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  • 2 days ago
Interviews and home-video footage highlight this chronicle of the life and death of rap artist and actor Tupac Shakur.
Transcript
00:00:00I think that's bullshit. I'm gonna have more money, more money, more weed, more rhymes,
00:00:26more platinum hits. And what about over there? And his coffin. And mighty, Iron Mike Tyson comes out blazing against the challenger Bruce Seldon in a devastating first round knockout. Backstage, Iron Mike is greeted by longtime fan Tupac Shakur, who also wrote Tyson's entrance song.
00:00:53I'm in this shit for the honor and the respect. That's why this shit feels so good.
00:01:01Truly believe that I've been blessed by God and that God wants you.
00:01:11Controversial rap artist Tupac Shakur is fighting for his life.
00:01:16A gunman opens fire on rapper Tupac Shakur's car. He is in critical condition.
00:01:20Rap star Tupac Shakur was riding in this black BMW with a music producer when someone opened fire.
00:01:26It happened on this crowded Las Vegas strip late Saturday night.
00:01:30Five bullet holes hit the passenger door. More shots flattened two of the car's tires.
00:01:35Shakur took several bullets to the chest and is in critical condition in a Las Vegas hospital.
00:01:39When the shooting began, police say Tupac was traveling in a caravan of ten cars, returning from watching the Tyson-Seldon heavyweight match.
00:01:46That shit ain't funny, because if I die before June, I swear to God I'm going to haunt y'all.
00:02:02Tupac wasn't born. He was sent to us.
00:02:04I mean, he's got the greatest mother in the world, but he was actually sent to her, and she was good enough to let him come to us.
00:02:14And he gave himself to the world.
00:02:16His name is Tupac Shakur from the Bronx, and then I went to high school, Baltimore, and then moved to Oakland.
00:02:25He came into the world kind of like in chaos and mass confusion to begin with.
00:02:32You keep in mind, his mother was a former Black Panther.
00:02:35She was like part of the Panther 21 trial back in 1971.
00:02:43You know, she wasn't even sure of who this man's father was.
00:02:47My mother was Fahmy Shakur, my father Latou Shakur, my father Geronimo Pratt, R.T. Asada Shakur.
00:02:59You know, I came from the long run, the straight soldiers.
00:03:03Our parents, Tupac's and mine, I really felt like raised us to really revere struggle,
00:03:10and to look at struggle, the struggle, as a way of uplifting our people and really kind of indoctrinated us to make us feel like that was our role
00:03:21as young people and as men, that we had to serve black people.
00:03:26As a matter of fact, an aunt of mine says, she always says to me, or she used to always say to me when I was young,
00:03:33that, you know, what are you here for? And if you're not here to serve black people, then, you know, what's your purpose?
00:03:40He lived in New York City with the Fahmy for a time, and, you know, they went from Baltimore and then wound up out in Oakland.
00:03:48So he was constantly moving from place to place. So he never really fit in anywhere.
00:03:54Pop moved out from Baltimore, and what happened was, he's, I believe, somehow related to Linda Pratt.
00:04:01And I guess because of Geronimo Pratt, the great political prisoner, they was, that's his godson or someone like that.
00:04:10But anyways, to the story was that Pac, he stayed with us for a little bit, basically, because my sister was, his sister was dating my brother.
00:04:18And when he moved out here, he was always into his rap thing. He always wanted to get his rap thing on.
00:04:23And, you know what I'm saying, when he came, it was like it was something new for the town, for the neighborhood,
00:04:27because he was so tight that some, we knew that he was going to make it somehow.
00:04:31And, you know what I'm saying, he was going to get there somehow, because he was always, he was always determined to try to get himself up out the condition that he was in.
00:04:38Yeah, the first time I met Pop was like 86. I met him down at the recreation center, and that was back in the days, we was rapping, we was just coming from the head, really.
00:04:48We wasn't doing too much writing. And he came out, and he had like a song written, it was like, it was fat.
00:04:54And that's, that's how I said, that nigga got some shit. You know what I'm saying.
00:04:58Yeah, he had tight shit way back then. And then, then I guess, then he moved over to this side of town, he was staying right here.
00:05:06And that's when him and my boy hooked up, and him and my boy was, they hooked and had the thing. They was hella cool.
00:05:11Yeah, him and Affinity, his mom and Setsua, and him, they stayed right here in this apartment right here.
00:05:16It's door number one, this is the 89 building. This is one of the vines up in the jungle.
00:05:21City here, Marin City, we call it the jungle, right? And when I first hooked up with Pop, we was down on the front.
00:05:27We was down on the front. It's the store front out there. It's a parking lot, actually. Parking lot area.
00:05:32And we got down there, and he was, he came up rapping. It was like, it's this new kid in town.
00:05:37Yo, yo, I want y'all to hear, you know what I'm saying, who this dude is, right?
00:05:40So he got down there and started rapping. I came, you know, fronted off with him, see what he had, right?
00:05:45And I did a little rap, he did a little rap. And from there on, we just hooked up, I guess, because what I was doing at that time, which was rapping,
00:05:52and that's what he was, that's what he was about at that time. So I introduced him to my cousin.
00:05:56Gable, Darren Page, my boy here, Imani, you know what I'm saying, and the whole crew, click a license. We hooked him up, right?
00:06:05And when Gabe started, Gabe heard he rapping. Gabe started coming with beats.
00:06:09Yeah.
00:06:10And then him and Gabe clicked.
00:06:11Yeah.
00:06:12And then our other, our other, our folks, Demetrius, Demetrius and Gabe, like there was the two DJs in the town.
00:06:18Exactly.
