Visit the original post to see all 1 images from this gallery.
Tupac Shakur’s album ‘Me Against the World’ was notable not just for its musical composition, but also the events that preceeded and followed it. For our latest #HSTBT, we explore the story that led to Shakur being the first artist to ever have a number one album while behind bars.
Tuesday would have marked Tupac Shakur’s 44th birthday had he not be gunned down on that fateful night in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996. While he will be best remembered for his contributions to music thanks to 75 million albums sold worldwide – which puts him in rarefied territory with other artists like Nirvana, The Police, Bob Marley and Green Day – his lawless attitude and at times filter-less approach with the media created a persona that seemed much bigger than the genre and adjectives that people attempted to pigeonhole him with. If hard-pressed to provide a single instance of Tupac Shakur’s legacy to someone unfamiliar with his work, look no further than his album Me Against the World, and the events surrounding it.
Shakur’s third studio album, Me Against the World, was critically acclaimed and ushered in a new point-of-view for an artist many saw as merely an extension of the gangster rap genre. Entertainment Weekly’s James Bernard wrote, “When he says it’s ‘me against the world,’ there’s an urgency that only comes from experience.” The Chicago Sun-Times’ Jaleel Abdul-Adil remarked, “Desperation follows raw anger on ‘Fuck the World’ and ‘It Ain’t Easy,’ but most tracks confess frailties beneath the rapper’s tough exterior.” The New York Times’ Jon Pareles wrote, “The album will surprise anyone expecting a tough guy’s most savage boasts. ”
Prior to the album’s release, Shakur had seen his fair share of run-ins with the law. In 1993, he was charged for assaulting director Allen Hughes while filming Menace II Society and was later sentenced to 15 days in jail. 20 years after the film was released, Hughes said, “If ‘Pac had been in the movie he would’ve outshined everyone. It would’ve thrown the whole axis of the movie off if Tupac was in it, because he was bigger than the movie.”
In October 1993, Shakur was charged with shooting two off-duty police officers in Atlanta. The New York Times reported, “The Atlanta police said the shooting occurred after two cars carrying Mr. Shakur and his party almost struck the two men and their wives as they crossed a city street early Sunday morning.” Many pointed to a particular lyric from his 1991 album, 2pacalypse Now: “Drop them or let them drop you/I choose droppin’ the cop!” as a sign of guilt. Ultimately, he was exonerated of all charges.
In November 1993, Shakur and his road manager, Charles Fuller, would be arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel room. Tupac contended that he did in fact have sexual relations with the victim, but it was consensual. On the eve of the verdict, Shakur was shot five times in the elevator of Quad Studios in New York. Appearing before Judge Daniel P. Fitzgerald in a wheelchair, he was sentenced to 1.5 – 4.5 years in prison with eligibility for parole after 18 months. Fitzgerald said, “This was an act of brutal violence against a helpless woman.”
In the aftermath of being sentenced to prison and actually walking through the gates at Clinton Correctional Facility, Shakur starred in Poetic Justice and Above the Rim, released two albums – Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z… and Thug Life’s Volume 1 – and recorded Me Against the World.
On March 14, 1995, a 23-year-old Tupac Shakur was confined to a cell at the Clinton Correctional Facility – a maximum security penitentiary in Dannemora, New York – which notably housed throughout its history the likes of Lucky Luciano, Julio Gonzalez (the perpetrator of the 1990 Happy Land Fire in the Bronx which killed 87 people), and Paul Geidel, the longest serving American prison inmate whose sentence ended with his release.
youtu.be/mv2OMXngkEs
During his incarceration, the flames of the pending East Coast vs. West Coast beef between Bad Boy Records and Death Row Records were fanned at the site of The Source Awards. When Death Row CEO Suge Knight took to the stage to accept the award for Motion Picture Soundtrack of the Year for Above the Rim he said, “I’d like to tell Tupac to keep his guards up, we’re ridin’ with him. And one other thing I’d like to say, any artist out there want to be an artist, and want to stay a star, and don’t have to worry about the executive producer all in the video, all on the record, dancing… come to Death Row.”
Me Against the World debuted at the number one spot on the Billboard 200 chart and stayed there for four weeks straight – selling 240,000 copies in the first week based off the strength of the first single, “Dear Mama” which topped the Hot Rap Singles chart and peaked at the ninth spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Shakur became the first person to have a chart-topping album while incarcerated (which Lil Wayne repeated in 2010). In an August 1995 Vibe magazine interview, Shakur seriously considered making Me Against the World his last album. “This is my best album yet,” he said. “And because I already laid it down, I can be free.” In addition to his thoughts on the record, he also insinuated that Biggie and Sean “Puffy” Combs had something to do with his shooting at Quad Studios. “Nobody approached me. I noticed that nobody would look at me,” said Tupac, suggesting that the people in the room knew he was going to be shot.
In a cover story feature in Vibe on Biggie and Puffy later that same year, Combs responded. “Why would I set a n*gga up to get shot? If I’ma set a n*gga up, which I would never do, I ain’t gonna be in the country, I’ma be in Bolivia somewhere. He ain’t mad at the niggas that shot him; he knows where they’re at. He knows who shot him. If you ask him, he knows, and everybody in the street knows, and he’s not stepping to them, because he knows that he’s not gonna get away with that shit. To me, that’s some real sucker shit. Be mad at everybody, man; don’t be using niggas as scapegoats. We know that he’s a nice guy from New York. All shit aside, Tupac is a nice, good-hearted guy.”
Me Against the World won Rap Album of the Year at the 1996 Soul Train Music Awards and was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 1996 Grammy Awards (losing to Naughty by Nature’s Poverty’s Paradise). A year later, and Tupac Shakur would be gone at the age of 25.