." " 'Pac, chiII out." "That's my new style." "Hey, have a good summer." "Have a good summer, bitch!" "But I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes." "Like some of the things I said when I was fighting the Hughes brothers." "I beat up the directors to Menace ll Society." " AII right, tell them why you did that." " These chump, punk, slump..." " You'II have a chance to rebut that." " No, they better come now." "Check this out, they fired me in a roundabout, punk, snitch way." "So I caught them on the streets and beat they behinds." "I was a menace to the Hughes brothers." "It ain't over!" "I still got more for you chumps!" "I read what you said about me!" "I'm gonna kick their ass!" "My big mouth." "Mind y'aII business, I'II mind mine." "I do what I gotta do, you do what you gotta do." "Long as I give you 1 2 tracks, you give me my $1 2, and we even." "I don't gotta be a role model." "I don't gotta hold your hand." "I don't gotta do shit." "My big mouth." "I got a big mouth, can't help it." " I talk from my heart, I'm real." " We talked about people in this business that you feel don't have a love for their own people." "We was talking about Spike Lee, Arsenio hall," "Eddie Murphy and the rest of them." "I thought I was charming, but I was immature." "I did things without thinking." "michael Jackson, Randy Jackson," "Janet Jackson, paula abdul, all of them." "She wants to not be black, but sell to blacks." "I don't appreciate her going out of her way to say she's not black." "My actions came before thought." "Things that I did, things I said." "So many things I wanna take back." "Eddie Murphy, with all that dough he's making, hasn't done nothing for us." " He does a Iot of charity." " Charity doesn't get to the ghetto." "Everybody knows that." "I was young and dumb." "Being mad at Spike Lee and all those people, all of that." "The thing I said of Quincy Jones, he shouldn't mess with white women." "I said I was sorry, personally, for that." "I didn't think of how it wouId hurt people." "I'm gonna catch y'aII in traffic and be the roughest nigga you ever seen." "That turned into more legal problems." "The people truly believe that Mr Shakur has shown no remorse whatsoever for his action in this case." "We view Mr Shakur's appearance on Yo!" "MTV Raps as bragging." "He was proud of what he did and does not feel sorry." "I just want to say, judge, that I have a great deal of remorse." "As far as I want you to treat me different, I don't want that." "I just want the chance to make right from all the bad things that I got." "I got things against me and people that look up to me." "I don't want the Iast place they see me to be jail." "I guess it's now time for me to render the sentence." "I obviously find that the defendant is a talented individual." "However, this court believes that jail time is warranted with a battery with some injury involved." "The defendant will serve 1 5 days in the county jail." "I think the judge was fair." "I still don't feel like I got the decision that I wanted, but he was as fair as he could be." "really, to my homeboys, I mean, a fight is a fight, battery is battery." "A two-and-a-haIf minute problem just cost me 1 5 days in jail, and that was lenient." "But my most serious legal problems came from women." "How I was acting with women." "I will no Ionger sit passively, allowing this degradation to be continued by our children." "I think we live in a very sexist society, and everybody's pointing the finger at me." "When somebody asks me, "Do you exploit women?"" "With her permission, I might smack a girl on the butt in the video." "I might be drinking champagne, but everything in moderation, and everything with class." "I don't have to always do a song with the good woman." "I don't see women as all one thing." "I think all women are different." "We African-American women, particularly, are tired of being called hoes, bitches and sluts by our children." "If I do something that has a bad woman, people go, "He hates women."" "I don't think like that." "But there are definitely a type of female," "label them a bitch, whose main thing is to get what they can, and they revel in breaking a nigga's heart and taking what he owns." "Shut the fuck up!" "There's male bitches too." "Women know there are bitches." "I don't know why they're surprised." "They know." "They say it louder." "They think we say they're all bitches." "That's not what we're saying." "That's Keep Ya Head Up and Get Around." "I said, "I'm gonna write a song about women like my mom," ""who represent a strong black woman." I did that." "I'II rap about women I see daily." "That's Get Around." "If I just did Keep Ya Head Up, it makes me seem more than I am, but I'm just a normal man." "America, America" " God shed his