[But for the person I tried to reach,] he'll pick it up, and I'll 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. Chill out. - That's my style. That's my new style.
- That's my new style. - 'Pac, chill 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 II Society.
- All right, tell them why you did that. - These chump, punk, slump...
- You'll be able to rebuttal to 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'all business, I'll mind mine. I do what I gotta do,
you do what you gotta do. Long as I give you 12 tracks,
you give me my $12, 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 lot 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 would hurt people.
I'm gonna catch y'all 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 last 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 15 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 half minute problem just cost me 15 days in jail,
and that was lenient.
But my most serious legal problems came from women.
How I was acting with women.
The Underground just don't stop For ho's, I get around
I will no longer 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.
Fingertips on the hips as I dip Gotta get a tight grip, don't slip
Loose lips sink ships, it's a trip I love the way she licks her lips
See me jocking, put a little twist In her hips because I'm watching
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.
You wonder why they call you bitch You wonder why they call you bitch
We African-American women, particularly,
are tired of being called ho's, bitches and sluts by our children.
Dear Ms. DeLores Tucker You keep stressing me
Fucking with a motherfucking mind I figured you wanted to know
Why we call them ho's bitches
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.
I give a holler to my sisters on welfare
Tupac cares And don't nobody else care
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'll 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'll 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 like 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 lot of guys, she's still my homegirl.
You're only a bitch, not if you sleep with a lot 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 lot 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.
Couldn'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 lot 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? - Very, 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 sodomized her.
The allegations by this young lady are without merit.
Defense 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 life 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, defense 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 lot 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 last 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 defense 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 life.
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 lot about people's innermost fears in this trial.
It's not even about my trial no more. It's just about
Ioud 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 sodomized 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 goodhearted 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'll have to cut out. Sorry.
- All 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 life 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, like, the rumors 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 Harrell 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'll 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'all 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 lot 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.
Niggas. He's talking about niggers.
Niggers was the ones on the rope, hanging off the thing.
Niggas is the ones with gold ropes, hanging out at clubs.
I learned things there. In jail, it's like how we should be in life, humble.
I was talking to skinheads because 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'll respect yours.
You treat me with respect, I'll treat you with respect, and we'll 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 jail on the 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.
- All right. - It was bad.
No, you don't wanna get me started. Jell-O with hair all in the mold.
I'd be like, "Damn, man, how are you gonna mess up Jell-O?"
Jell-O is so wholesome and family-like. 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 Jell-O.
And you can't go, "There's a hair in my Jell-O. I'd like 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 lot of good books.
I read a lot 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 lot of people supported me.
Jasmine Guy, Jada Pinkett,
Mickey Rourke, he just wrote me funny stories.
The name that sticks out the most, I'll keep saying this, is Tony Danza.
To me, he is the bomb forever.
I will be his number one fan forever,
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.
And even as a crack fiend, Mama You always was a black queen, Mama
I finally understand, for a woman It ain't easy, trying to raise a man
I don't blame her for anything.
My mom's the bomb, you know. The world's best mom.
- You are appreciated - Lady
Don't you know we love you Sweet lady
"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 lot of people.
It was from Me Against the World,
which was completed before I went to jail.
It's just me against the world
Me against the world, baby
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 long 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 favorite, 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 like 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 like I'm untouchable. I could 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,
bailed 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,
Iooked 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, like, 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 11 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 love L.A. with a passion. I love 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 11 months, Tabitha.
You're supposed to put "I love you".
You got to let me get a look at 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 El Pollo Loco
because I was dreaming about El Pollo 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'll 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!
Out on bail, fresh out of jail California dreaming
Soon as I step on the scene I'm hearing hoochies screaming
Fiending for money and alcohol The life of the West Side player
Where cowards die And the strong ball
Only in Cali, where we riot, not rally To live and die
In L.A., we wear Chucks, not Ballies
Dressed in Locs and khaki suits And ride is what we do
Flossin' but have caution We collide with other crews
You gotta realize 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 like everyone on the record company. I like 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 love 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.
Say what you say But give me that bomb beat from Dre
Let me serenade the streets of L.A.
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'll know we down with this rock thing, nine-six flavor, Death Row.
But who knew it would last, this West Side staff?
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.
Ain't nothing but a gangsta party
Oh, shit You done fucked up now
You done put two of America's Most Wanted
In the same motherfucking place At the same motherfucking time
Y'all niggas about to feel this Break out the champagne glasses
Picture perfect I paint a perfect picture
Bomb the hoochies with precision My intention's to get richer
With the S-N-double-O-P Dogg My fucking homey
You's a cold-ass nigga On them hogs
I keep my hand on my gun 'Cause they got me on the run
Now I'm back in the courtroom Waiting on the outcome
Me and Snoop represent the nucleus of the entire ghetto.
Snoop represents the more calm, all legit, by the book,
no waves, let's get our business handled.
You're doing your job every day
And then you work so hard Till your hair turn gray
Let me tell you about life And about the way it is
You see, we live by the gun So we die by the gun's kids
Tell me not to roll with my Glock So now I gotta throw away
Floating in a black Benz And trying to do a show a day
I represent the hard-core, no-holds- barred, no-prisoners, relentless thug.
They wonder how I live with five shots Niggas is hard to kill on my block
Schemes for currency And dough-related
Affiliated with the hustlers And so we made it
We both represent both sides of the game.
The calm one and the relentless one.
My nigga, Dogg, with me Eternally the most wanted
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 100s. 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 like 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 $100 bill.
Me, Suge and Damu gonna be on the $100 bill.
I felt I'm getting pimped.
This is the $100 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 fail to realize this is not just play. I work.
Run! Scatter, scatter!
Drag K off the stage. Y'all 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.
You don't say you need me
You don't sing me love songs
Y'all don't bring us flowers anymore
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."
Living held down My game plan, to be trained
And military mind of a thug lord
I like music, and I like acting. I like 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.
So lash out and get a glass
Done finally got his own drink Call it the best
Introducing a special brew Made for a chosen few
I'm thugged out While Snoop Dogg's sipping blue
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 love 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 like 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-like 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 like 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 $100 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 like to tell Tupac to keep his guards up. We're with him.
One other thing I'd like 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 love 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. - I'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".
That's why I fucked your bitch, You fat motherfucker
Which is a classic battle record.
First off, fuck your bitch And the clique you claim
West Side, when we ride Come equipped with game
You claim to be a player But I fucked your wife
We bust on Bad Boys Niggas fucked for life
I'm a self-made millionaire
Thug living out of prison Pistols in the air
Biggie, remember when I used To let you sleep on the couch
And beg a bitch To let you sleep in the house
- Now it's all about Versace - You copied my style
- Five shots couldn't drop me - I took it and smiled
Now I'm about set the record straight
With my AK, I'm still the thug That you love to hate
Grab your Glocks When you see Tupac
Call the cops when you see Tupac
Who shot me? But you punks didn't finish that
You're about to feel The wrath of a menace
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 East Coast/West Coast 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'll 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 forever.
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 Voletta 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'll 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'll change the world, but I guarantee I'll 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'll be reborn.