00:06:19So they kind of hooked up with him and collaborated, you know, and they kicked it off. Then they did, they, they was doing their thing.
00:06:25And then we broke it off into the big round table thing, and we call it the crew, the crew little organization again.
00:06:30TC.
00:06:31TC. As we know of, straight up out of Marin City. And from there, we branched out, we started getting more serious about it, you know,
00:06:38spending more time up in the studio, putting more cuts out of what have you. But my boy, Pac was always ambitious, you understand what I'm saying?
00:06:44He was eager, he was hungry, like, he'd eat rap, drink rap, sleep rap, and it was just like another thing to me, you know what I'm saying?
00:06:51It was, it was added, added in to what we did.
00:06:54Exactly. I didn't take it seriously. It was another fad to me, right? But you could tell he was going somewhere with it.
00:06:59Well, like I remember when he first came out here, actually it was like the second day, and he was kicking at the house with my brother.
00:07:05We was eating like we had just had dinner. And what happened was, you know what I'm saying, he, you know what I'm saying, we said, Pac, man, you know how to play hoop?
00:07:12He said, yeah, man, I know how to play hoop and whoop to whoop, you know what I'm saying, like that. We said, yeah, man, let's go see some hoop at the rec down there,
00:07:17because we was all balling at the time. It was like, you know what I'm saying, everybody wanted to get their ball on, you know what I'm saying, whoop to whoop.
00:07:24And when we went down to the rec, we was coming to our surprise, the man didn't know how to play no hoop, man. He was a good rapper, but he should have left the basketball alone.
00:07:31He always tried. He'd shoot bricks and air wells and things like that, but it was it was all cool.
00:07:36Because he after a while, he said, no, I'm just gonna stick to the rap, the rap game, man.
00:07:41He had the New York flat top like he had in Juice. We always laughed at him about it. I went up about 15, 14 at the time.
00:07:48And my homeboy Willie Densby, known as Ant Dog, Anthony, he was going out with Setsua, his sister.
00:07:59So Tupac used to always come around, come around to the house, right? We'd be like, you know, he had the New York with the holes in the pants and you know what I'm saying, the flat top.
00:08:08You know, we was real bummy and shit. We'd always talk about him. Look at you little funny looking motherfucker. You know what I mean?
00:08:13Like, fuck you. You didn't call me that, you know, that New York shit. And we used to punch him right around the building.
00:08:19He'd catch one of us. We both beat him up and shit. But he was still like a brother. You know what I'm saying?
00:08:23He was gone. They used to tell me about this guy from New York, this new rapper named Tupac. And his name was MC New York. This dude named MC New York.
00:08:30Whatever, whatever. Whoopty woo when everybody was telling me how good he is. You need to battle him. So whatever. I ended up leaving Florida, coming back to California.
00:08:38And one day, I just happened to be at the bus stop. And I was going back to Novato. And here comes Demetrius, a friend of Demetrius Striplin, another guy.
00:08:46We stand up. We eventually all live together. I see him and Tupac at the bus stop. And he's like, hey, man, what's up? This is Tupac.
00:08:53And then I'm with my friend Terry August. You know, it's us, my friend and Tupac. And whatever. It was like both of us.
00:08:59So it was like the situation for like a little rap battle. You know, and it was like, oh, man, you got to rap against him because my partner was a beatbox.
00:09:06And so here we go. He bust out his little rap. He had a song called Girls Be Trying to Work a Nigga or some shit. And he bust that rap.
00:09:14And it was hella cool. Then I bust my little rap. I had little raps, too. So we called it a tie. So we was going back and forth and it was a tie.
00:09:22The bus came. And if the bus didn't come, we weren't going to the same place. We probably would have might have just been different ways.
00:09:27It might not have just really kicked it. But the bus, we were going the same way. We got on the same bus.
00:09:31So we ended up kicking it all on the bus. And from that, next thing you know, we had a group.
00:09:35And that's when we were coming. One nation emcees. At first, we didn't have a name. We was like, whatever. We were just rapping together.
00:09:40Anyway, so I ended up getting kicked out of my house. And Tupac gets kicked out of the house. He's staying in his godmother's house.
00:09:48So we all move in with Demetrius. My other friend Terry August got kicked out of his house. So he moves in with Demetrius, too.
00:09:54Demetrius' dad just went to the pen. So he got the house to his cell. So we all moved in. We're living there. Everything's cool.
00:10:02We got the rap group. Terry's the beatbox. Demetrius is the DJ. Me and Tupac are the rappers. Then my boy Gable. He was like a good friend of mine.
00:10:12So he was like the DJ. He was my DJ. So we decided to have two DJs.
00:10:17Usually when Demetrius is not there, that's when the chaos happens in the house. Because Demetrius, he's not there to keep the house disciplined.
00:10:24So shit goes chaotic. And Tupac and Terry gets into an argument. The argument was over a Nintendo game. Who had winners and shit.
00:10:35And Terry was always the one that tried to run the house when Demetrius wasn't there.
00:10:40Tupac and Terry had been arguing all week. Anyhow, Terry told Tupac when he left, man, you better do the dishes.
00:10:45Because it's your turn to do the dishes. And you better have the motherfucking dishes done when I get home.
00:10:49And it was like, I knew he wasn't going to do it. But I guess he wanted to punk him to see what he'd do to see if he'd make Tupac do the dishes.
00:10:56So anyway, it's all day. We're kicking and chilling, playing Nintendo, getting drunk. Here comes Terry and his girlfriend.
00:11:01And not only did Tupac not do the dishes, he spilled like a whole big jug of something on the floor and didn't clean it up.