grace on thee" " Stop." "I'm gonna close the door." "Come on, Mr Cameraman." "This is some real private shit that's about to happen, Mr Cameraman." "Bye." "Anyway, I'II let you hear the sounds." "Is there a double standard for men being promiscuous?" "Yeah, but we didn't start that double standard." " I'm not saying you did." " And I'm not saying it's fair." "I'm saying this is how it is." "How can we rap about a world that is not Iike that?" " This is how it is." " Do you look down on males if they're as promiscuous as women?" "I don't look down on anybody that's promiscuous." "I only look down on people who don't control the situation." "If a girl sleeps with a Iot of guys, she's still my homegirl." "You're only a bitch, not if you sleep with a Iot of guys, but if you're sleeping with them for money." " So you put a price on yourself." " Because they have a nice car." "Guys, when they sleep around, they do it for free." "At that time, a Iot of girls, they'd seen my face on TV so many times, they wanna be associated with that person." "It's the fame that gets these people." "It's not me." "It's the fame." "I've seen females look at me when they didn't know me, and I can see it, nothing." "Then someone whisper who I was, it's this glare in the eye." " You make yourself want them." " How do you feel about that?" "I don't understand how people can stand next to you one year, and next year, they cannot." "They're going crazy, screaming." "They can't take it that you're there." "But last year I was in the same club, walking around, lonely like a motherfucker." "CouIdn't get a date or a dance." "I was too skinny, too something, and now, "He's just adorable." "He's just, oh!"" "But I still enjoyed sex without the emotional connection." "And it was always a fantasy for me to have sex with a Iot of people in the room." "But I didn't play one situation correctly." "Rap singer Tupac Shakur was released on $50,000 bail today, accused of a sexual attack in a New York hotel." "The singer was arrested Thursday night after a woman claimed he and three other men overpowered her in a hotel suite." " Are you disappointing your fans?" " Yes, but they're gonna support me." "With bodyguards and attorneys, he went into Manhattan Criminal Court." "There, the rapper and two friends were charged with first-degree sodomy." "The allegations stem from an incident last Thursday in which a woman claims she was held down as he and two others allegedly sodomised her." "The allegations by this young lady are without merit." "Defence attorneys say the woman went there consensually, and answering machine tapes that indicate her interest in Shakur were erased by police." "OK, so you tell me when your lawyers have asked you to stop." "The girl who claims that..." "What does she claim?" " I can't even say it, man." " OK." "But technically, it's a rape case." "I wasn't convicted of no rape charge." "My charge was sexual abuse, forcibly touching the buttocks." "I have a female saying that..." "I can't say it, but..." "It just bothers me so much, you know?" "To go through my Iife and everything I did, coming out of a family and household with just women, to get to this point to have a woman say that I took something from her." "It was hard." "It was an emotional day for a 20-year-old female fan, who admitted that she had consensual sex with Shakur on Sunday night, four days before her alleged rape in the hotel room." "During her cross-examination, defence attorney Michael Warren painted a picture of a starstruck, naive girl anxious to have sex with Shakur." "Word is you had a relationship with this woman prior to all this friction." "If you can say that's a relationship." "I bumped in a club." "I seen her." "Let's use a clinical term." "There was oral copulation?" "Yeah, she performed oral sex on the dance floor." "A Iot of guys could say what they wouldn't do and what they would do, but when it happens, you know...?" " Yeah." " It just goes down." "And it's..." "really." "She did some things there at the club, and we got together later that night." "I saw her again another time with these guys that introduced me to her." "Everybody was having a good time, nothing sexual, just a good time." "Me and her went in, she gave me a massage, went to sleep, woke up, she's screaming, "Rape, rape." I raped her." "And she's yelling at me, "This is not the Iast you're gonna see of me."" "I'm cursing her out because I'm not thinking she's really gonna do that." "And the next thing I know, I'm going to jail." "In your opinion there was no truth to the sexual abuse charges?" "Not on my part at all." "The defence pounded away at her, asking her why she didn't scream for help at the time of the alleged attack." "The woman testified that Shakur's friends said," ""Tupac needs