![]() With drugs came a tsunami of violenceĪ generation of young political leaders was effectively eliminated in the 60s and 70s by the FBI who targeted the emerging Black Panther movement. Following the Reagan-era welfare cuts, drugs flooded Los Angeles. Where you lived became an area with strict boundaries, surrounded by hostile white communities. Communities struggled for decent housing, schooling and basic amenities. When southern labour flooded northwards in the first half of the 20th century, it found itself confined to neighbourhoods around Central Avenue, south of the city centre. South Central was a ghetto created by racist Jim Crow laws. To get to the root of this story, you have to understand something of LA gang culture. It was Shakur’s ability to alchemise anger and hurt into performance that made him an extraordinary artist. So I can’t let nobody shake it because I might die that second they called me bitch, and that can’t be the last thing they called me.” That’s what I have constantly to work with. I was like: ‘Damn! Why do I have to drink? Why do I grind my teeth when I sleep? Why is it so mandatory that I get respect?’ If you call me bitch, we’re going to fight. “When I started seeing other people, and how they handled it. When did you first start looking for a father figure? I remember talking to him about it on another day at his apartment on Wilshire Boulevard. “I just wanted to let him know that I cared.”) Shakur had gone through all his later teenage years thinking he was fatherless, and it was a topic he returned to in his lyrics. (Later, when Shakur was in hospital after the New York shooting, a former Black Panther named Billy Garland appeared at his bedside to announce that he was his real father. He had grown up believing his father was a drug dealer known as Legs who died of a heart attack when Tupac was 15. Shakur’s mother, Afeni Shakur, was a Black Panther and political activist. Honestly, I didn’t think for a minute that what he was saying had much to do with reality. Motherfuckers come to take their lives.”īy then he was pretty stoned. All the niggas who change the world die in violence. ![]() I’m not afraid of the niggas coming for me, or what they might do. “Right now, I know I’m not going to live for ever. Among musicians and friends – including a young rapper called Yaki Kadafi – his demeanour was relaxed, but as he talked, a darker side emerged. Once inside, Shakur started smoking weed. The industrial unit had been turned into a heavily guarded fortress. That afternoon we drove on to Death Row’s Can-Am Studios in the suburb of Tarzana so Shakur could play me tracks for his forthcoming LP All Eyez on Me – a double album that would sell more than half a million copies in its first week. ![]() He was suffering from PTSD.īackstage after a performance in Chicago, 1994. Eighteen months earlier in New York, Shakur had been shot in a botched robbery outside a recording studio. Later he told me he did that all the time. At a junction, a nearby car backfired and Shakur tensed. But after the meal we got into his open-top Jaguar. He could do urbane and cultured, quoting Robert Frost as we ate. “When I sat there, this is what I thought about.” “Exactly,” said Shakur, happily ordering a double helping of soft-shell crab. “After 11 months inside, this must be something of a relief,” I said. We sat in a restaurant at a table next to Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Shakur talked about the shooting in 1994. He posted $1.4m bail to have Shakur released from Clinton Correctional Facility, New York, pending appeal. With major labels wary of his reputation, Knight took it as an opportunity. Already a major star, Shakur had been convicted and imprisoned in 1995 on a charge of sexual abuse of a fan. Shakur had recently signed to Death Row Records, owned by Marion “Suge” Knight. The first time I met Shakur was at the pink palm-treed fantasy that is the Beverly Hills Hotel. When all this happened, I was living in Los Angeles, writing a book about hip-hop and about the young men of South Central LA, many of whom dreamed of a stardom that could lift them out of their toxic lives. The idea that we may be about to finally discover the answer is tantalising. After 27 years, Las Vegas police, who fumbled the initial investigation, appear to be attempting to uncover new evidence. It’s not surprising, then, that when he was shot dead, everyone wanted to know why. ![]() Shakur’s music is full of anger at the poverty inflicted on his generation and at the extraordinary violence perpetrated both by and against it. In the 90s, African American culture was at an extraordinary creative peak, but it was also grappling with extremes of toxic masculinity. He sold more than 75m records and starred in six movies. To anyone who loves hip-hop, Shakur is a giant. ![]()
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