00:11:07It was fucked up. He should have did that. But he did it just to spite Terry. Here comes Terry walking in.
00:11:12He instantly is going off. He got his girlfriend with him. And he must have been in a bad mood.
00:11:17He's going off on Tupac. Tupac jumps up across the coffee table over to Terry. Jumped all on his face. Start cussing him out.
00:11:24They like face to face. You know about the box. Me and me, Troy and Gable, we all in there. We just like looking.
00:11:30And Tupac wasn't going for it because Terry was, you know, he was in the wrong, but he was still bullying the shit out of him.
00:11:36And so Tupac, you know, not going for it with his, you know, with his mouth and his attitude.
00:11:44He said, fuck it. He ran up from about 10 feet away, coming with a wild right and threw it.
00:11:53And missed and hit the corner of the washing machine. Big washing machine didn't budge.
00:12:00Well, it was cold. It had to hurt so bad. He said, bam, right on the corner.
00:12:04Whole knuckle was just instantly just swole up. He missed. We started. We're like, oh, he missed.
00:12:10Terry scooped him up, dropped him and kicked his ass.
00:12:13He didn't go to the hospital after hitting the washing machine. And he was, you know, he was a good actor playing off the pain.
00:12:20We knew he was in pain. His hands swole up twice the size of his hand.
00:12:25And I knew he had to, like, shatter a knuckle or break a finger or something.
00:12:30But never went to the doctor. It never healed right. And, yeah, he was in pain for a long time trying to play it off.
00:12:39That's probably where he got his acting skills.
00:12:42We had our little tour thing. We had a little tour we put together.
00:12:45We was going to L.A. to do a show for the New African Panthers.
00:12:49This was hella cool, because to us, this was like, we're going to drive to L.A., you know, from, like, the Bay to L.A., you know.
00:12:55We're going to do this show for the Panthers in South Central L.A. We hyped.
00:12:59You know, we didn't estimate the traffic and all that bullshit, so we got there, like, six hours late.
00:13:05And we kept stopping at pay phones, calling them, telling them we'd be there in about an hour.
00:13:09Called them about five times saying that.
00:13:12And we finally got there six hours late. They waited. You know, they wasn't upset with us, wasn't disappointed.
00:13:19We gave them a hell of a show, you know, a hell of a show.
00:13:23We had a couple songs. We had Panther Power. They really liked that.
00:13:27That was like our little anthem song. Panther Power, Panther Power.
00:13:32We had One Nation MCs, and then we had a song called Fantasy. And so we did three songs for them.
00:13:37And they had a whole agenda for us for that night and the following day and all that.
00:13:41And then part of that agenda was a self-defense training class.
00:13:47And, uh, which included full combat. And, uh, full contact combat.
00:13:56They taught us some cool stuff, I admit. But it was, you know, it was kind of hard work.
00:14:00But they had to do a lot of stuff. Them brothers know their shit. They can kick some ass.
00:14:04They got, they was down with some deep black belts or whatever.
00:14:07Tupac learned a good move. He, uh, he learned a move where if you get knocked down, you're on the ground on your back.
00:14:14To, like, crouch your back. Put all your weight on your back. Lean back.
00:14:20And keep one foot cocked back and one foot up. And just kick at the person and, like, just rotate around.
00:14:27And just keep your eye on them. And they can't, you know, unless they want to get kicked, they can't really do nothing.
00:14:33And you can trip them up also if you know some moves like that. And Tupac learned that.
00:14:39And, uh, when the guy, when the instructor called on Tupac to go to fight with somebody, to spar with somebody,
00:14:47the first thing he did before he even threw a blow would drop to the ground and get in that position so he couldn't get hit.
00:14:54And he can keep the dude off of him. And it worked, you know. He kicked the dude a couple of times.
00:14:59The dude couldn't get in so he didn't lose, you know. And, uh, it came in handy one time in Marin City.
00:15:06Uh, one night we were all drinking. Drinking 40s. My cousin's, uh, Jetta. And, uh, we was having a good time, you know what I'm saying.
00:15:14And, uh, we got to talking about girls that we had fucked and what had happened, you know.
00:15:19And I had messed around with one of Tupac's girls. And, uh, he was, like, a little bit jealous, I guess.
00:15:25And, uh, he said, uh, we actually started capping, playing a dozen, talking about each other's moms.
00:15:30And, you know, his mom was on crack and all that shit. And we were just clowning each other, you know.
00:15:35And it got a little out of hand, got serious. And I told him, uh, basically, from the jungle where we're at, we're getting your ass, you know what I'm saying.
00:15:42And he said, oh, you ain't gonna whoop me. I said, basically, I bet I can. He said, I bet you can't.
00:15:46So, uh, I induced him to get out of the car. He wouldn't get out of the car. He's talking shit.
00:15:51And I tell him, well, man, this is my cousin's car, man. You gonna get up out of my cousin's car.
00:15:55And he wouldn't get out.
00:15:56Tupac, man, J.J., my friend, I don't gotta get out of the car. Uh, uh, uh, you gotta get out of my cousin's car.
00:16:00J.J., you my cousin, right? You gotta get out of his car, right? Some shit.
00:16:03I don't know what he's telling. He said, uh, and, uh, Tupac, I ain't gotta get out of none.
00:16:06As everybody knows, Tupac got a big mouth, you know what I'm saying. He'll keep on going and going.
00:16:11So I told him, look, man, looked at my cousin, I said, I'm about to put this dude out of your car.
00:16:15You know what I'm saying? Do you got any complaints about that? He said, no.
00:16:18I said, well, Tupac, you got to go. And he said, I'm not getting out of shit.