his fans." "Don't go to the White Man with this." ""Millions of girls would love to be in your shoes right now. "" "What about your cronies?" "That was a big misconception." "The people with me weren't friends." " Why were they in your room?" " I hang with lots of people." "And that's how I am." "It's similar to like you said about Led zeppelin." "They don't know all of the people with them." "This guy got the weed?" "OK, you can kick it." "Got the money?" "You can kick it." "This guy has connections to the clubs?" "OK, you can kick it." "I don't know him." "But that was my fault, I had that kind of environment around me." "I didn't do nothing." "I'm charged with being in concert with some guys." "well, where are they at?" "Why me?" "Because I'm Tupac..." "I'm not mad at them." "I'm mad at the system." "I don't want nobody to go to jail, but I don't wanna go for something I didn't do." "I just don't wanna be the scapegoat." "I just couldn't believe this was going on in my Iife." "See the cameras." "It wasn't like I had a chance for justice like a normal citizen." "Hi, Tupac." "Can you tell me how you're doing today?" "well, I just had to listen to the prosecution's closing argument, and it was so far from the truth that it has me drained at the end of the day." "But I'm leaving it in the hands of the jury." "I'm learning a Iot about people's innermost fears in this trial." "It's not even about my trial no more." "It's just about" "loud rap music, tattoo-having thugs." "It's about some nightmare that these people are having." "I can't understand why it's so close." "There's no evidence I sodomised her, even though you put that in the paper." "Print the facts so everybody can sort it out." "My life is ruined because nobody has a chance to get the facts." "Fact is, there was no semen found." "No semen found, no forcible entry, no entry into the anal, no nothing." "I wanted to explain it." "If you could go back to the night when the abuse occurred," " is there anything you'd do differently?" " Yeah." "I would not have closed my eyes until she was out of the room, until everybody was out of the room." "So when you left the room and left her with those people..." "I didn't leave her with those people or bring her to them." " She came over?" " Right." "She came over, knew those people, knew everything." "I just didn't grab her out of there." "I'm guilty of not being a smart man, not being a good-hearted man," "I guess, or being more considerate." "At any point, were you aware she was involved in something she..." " Cut." "That's a problem right there." " Excuse me." "None of these legal matters can be asked." "I have a list of the stuff you'II have to cut out." "Sorry." " AII right." " The gentleman is out on bail." "I see." "I couldn't defend myself." "This would never have happened to anybody else." "They have no evidence on me, and it's about to come out." "Now my Iife is over." "This is a year later." "A year after the world's been thinking I'm a rapist." "The whole world owes me an apology." "I went through it and didn't kill myself like Kurt Cobain." "And I should, because this is some crazy madness." "Central, I got a black male shot at 48th and 7th." "Last night, just after midnight, at 723 7th Avenue, that's between 48th and 49th Street, rap star Tupac Shakur and three members of his group were robbed and shot." "They shot me, straight up." "I just kept thinking, "They really did shoot me."" "When I wasn't dead, immediately I was like, "Oh, man."" "I was like, "No, this ain't it."" "I know how it's gonna be when I die." "It's gonna be no noise." "You ain't gonna hear people screaming." "I'm gonna fade out." "And I didn't..." "None of that was there." "I was like, "I got shot five times." "I'm not dead." "They missed." "I'm back."" "When Shakur resisted, he was shot five times, twice in the head and twice in the groin area." "And his most serious wound, a gunshot through the hand, hitting an artery in his thigh." "He's listed in serious but stable condition." "until it happened, I really did believe no black person would ever shoot me." "I believed that I didn't have to fear my own community." "You know, I was like, "I represent them." ""I'm their ambassador to the world." "They would never do me wrong."" "I believe that this was a robbery." "Anybody who was gonna walk into that building was gonna be robbed." "The police don't wanna find out who shot me." "They're happy." "As far as that Vibe interview, just read everything over and read my reply, read their reply, read what people say." "Everybody that was there knows what happened." "My recollection was, I was shooting a video, the second half of Warning, which is the B-side of Big Poppa, and I was shooting around the block." "And I heard my man was up at the studio doing a Junior M.A.F.I.A. session." "So I got off at the reception area, and I saw Andre and little Shawn." "I said, "What's up?" about to get on the elevator, and he comes out shot." "The Tupac article had me pissed off, you know what I'm saying?" "Because first of all, he dissed my man, saying he turned his back on him, and I know for a fact it didn't happen." "And, Iike, the rumours that's spreading is on some tip like we set him up." "And that's crazy." "As soon as he comes out shot, me and my man try to sit him down." "He called his mom." "He asked my man if he can roll him a blunt." "We asked if he was all right." "He's like, "Yeah, I don't know what's going on."" "We were just trying to comfort him." "Andre HarreII called the ambulance." "And everybody there was very supportive of him." "It was just the total opposite." "He came out and everyone ran to him." "It was nothing but love and concern." "They got different accounts of it, and I'm the one with the bullet wounds." "I also understand that if you was to get shot five times, your mind is just completely spinning." "You're real confused about your situation." "It'II make you say things you don't mean." "I was there for the whole thing." "No one else was there for the whole thing." "I don't know the purpose of why the story was said in another context." "It's not important that others know what happened." "I said it." "Now that I said it, it's dead." "believe me or not, I did what I had to." "God knows the truth." "There's no religion about getting shot." "I don't want any converts." "After getting shot, I was like, "Shit, I don't know who to trust."" "In a bizarre twist of events," "Tupac Shakur checked himself out of Bellevue Hospital Wednesday night." "After surgery, Tupac checked himself out of Bellevue against doctor's orders." "It was just time to leave." "I didn't feel safe there." "I kept getting these crazy phone calls." "At that point, I'm just paranoid, just bugging out." "I couldn't sleep or rest." "I was like, "I'm just tired, and I wanna just..."" "And I felt like I'm like a victim, a target." "I couldn't even sleep at home." "people could kill me at home." "And are the police gonna come in and kill me?" "You know, is there secret police?" "I was so deep into the weed at that point." "And I was like, "I'm petrified." "I'm vulnerable."" "I felt like just a prisoner to my own fame." "That's why I wanted to die at that point." "I felt like, "If everybody's so worried, why ain't nobody came to help?"" " Mr Shakur?" " Open up, please." "Open up." " Excuse me." " Step back, please." " Just keep it tight, that's all." " How are you this morning?" "The jury deliberated, then, after days of twists worthy of a Hollywood drama," "Tupac Shakur has finally had one question answered." "Tonight, the jury found him guilty of three counts of sexual abuse, but innocent on six other charges, including sodomy." "please, give me some space." "please, man." "Why did you decide to leave the hospital?" "please, y'aII are not letting me get through, man." "Let me get through!" " Back it up." " Why did you leave?" "And sentencing for this trial has yet to be scheduled." "Where I was sent was a maximum-security penitentiary." "I know when I was young, I couldn't wait to get to jail, straight up." "I mean, I was scared and everything, but I felt that's part of being a man." "Now that I'm here, this is not the spot." "I know everybody that comes out says, "This ain't the spot." This isn't the spot." "Somebody tells you when to get up, when you can shower, do this, do that." "They can speak to you any way they want to, and you've gotta accept it." "You can die here, know what I mean?" "Yesterday, a dude was murdered." "He wasn't in here on no murder beef." "He was in on a drug beef." "He's gone." "He's dead in jail, you know what I mean?" "By another prisoner who had life." "He had nothing to lose, you know what I mean?" "I came to jail." "I'm telling you, it's dirty." "It's filthy." "It's like you're an animal." "At first, me and the guards had problems." "I got smacked and treated bad." "They did whatever they could to break me because I used to talk a Iot of shit." "As soon as I got there, they went, "There he goes, the rich nigger."" "I was like, "Oh, shit, he said nigger!" Everybody's looking at me like, "So?"" "And I was like, "My God, this is where I'm gonna be staying?"" "He just said "nigger"!" "You've got "niggas" in one of your records." ""Nigg-as"." "He's talking about "nigg-ers"." ""Nigg-ers" was the ones on the rope, hanging off the thing." ""Nigg-as" is the ones with gold ropes, hanging out at clubs." "I Iearned things there." "In jail, it's like how we should be in life, humble." "I was talking to skinheads, 'cause if you don't like black people, all