00:16:21So I stole on him. We fighting in the car. You know, he's trying to kick me like a little woman.
00:16:25But, uh, we get out the car. Well, I get out the car. I'm trying to get him out the car.
00:16:30I'm reaching in the car trying to unlock the door. He wouldn't unlock the door.
00:16:32Nigga bit me. Yeah, he bit me. And, uh, you know, I'm gonna say he is my dog, though.
00:16:37Now, uh, he bit me. I finally get him out the car. We square off. We kind of...
00:16:42That's what I must have got there, because that's what I came by. He was like this.
00:16:45He was just... Throwing sets? Yeah, yeah.
00:16:50Oh, yeah, he did bite me, though. We locked up. He bit me. I bit him right back.
00:16:53He tried to fight. You know, he put his dupes up. But Troy, Troy could box.
00:16:58And Troy was just bam, bam. Just kidding him. Just stinking him. And Tupac ended up falling.
00:17:03He tried to sweep me. I grabbed his foot. Put him on his back. I said,
00:17:07Now I'm about to kick you in your face. And, uh, he did...
00:17:10I don't know. He had that self-defense move.
00:17:12Yeah, these niggas are just...
00:17:14Put that leg up. Yeah, they just...
00:17:18He was rotating. He did that move. You didn't go to L.A.
00:17:21I didn't go to L.A. He learned to move in L.A. He had that leg up.
00:17:24Tuckling around so you couldn't come in. I was trying to kick him in his face.
00:17:28Yeah. He got him in the form, the little pose for it and everything.
00:17:32I was like, oh, he's doing the move. And he kicked his leg.
00:17:35And he finally just flipped up in the air. Bam!
00:17:38And came down hella hard. It was cold. It was funny as hell.
00:17:40It was the funniest thing I ever saw.
00:17:42Shortly after that, then, when he had to fight with my boy, Troy,
00:17:45you know what I'm saying, he had four stripes, I guess, so to speak, right there.
00:17:49He had earned his position, you know what I'm saying,
00:17:50to establish himself in Marin City. So then, I took him up under my wing.
00:17:54You know what I'm saying, this crew organization that's out here in this jungle California, right?
00:17:58And we got a lot of respect around this community and shit like that.
00:18:01Believe that.
00:18:02There's a few families here that got such amount of respect, you know what I'm saying.
00:18:05So, after we took him up under the wing, it was like,
00:18:08there wasn't nobody fucking with him no more, you know what I'm saying.
00:18:10It's like, now you're going to have to fight me, Troy, Gable, and everybody.
00:18:13And we meant that. You know what I'm saying. We meant that.
00:18:15So, he kind of, that was like an initiation for him right there.
00:18:17And he loved us for that.
00:18:18Troy jumped him in, you know what I'm saying.
00:18:20He loved us for that.
00:18:21Yes, he did.
00:18:22Yes, he did.
00:18:23He remembered us from that day on because of that.
00:18:25You know what I'm saying.
00:18:26We go to Santa Rosa and fight some niggas we don't even know for our boy.
00:18:28And he beat the first one and just bomb on the motherfucker.
00:18:30Hell yeah, hell yeah.
00:18:31You know what I'm saying.
00:18:32After that day, I mean, we couldn't even beat him to the punch no more.
00:18:34Hell no.
00:18:35He knew that we was...
00:18:36He's like, reverse that shit around.
00:18:37He knew that we wasn't, we wasn't no joke.
00:18:39He said, I'm with these niggas.
00:18:40You know, these niggas like to throw things.
00:18:41He loved to throw things.
00:18:42You ain't gonna lie.
00:18:43You know what I'm saying.
00:18:44You know what I'm saying.
00:18:45You know what I'm saying.
00:18:46You know what I'm saying.
00:18:47Police come.
00:18:48You hear a sign.
00:18:49We ready to break back to the car and shit.
00:18:50He wanna cut the police out.
00:18:51Holy fuck these motherfuckers.
00:18:52Yeah, he didn't...
00:18:53He hate the police.
00:18:54Hate the police.
00:18:55Let's start there.
00:18:56He hated them.
00:18:57Hate the police.
00:18:58He severely hated these people.
00:18:59There was one time he was on the front.
00:19:01He was parked down there on the front.
00:19:02I was in my Cadillac, right?
00:19:03I'm sitting there looking out.
00:19:04I'm in the backseat of the car looking at him do this show.
00:19:07It's like he's on stage making a motherfucking movie or something on the front.
00:19:10It's like four or five police around him.
00:19:12He's going off.
00:19:13Motherfucker, I'm a star.
00:19:14Motherfucker, fuck you.
00:19:15Motherfucker, I'm a star.
00:19:16What you gonna do, punk now or what?
00:19:17You know what I'm saying?
00:19:18Niggas used to try to tell him, calm down, man.
00:19:19You know what I'm saying?
00:19:20Because a lot of people down there was, you know, doing wrong.
00:19:22You know what I'm saying?
00:19:23Selling weed, doing everything.
00:19:24Bang, bang, bang, whatever they're doing.
00:19:25We don't want the police over here.
00:19:26No.
00:19:27These people.
00:19:28He said, fuck them.
00:19:29Fuck you.
00:19:30And he was just going off.
00:19:31Like, man, this man here is sick, man.
00:19:33Okay.
00:19:34Well, I'm going to tell you a story about me and Pac, you know what I'm saying?
00:19:36Doing a little freaking.
00:19:37Okay.
00:19:38Now, this was back in the day.
00:19:39This was like 87, 86.
00:19:41You know what I'm saying?
00:19:42We was up at this fool named Jerry Ogbach house, right?