right, that's fine." "That's your opinion." "I want people to respect my opinion when I'm rapping, so I'II respect yours." "You treat me with respect, I'II treat you with respect, and we'II get along." "This skinhead, "hate black people" all over, getting autographs for cousins." "I accomplished something." "I know, by him getting my autograph, that meant something to me." "He couldn't hate black people and get my autograph." " The food was terrible, I guess." " Oh, my goodness." "They've got this liver surprise thing." "The liver surprise." "They're trying to pump that on the jail menu." "They're trying to get it to go prime-time, get it in the rotation." "I was like, "We had this yesterday." "I liked it already, goddamn."" " No Tater Tots?" " No." "Are you crazy?" "Tater Tots?" "I used to get baked potatoes with a huge finger imprint on it." " AII right." " It was bad." "No, you don't wanna get me started." "JeII-O with hair all in the mould." "I'd be like, "Damn, man, how are you gonna mess up JeII-O?"" "JeII-O is so wholesome and famiIy-Iike." "It just ruins it for me." "To have a hair in there, yeah." "I mean, I'm like, "Come on, bill Cosby pumps this, man!"" "Put the hair in my JeII-O." "And you can't go, "There's a hair in my JeII-O." "I'd Iike to send this back." ""Can I see the cook, please?"" "The cook is a big dude named Bubba Joe." "The first eight months I spent in solitude 23 hours a day, reading." "I wrote a script called Live 2 Tell." "I got How to Write a Screenplay, that big famous book by Syd field." "I got that, and I remembered all of the scripts I ever read, and I wrote one." "I read a Iot of good books." "I read a Iot of Maya angelou's books." "The Art of War by Sun-tzu." "But in terms of writing music and lyrics, I couldn't do it." "Everybody's like, "He's in jail now." "He's gonna have the bomb album."" "But it's the opposite." "Prison kills your spirit, straight up." "It kills your spirit." "I couldn't write." "My inspiration was gone because I was a caged animal." "But when I was in jail, a Iot of people supported me." "Jasmine Guy, Jada Pinkett," "Mickey Rourke, he just wrote me funny stories." "The name that sticks out the most, I'II keep saying this, is Tony Danza." "To me, he is the bomb for ever." "I will be his number one fan for ever, because when I got his letter, I was like, "Whoa!"" "I was screaming out to everybody, "Guess who wrote me!"" "They had a story on the local news that Madonna was coming to visit me." "Madonna has so much power that the guards gave me an extra shower because they thought she was coming to visit me." "I had guards walking me downstairs, everything, trying to peep a look." " Did she come?" " No." "No, I'm glad." " But you got the extra shower?" " Hey, I got the shower." "The person that supported me the most was my mother." "When my mother got clean, we got real close again." "I don't blame her for anything." "My mom's the bomb, you know." "The world's best mom." "Dear Mama is the song I wrote for my mother." "But it's also for all the mothers." "I'm proud of that." "It affected a Iot of people." "It was from Me Against the World, which was completed before I went to jail." "It was the number one record." "Me Against the World was one of those..." "My career highs." "It was a trip in jail." "They'd say stuff like, "You're in jail." "Won't be any rapping for a Iong time."" "I'd be like, "My album is number one in the country." ""It just beat Bruce Springsteen."" "And they'd be like, "Go back to your cell."" "I used to get Entertainment Weekly and see where my record was and just trip out and be like, "Number one in the whole country."" "To me, it will always be my favourite, and jail made me wanna dig deeper." "It took five bullets for me to see what was really going on." "In jail, you get perspective, and you start looking at things differently," "like everything is not so important." "You know, you try not to take it personal." "Because you're talking to killers." "They say something you don't like, you can't say, "What?"" "You gotta be like, "OK, look man, would you mind not calling me...?"" "Anger management like a mother." "In jail, I tried not to have negative feelings towards nobody." "It's not Iike I wanted to get out and go shoot somebody up." "people said, "You softened up." Ain't nothing soft." "Nothing changed." "If anything, my mentality was like, "Trust nobody." ""Trust nobody."" "It's not Iike I'm untouchable." "I couId be killed as soon as I get out." "I just thought, "I already took five bullets," ""and if I can help it, I don't plan on taking more."" "Rapper, actor and convict, Tupac Shakur, walked out of jail last week, baiIed out to the tune of $1 .4 million by Suge Knight of Death Row Records, which signed Shakur to a deal." "My closest friends did me in." "My closest friends, my homeys." "I took care of their whole family, took care of everything," "looked out for them, put them in the game, turned on me." "So I just thought, "How could I make them sorry they ever did this to me?" ""How can I come back, Iike, 50 times stronger and better?"" "Fear is stronger than love." "Remember that." "Fear is stronger than love." "The love I gave meant nothing when it came to fear." "No question, sign with Death Row." "suddenly, I was out on bail, pending appeal." "If I win my appeal, which, if God wills, I will," "I would've done 1 1 months for nothing." "You see that, judge?" "I didn't curse." "Probation people, I didn't curse." "Give me my props." "Let me stay free." "I was relieved, happy to be home." "I wanted to drive up and down Sunset because I Iove L.A. with a passion." "I Iove Sunset, everything about L.A." "Can I get tatted up real quick?" "I want a crown here." "You know, the energy, that's L.A." " hello?" " I'm saying, we on Venice Beach." "It's what you do." "I've been in jail 1 1 months, Tabitha." "You're supposed to put "I Iove you"." "You got to let me get a look or something." "It's a trip when last week you were in a cell, and then, next week, I'm up at Monty's with cristal champagne and filet mignon and lobster and shrimps." "Everybody went, "Let me take you out." "You're home?" "Let me take you to this!"" "We was all up in Roscoe's." "I even celebrated at EI polio Loco, because I was dreaming about EI polio Loco the whole time." "Then I went straight to the studio." "And I did 24 tracks in less than two weeks." "You can mix it later and have niggas that love being in the studio just add the drumbeat and shit." "You can do that after the rappers leave." "That's when it's fresh." "Get that beat popping, throw them niggas on the track, put it down." "Everybody will listen, be like, "This is the hook."" "We'II go lay the hook." "That's the song." "plus, I had so much to say, I figured this was the best way to vent, instead of paying some psychotherapist $50 million." "I went in the studio." "It was cheaper." "Here we go!" "california, get up!" "You gotta realise one thing:" "Tupac is Death Row." "I feel I have more than just a business relationship with him." "He can be like a brother, a friend." "I Iike everyone on the record company." "I Iike Suge, Snoop and Dre." "I hang out with them anyway, now it's official." "This is Tupac and Dr. Dre, and this is the Week in Rock!" " Week in Rock, baby!" " Week in Rock, baby!" "I came out, I was like, "Dre, I want some beats right now."" "He's like, "I'm working on California Love."" "I said, "You know you owe me this." ""I'm new on Death Row, fresh out of jail." ""You ain't gonna be finishing your album soon."" "I Iove collaborating with creative people that's as talented as 'Pac." "He got right in and wrote his lyrics while he was behind the mike and dropped it, and it's funky." "Me coming to Death Row, for another reason was Snoop." "Please welcome America's Most Wanted," "Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tupac." "The man got so much style." "Ya'II know we down with this rock thing, nine-six flavour Death Row." "But who knew it wouId last, this West Side style?" "Yep, yep, yep." "This is me and Snoop, 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted, the bomb track." "It's the first single." "It's gonna be like the anthem of West Coast rap." "This is gonna shake the whole music scene, guaranteed." "Me and Snoop represent the nucleus of the entire ghetto." "Snoop represents the more calm, all legit, by the book, no waves, Iet's get our business handled." "I represent the hard-core, no-hoIds- barred, no-prisoners, relentless thug." "We both represent both sides of the game." "The calm one and the relentless one." "Here's my commercial for Death Row." "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." "Count with me." "Count with me." "This is for my homeboys in jail." "These are 1 00s." "And they ain't counterfeit." "If I said it was the money, the struggle continues." "I got money, but I have to pay everybody even more money." "I owe money to Death Row." "So it's not just, "Oh, he's paid." "He's living large." It's not Iike that." "people wanna sue you, and I have to settle for this and that when I know I didn't do anything, just because it's like," ""I don't wanna go to court another eight months." Makes you work harder." "Next year, Death Row is gonna print our own money." "We make so much, we need to start printing our own." "It's gonna be me and Suge on the $1 00 bill." "Me, Suge and Damu gonna be on the $1 00 bill." "I felt "I'm getting pimped."" "This is the $1 00 bill on Death Row money, here." "But you have to come up, start from the bottom and work up to the