00:19:45Now, at the time, he was grinding heavy, you know, having it, you know what I'm saying?
00:19:48Having it his way.
00:19:49So, he asked us to watch his female while he went to go handle some business.
00:19:54So, he got me and Pac sitting in the house.
00:19:56You know what I'm saying?
00:19:57We sitting up there rapping, kicking it.
00:19:58You know what I'm saying?
00:19:59His bridal grim's heavy.
00:20:01So, she running in and out the room, in and out the room.
00:20:03Now, I didn't know she was like nasty like that, you know what I'm saying?
00:20:06But Pac seen it in her eye.
00:20:07He came at me and said, man, I think this is, you know what I'm saying?
00:20:10We might be able to toss her up.
00:20:12So, what we do, you know what I'm saying?
00:20:14My boy Pac come with the grim shot.
00:20:16He's like, okay, I got a little something, something.
00:20:18We're going to crush him down, roll him up, and offer it to her and see how she act about it, right?
00:20:23So, before we even had the opportunity to finish setting up our plan,
00:20:27Baby come out the room damn near naked, talking about what's up, right?
00:20:31Now, I'm feeling kind of bad because this is Jerry House.
00:20:33We in his house with his bitch, you know what I'm saying?
00:20:36Pac smiling, you know what I'm saying?
00:20:37But now, I was feeling kind of bad.
00:20:39So, we kind of like tried to play it off, you know.
00:20:42It was like, well, you know, we don't know about this friggin' what you talking about.
00:20:45And Baby was like, okay, well, shit, you know what I'm saying?
00:20:47If y'all don't want to fuck with it, you know what I'm saying?
00:20:49And then, she leave out the room, my boy Pac come at me,
00:20:52Ice, what you doing?
00:20:53That's bad, man.
00:20:54What's up?
00:20:55You just going to pass it up, you know what I'm saying?
00:20:56So, he convinced me, talked me into doing it.
00:20:58So, we end up going in the back, you know what I'm saying?
00:21:01Baby end up being like this monster queen, you know what I'm saying?
00:21:04She coming off, slobbing the nigga up, you know what I'm saying?
00:21:06Swinging the booty, everything, you know what I'm saying?
00:21:09Me and Pac do monster friggin'.
00:21:10We all get dressed, get back ready.
00:21:12Jerry come in the house, we act like ain't nothing happened, you know what I'm saying?
00:21:15It's the kickback spot, he never, never knew, but now he know.
00:21:19In actuality, Tupac was a quite serious man too.
00:21:22There was one event where we was at the Travelize Hotel around the corner.
00:21:26We was all up here parlaying in 79, the next building over from here, right?
00:21:30And we had a few 40s and we was drinking, smoking on some doze and shit.
00:21:33And we asked this dude to take us to the hotel, right?
00:21:36So, me, Brew, a few of the boys, we got together and Pac and went over to the hotel room.
00:21:42So, we over there drinking and the dude getting ready to go, he jumped up and said,
00:21:45Well, I'm getting up out of here.
00:21:46Like he gonna leave us.
00:21:47Yeah, like he gonna just leave us there.
00:21:48And we looked at each other, you know, and looked at him and said,
00:21:50Well, partner, check this out.
00:21:51You can't go nowhere until we get ready.
00:21:53So, partner tried to raise up out.
00:21:55I bombs on him, you know what I'm saying?
00:21:57My partner freeze bombs on him and Pac just came up out of the blue, you know what I'm saying?
00:22:00Like a mad, transmating devil or something.
00:22:03Just wailing on the dude.
00:22:04Wham, wham, wham, you know what I'm saying?
00:22:06Kicked him all down the stairs, right?
00:22:07So, we leave, we're going back to the room.
00:22:10Pac just pacing the floor and he popped up, you know what I'm saying?
00:22:13Blowing, blowing damn near fire out his nose and shit.
00:22:15Dude is in his car by this time.
00:22:17Pac walked up to the window and just started blazing on it.
00:22:20Lock, lock, lock, lock.
00:22:21Hitting the window hella hard.
00:22:22I'm like, man, what are you doing, Pac?
00:22:24You know what I'm saying?
00:22:25Come on, it's over with.
00:22:26So, the police ended up coming and all this type of shit.
00:22:29They put him in the back of the car.
00:22:30Put me in one car, you know, find out who he was.
00:22:33But since dude wasn't there, they let us go.
00:22:35We get back to Marin City.
00:22:37This is in Mill Valley until I remind you.
00:22:40We get back to Marin City.
00:22:41This boy still got a temper up to here.
00:22:43He take a big-ass flower pot for no apparent reason
00:22:46and throw it to the back window of this apartment building over here.
00:22:49I'm like, man.
00:22:50When I knew him, I didn't hear him live that way.
00:22:53He would have died a long time ago.
00:22:55It's just like a dog.
00:22:56When you have a dog, you can fight the dog all the time.
00:22:59You can keep fighting the dog.
00:23:00But one time if you fight that dog, you can break that dog's spirit.
00:23:04You know what I'm saying?
00:23:05And that's what I feel would have happened to him if he would have stayed in the jungle.
00:23:08Tupac, he was in Marin City.
00:23:12He was going to school there.
00:23:13He was living in the ghetto, you know, selling drugs and everything.
00:23:16But he was also, you know, getting involved in these poetry readings.
00:23:21You know, that was run by a woman named Layla Steinberg
00:23:25who was a part-time teacher at Bayside Elementary School.
00:23:30And she also used to promote shows.
00:23:34She'd promote shows there sometimes in Marin City and in other community neighborhoods.
00:23:40And she was working with a rapper named Ray Love.
00:23:43And Ray, you know, Ray was trying to pursue his rap career.
00:23:52And then one time she was, I guess, teaching at Bayside Elementary School in Marin City.
00:23:57And Tupac came up to her.
00:24:00And I guess they had both been reading the same book.
00:24:04And, you know, they hooked up and he became kind of her protege.
00:24:10She was his manager.
00:24:12Him and Ray Love were in the group called Strictly Dope.
00:24:15Ray Love had already been hooked up with Tupac and they became Strictly Dope.
00:24:20They did their thing for a while.
00:24:22I guess they maybe a group.
00:24:24I don't know how long they were a group.
00:24:25They did their thing.
00:24:26And eventually, I guess, Tupac wanted to be solo.
00:24:29And Layla hooked him up with Atron Gregory, who at the time was Digital Underground's manager.
00:24:36And Atron was so impressed by Tupac, he went and introduced him to Shaq G.
00:24:42Greg Jacobs, Shaq G, Hump D'Hump Dube from Digital Underground, the lead rapper for Digital Underground.
00:24:50Gave Tupac like a little live, little audition.
00:24:53Just let him bust a rap for him.
00:24:55And he liked it so much, he was just like,
00:24:57Well, yo, won't you come on tour with us?
00:24:59And they took Tupac on tour with him.
00:25:01He became like the Humpty Hump dancer, doing the little Humpty Hump dance.
00:25:05And they went to Japan.
00:25:07They went everywhere.
00:25:08They went on like a world tour.
00:25:10I was the roadie.
00:25:12I was the roadie.
00:25:13It was shocking.
00:25:14I'm carrying equipment, holding my thing, you know what I'm saying?
00:25:18That's what I had to do.
00:25:20I'm a hustler.
00:25:21So I had to kick that.
00:25:23And on my spare time, when we go on tour, I pick up all the shit I had to pick up, drop it down, you know what I'm saying?
00:25:30And brush down the piano.
00:25:31Shaq would be playing the piano.
00:25:32And like Search or Lateef or Kane would be rapping at the piano.
00:25:35And that's when I would let people hear it.
00:25:38I'd always be ready with a rhyme.
00:25:39And I'd kick a rhyme.
00:25:40Boney, everybody started listening to it.
00:25:42That's how I started getting friends in the industry.
00:25:44Then I knew people, you know what I'm saying?
00:25:46And that gave me confidence.
00:25:47I would, you know, get more risky, you know, write shit.
00:25:50And then Shaq was like, you want to do the same song?
00:25:52And I was like, hell yeah.
00:25:53So I had like 15 minutes to write my part.
00:25:56I just scribbled the shit out.
00:25:58Did it.
00:25:59And people really liked it.
00:26:00And he felt good.
00:26:01And he was like, I want you to be the rebel of the underground.
00:26:04You know?
00:26:05I want you to keep me underground.
00:26:07Keep me street.
00:26:08Because I would have never thought to do nothing like that.
00:26:10And I want you to keep me down there.
00:26:11And what I'm going to do is give you whatever you need.
00:26:15He had no place to keep his clothes and stuff.
00:26:19Because I think Shaq moved out of his apartment right before the tour.
00:26:22Because he wanted to get a new one.
00:26:23So Pac kept all this shit at my place.
00:26:26And he said he was going to help pay rent at my apartment.
00:26:30And, you know, when he came back, he said he would pay for it all the time.
00:26:35Whatever it was that he left all this shit there.
00:26:37And when he came back, however, he didn't pay me.
00:26:43Because he said Shaq fucked him out of some money.
00:26:45And so it was no problem with me.
00:26:50And from that point, he got his own place over in Oakland.
00:26:56Tupac had an apartment in Oakland with all the Digital Underground members.
00:26:59And one incident, I went over there with Mike Cooley.
00:27:02And we were smoking blunts watching Brenda's had a baby.
00:27:06It was the first day it came out.
00:27:07You know what I'm saying?
00:27:08He was on the phone calling New York, calling everywhere.
00:27:10He was hella hyped about it and shit.
00:27:12And he just kept smoking, kept choking.
00:27:14And somebody knocked on the door.
00:27:16I was like, lie down.
00:27:17We like, he like, damn, he get to pulling 12 gauges and Glocks up out of everywhere.
00:27:22Glocks up out the kitchen.
00:27:23You know what I'm saying?
00:27:24So it's like, I was like, damn, what the fuck going on?
00:27:27You know what I'm saying?
00:27:28And then he finally opened the door, right?
00:27:31Everybody in the whole room got a gun.
00:27:33I'm like, damn, this nigga paranoid, man.
00:27:34Why is he so paranoid like that?
00:27:36But he say he got robbed before, and he'd be damned if they rob him again.
00:27:40Me and Brewster rode over there, and he went to his house.
00:27:42He had an apartment in Oakland.
00:27:43He had an AK, a brand new AK he had, a brand new Glock 9, and a brand new video camera.
00:27:49So we're playing some song, rapping on the video camera, playing with the guns,
00:27:53and shit, and having a ball.
00:27:55And that was about the last time we really kicked it.
00:27:57Send a shout out to your boy Gable, that Ryan D just had his baby.
00:28:01Yeah, Ryan D, congratulations on your baby.
00:28:03What's up, Gable?
00:28:04Congratulations.
00:28:05I know your name, Tupac.
00:28:06Let's check out my messages.
00:28:12And eventually, you know, his stage appearances grew more and more.
00:28:16Digital started letting him do more stuff, and then he rhymed for the first time in 1991
00:28:22on the digital This Is An EP release, which led to him getting his own deal with TNT,
00:28:31and releasing the album Tupacalypse Now.