top." "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome acclaimed rap artist and Grammy nominee, Tupac." "people faiI to realise this is not just play." "I work." "Run!" "Scatter, scatter!" "Drag K off the stage." "Y'aII come on, man." "Do it for real, man." "One, two, three." "When it's time to get down and do my business, I'm going to." "I can't get no blood on the set?" "Shit." "I believe I'm more responsible, more mature and more focused." "When I was in jail, I couldn't remember why I was rapping." "But I was away from it so long, I said, "I really like going to the studio." ""I really like creating."" "I Iike music, and I Iike acting." "I Iike doing it." "She's a super freak, super freak She's super-freaky" "I can be me." "I can be whoever because I'm true to me." "The reason I sell six million records, the reason I can go to jail and come out without a scratch, the reason I am who I am is because I can look into my face and find my soul." "It's there." "I didn't sell it." "I thought, "I'm a superpower." "Death Row is a superpower." ""Let's combine superpowers and ally."" "Damu!" "My dog's going crazy, ready to kill a few people." " Yeah." "Yeah." " He wanna kill." "I Iove my artists." "I don't consider my people artists." "I consider them family." "It's just a big difference, if they decided to turn in rapping or singing, they'd still be my homeboys." "We'd still travel together." "If they needed something, what's mine will still be theirs." "It's no situation where I'm dealing with them strictly for business, because they're good." "It's not Iike that." "You've gotta have more respect for your people." "plus we've got a Death Row East going on." " I'm sure you heard about that." " tell me about that." "hold on." "Damu!" "Damu, sit!" "But Death Row has a reputation for having a thug-Iike mentality." "Won't that get you in trouble?" "Death Row has a bigger reputation for success than anything else." "The reason for all of the fear involves the world of this man, the man getting out of the limousine." "Six-foot-three, 335-pound Marion Knight, known by the nickname of "Suge", short for "Sugar"." "It's an efficient camp over here, professional, business-oriented." "I Iike that." "At the age of only 30, and with a lengthy criminal record, including three felony convictions," "Suge Knight has managed to become the head of a $ 1 00 million record company and one of the most powerful and feared men in the music industry." "The controversy over Death Row Records and its owner being sort of a gangster." "Everybody's asking about Death Row." " Suge ain't no gangsta." "He's chilling." " No?" "No, man, Suge a rider." "I know what good morals are, but you're supposed to disregard good morals when you're living in a crazy, bad world." "If you're in hell, how can you live like an angel?" "You're surrounded by devils, trying to be an angel?" "That's like suicide." "I'd Iike to tell Tupac to keep his guards up." "We're with him." "One other thing I'd Iike to say, any artist out there that want to be an artist and wants to stay a star and don't wanna have to worry about the executive producer trying to be all in the videos," "all on the records, dancing, come to Death Row." "When I got out of jail, the West Coast- East Coast shit was really starting." "Wait, the East Coast don't love Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg?" "The East Coast ain't got no love for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg and Death Row?" "West Coast was Death Row." "The East Coast was Bad Boy." "Check this out." "I'm the executive producer that a comment was made about earlier." "Everybody thought it was a war, a war for record sales and attention." "But to me it was personal." "I Iove the East Coast." "I'm from the East Coast." "But I felt like Puffy and Biggie wanted to dirty up everything I worked for." "So it made me come back more relentless." "I'm mad at Biggie, I'm rushing the nigga." "What's the problem?" "Yo, Piggie, man, we got it going on, baby." "It's on and cracking, man." "He's gone, baby." "You the man." "So I directed videos." "'Pac, you alive?" "I mean, you safe?" "Man, I'm so happy you're free." "Yeah?" "Happy to see you, lying piece of shit." "'Pac, please don't kill me." "It was Buff's idea." " No, man." " l'm just a rapper." "Please don't take me out of the game." "I ain't going to kill you." "We was homeboys once, Pig." "Once we homeboys, we always homeboys, even if you is a fat phony." "And I did a song with Faith, Biggie's wife." "Faith's my homegirl." "I just want to send a shout-out to Faith." "Hey, girl." "Then I did Hit 'Em Up." "Which is a classic battle record." "Everything happened so fast at that point." "I was looking at things, the East Coast-West Coast thing, it just got out of