00:28:34While I was hustling or whatever, Tupac would be writing raps a little more than me.
00:28:37He wrote all the time, too.
00:28:38He was just like me.
00:28:39And I figured, you know, we used to always say, man, you gotta write, you gotta write.
00:28:43And I remember he'd come down, I'd be shooting dice, and I remember he'd come down with songs like
00:28:48Brenda's Got A Baby, and he was like, ah, dude, check this out, check this out, come here, man.
00:28:51I'm like, what's up?
00:28:52He'd show me, like, I could see how he wrote it, you know, Brenda's Got A Baby.
00:28:55He'd say he'd start busting the rap.
00:28:57He'd have the chorus already worked there.
00:28:59He'd be like, Brenda's got a...
00:29:01You know, he's like, ugh, I'm gonna have to check in the dude singing that.
00:29:04I'm like, ugh, okay, that's tight.
00:29:06All right, I got to go, you know, and next thing I know, he said, man, come to the studio,
00:29:09meet me at Starlight at 12.
00:29:11We'd go down there, here he is, woo-dee-woo, hooking up songs, you know, just like he said,
00:29:15man, I'm like, ugh, that's tight.
00:29:16I remember when he first came out, he had so much energy, and when I read interviews
00:29:22on him, even, like, his definition of niggas, never ignorant, getting goals accomplished,
00:29:27was so deep in the way he used to talk about, you know, black nationalism and black
00:29:35economic communalism, and black cultural nationalism, and struggle, and his songs,
00:29:42Brenda's got a baby, and Dear Mama.
00:29:45He has so much to give us, I mean, the cat was wealthy, and I...
00:29:48And we all surreal niggas!
00:29:51There you go, Pop, she interested.
00:29:54There you go, Pop.
00:29:57She said, it's cool to talk to me.
00:29:59Don't you know you got a great pair of legs?
00:30:03Yeah, man.
00:30:05Yeah, man.
00:30:06For her.
00:30:07For her.
00:30:08For her.
00:30:09They talk like that here.
00:30:10For her.
00:30:11For her.
00:30:12When we talk like this.
00:30:13For her.
00:30:14Walking down the streets in New York, I got a 40, not a court, to listen to the thought.
00:30:18Back in the J-Town, I bet they didn't know that Tupac would come up, and I'm never going
00:30:22down.
00:30:23And I won't sell my soul.
00:30:25I left wearing silver, came back sporting gold.
00:30:27Drake.
00:30:28No, I ain't fake, and I rape any Trump that tries to play me out, cause I know how to
00:30:33pump the funk.
00:30:34So either back up or get dunked, cause you know Tupac ain't no chump.
00:30:38My homies from the old block, they all down with Tupac, cause they know my rhymes rock.
00:30:43And they never really change, cause I came back the same, still with the same name.
00:30:48Tupac I drop, any pump I pop.
00:30:50If you think you can rock, you're getting dropped.
00:30:53Here we go, I can flow, and I ain't through yet.
00:30:55I ain't frontin', but the blunt is going out.
00:30:57Don't sweat.
00:30:58A biker.
00:30:59We don't have the right, but I got the fuckin' thread.
00:31:03Stop, stop, stop.
00:31:04We walk by.
00:31:05I'm in New York whilst we walk high.
00:31:08Anybody wants to front, they can get hit like a motherfuckin' blunt.
00:31:13And you don't stop.
00:31:15I had heard his material previously, but it didn't strike me as gangster oriented.
00:31:20It was kind of like gangster, but it was kind of like a revolutionary gangster.
00:31:25And to interview him, he struck me as just somebody that, you know, you kicked it with on the corner, man.
00:31:31He was like, he was like one of the boys.
00:31:33He was like, he was really like one of the boys, and I came away very impressed.
00:31:36He was very cordial to me.
00:31:38You could see the anger in him, but at the same time, he was a very introspective young man.
00:31:44And we had a very intellectual-based interview, which lasted like for more than an hour.
00:31:52And I came away very impressed with him because it wasn't like some rappers, they just want to get into it for the money.
00:32:00He actually had a plan, you know, a plan of action.
00:32:03It was to make money, but at the same time, he really wanted to sincerely perform for the people.
00:32:09To me, it's just like the industry to me, I put everything on the street.
00:32:16And commercialized rapping is like having sex for the record company.
00:32:24That's like letting them pimp you.
00:32:26So it's cool if you're letting them pimp you and you getting the money.
00:32:30You're reaping the rewards of the commercial success.
00:32:33You know what I'm saying?
00:32:34If that's what you're going to do, cool.
00:32:35But then come out with some hits, you know, come out with some hip-hop.
00:32:38If that's what you got to do to bring the bacon in, I can't blame you, drop that shit.
00:32:41But on the flip side, you better have some old Lottie Dottie shit.
00:32:44You know what I'm saying?
00:32:45And instead of that, they letting like, you know what I'm saying?
00:32:48Groups, I won't say anything, but like, you know what I'm saying?
00:32:52A, B, N, N, Factory, they just, you know what I'm saying?
00:32:55They just putting out song after song, making like a fucking, like this is rap.
00:33:02This is a rap.
00:33:03Just because his words are rhyming, that's not rapping.
00:33:05It's a trip because I remember when he was recording the album, his style, the way it changed,
00:33:10the way he's been growing and his style or, you know, developing, which is what you're going to do,
00:33:14especially when you're young and you get older and you get, you know, and you get tighter as you get older.
00:33:18He, back then he was rapping more all mellow.
00:33:22All his songs was mellow.
00:33:23I mean, he had songs like Brenda's Got a Baby, Words of Wisdom and, you know, When My Homies Call, Part Time Mother.