control." "Dudes was getting killed, and I felt responsible." "But I couldn't stop it." "We ain't mad at the whole New York, just certain people." "I got this project coming out along with some brothers called One Nation." "It's like an East Coast-West Coast collaboration to kill this whole new vibe." "Everybody want it to be a war between the East Coast and West Coast." "It's really a problem with two rappers." "The East Coast-West Coast thing is something journalists are making up to get paid off, so it can drag out and everybody can have albums." "They perpetuate this, so it can be drama." "When it go down, don't look at me and Biggie and be like, "Why is there a big war?", when you're shooting this to 3,300 homes, 300 countries, telling them about a war that they would never know exists." "That's where information becomes a problem." "We both need to exercise greater restraint." "Damn, sometimes life gets messed up." "When I was on Death Row, I was successful but not happy." "Tupac, your life has been marred by considerable pain." "Do you think you'II get to the point where you can live a normal life?" "No." "But, I..." "I'm going for it." "I'm trying for it, and until then" "I have to make the life that I do live as happy as I can and try to do the best with what I have." "Live the best life I can live, be as happy as I can be." "Nothing is perfect for anybody, I don't think." "I felt trapped." "They say, "You made your bed, lay in it."" "I tried to move." "I can't move to no other bed." "I felt I can't live a different lifestyle." "This the life they gave me, this the life I made." "I felt I can't change, not for the courts, not for the parole board, not for nobody." "This is it." "I also felt like something was gonna happen to me because I'm paranoid." "And I put it in my videos." "That nigga ain't want none." "I been drinking." "Where he at?" "No, no, no, where he at?" "Yo, watch out." "It was a prophecy." "I had a prophecy about my death." "That's why I go in the studio and do three songs a day, get things ready." "We don't have time or the luxury to spend all of this time doing one song." "We don't have it." "If I die, it can happen." "If anything were to happen to me, that album's ready to go." "So it's all good." "I felt as if the only thing that can kill me is death, and even then my music will live for ever." "At approximately 9.00 p.m., security cameras at the MGM Grand captured Tupac, Suge Knight and members of the Death Row entourage beating an alleged South Side Crip, Orlando Anderson." "Tupac, Suge and others jumped Anderson, punching and kicking him." "Terrified bystanders scattered as the group streamed into the casino, then out into the street." "Whoa." "Just after the Mike Tyson fight," "Shakur, with record company executive Suge Knight, headed for a club." "While stopping at this intersection a car with four people pulled up and fired on Shakur and Knight." "Shakur was shot several times in the chest." "The driver, his record producer, was grazed in the head." "He's returned to intensive care after another surgery, still in critical condition." "All week long, fans of Tupac have gathered outside the hospital." "He's undergone two operations." "His right lung was removed." "He's intermittently conscious." "Jesse Jackson's been here." "Family is keeping vigil." "Despite reports that his wounds were not life-threatening, people at the hospital continue to tell us he is in very serious condition." "At 4.03 this afternoon, Tupac Shakur was pronounced dead." "Who shot me?" "Shit, I don't know." "Sorry." "My death, it's a tragedy like Shakespeare, I guess." "But I have no bad feelings." "I have love for everybody." "please welcome the mothers of Biggie smalls and Tupac Shakur," "Afeni Shakur and VoIetta wallace." "Coming to grips with my past, it was hard." "I don't feel what I did was evil." "I feel like the way I was living and my mentality was a part of my progression to be a man." "But we grow." "We all grow." "We're made to grow." "You either evolve or you disappear." "I don't want to be forgotten." "I'II always be a troublemaker to some people." "But I still get love from my community." "I owe them everything." "That's why I owe everything to the 'hood." "I've got love there." "I've got love from thugs and the street dudes." "And that focuses me back on what I should be doing," "lay out the real mat on the world and how it is." "The message is:" "young black males could do anything if you just give us a shot, stop trying to beat us down." "And to my homeboys, we need to be in control of ourselves." "I'm not saying I'II change the world, but I guarantee I'II spark the brain that will change the world." "So keep your head up." "Do what you've gotta do." "And then inside of you, I'II be reborn."