00:33:32All his songs were mellow and cool, like kind of like pop, trying to, you know, damn near like, I'm trying to make everybody happy.
00:33:38But he had a couple of hardcore songs, you know, not really hardcore, hardcore like gangster shit, just cussing at the world.
00:33:44But, you know, just kind of hard on his level.
00:33:46You know, that was the Tupac that we was used to kick with.
00:33:49That was, you know, before he started.
00:33:50This is right when he was filming Juice, but he hadn't let the Bishop thing get to his like rap style yet.
00:33:56You know, and that's what happened with Strictly For My Niggas when he decided to be, you know, hardcore because now here he is having done this movie.
00:34:04Now he's a movie star and a rap star.
00:34:06And the star he played in the movie was the person that people in the audience or whatever thought was kind of, damn, Bishop was cold, Bishop was crazy, you know.
00:34:16And now Tupac, you was Bishop, Bishop, what's up, Bishop? Now he's like hard now. And so he had to go with that role now all of a sudden, even though that wasn't really him.
00:34:26Tupac, I wouldn't say daily, it's more like minutely ritual.
00:34:31Yo, I gots to have a blunt every minute and if I see another bitch, I swear I'll be up in it like the one we saw down there.
00:34:37For Puerto Rican, she wasn't speaking, but I saw that ass and I swear to God I was tweaking.
00:34:42I just had to have some, just like a piece of gum, maybe bubble yum.
00:34:46I want to chew it, do it, screw it, and leave it alone, cause yo, you know how I bone, sweet black pussy.
00:34:52And when Pac came through, he liked fucking with us because we always, like, we always kept good unity and we had like, you know, 15, 16 motherfuckers in the house all the time.
00:35:01You know what I'm saying? And that's where we, that's where me and my boy, we came up with this idea for a group called Two From The Crews.
00:35:06Yeah.
00:35:07Our thing is TC, The Crews.
00:35:08Some of them songs we did.
00:35:09Yeah, we did Lifestyles of the Poor and the Homeless.
00:35:11Lifestyles of the Poor and the Homeless.
00:35:12Let's get it on.
00:35:13Yep.
00:35:14Get some for girls.
00:35:15All that old shit.
00:35:16Yeah, this was back in 86, then our key, our theme song was A Thug Life.
00:35:19Yeah.
00:35:20You know, and we came out with that song, I came out with that song because living here in Marin County, you know, this is the only place where there's majority blacks.
00:35:30You know what I'm saying?
00:35:31It's the only ghetto here in Marin County.
00:35:33It's the only ghetto in Marin.
00:35:34So every time we step out, people are always stereotyping us like thugs, thugs, they thugs, they thugs, they thugs, right?
00:35:40Yeah, along with our grandmother and them calling us Lil Thugs and Hevelins and shit like that.
00:35:44So we adapted that identity, you know what I'm saying?
00:35:47And, you know, we put that song out.
00:35:49What happened, he had came to me one day.
00:35:51We was over there on the other side.
00:35:52He had came at me and he said, cool man, I got this hook, you know what I'm saying?
00:35:55And he was talking this thug life, but he couldn't put it together, right?
00:35:58And I played with it for a while, you know what I'm saying?
00:36:01And then I started singing something.
00:36:03He was saying thug life when I said, shut up, bitch.
00:36:07And then, you know what I'm saying?
00:36:08We started putting it together and we came up with this little concept, you know, the thug life.
00:36:12And Pac liked that shit hell of a lot.
00:36:14You know, when he came out here, out of all our songs, that was the one he'd key on.
00:36:17He'd say, swing that to me again, you know what I'm saying?
00:36:20Why don't you throw that shit at me again?
00:36:21Yeah, that was like the song every time people would see me and my boy together,
00:36:24because we, you know, it was Dickie Dang and the player Shawree.
00:36:26That's right.
00:36:27You know, they'd see us and they'd want us to sing that song.
00:36:29And they liked us singing that song because they could feel, you know what I'm saying?
00:36:33We was coming real with it, you know what I'm saying?
00:36:35Especially in the parties, you could see the impact it had.
00:36:37Because when we up there on mics and shit, when we on the mic and things like that,
00:36:41and we singing that shut up, bitch slogan, the whole party.
00:36:44Shut up, bitch, you know what I'm saying?
00:36:46And it's song like that, you know?
00:36:48Yeah.
00:36:49It's like adapting to that because he liked the unity we had with each other
00:36:51because you know what I'm saying?
00:36:52It's like if you fuck with one, you got to fuck with everybody.
00:36:55That's right.
00:36:56You know what I'm saying?
00:36:57And he loved that unity.
00:36:58He wanted to be a part of something.
00:36:59Yeah.
00:37:00That's why people say he liked the West Coast more.
00:37:01Yeah.
00:37:02It was a lot of love.
00:37:03Thug Life originally, it was him and Stretch Walker, who was from New York.
00:37:10And Stretch was connected with a lot of people on the East Coast such as Notorious B.I.G.
00:37:16And the whole Thug Life idea was that, you know, these people would be like United Ghetto Soldiers.
00:37:23They'd be able to walk into any hood, anywhere.
00:37:25When I say thugs, I mean like niggas who don't have anything.
00:37:29That, you know, they dress like the killers of the thugs because we all fuck with the same thing.
00:37:33But they don't have nothing but they got that talent.
00:37:35They got that spark.
00:37:36They got that certain something, whatever it is that can get them out.
00:37:39Those are thugs, man.
00:37:40That's the redefinition of it.
00:37:42And it was really Tupac, this guy from Inglewood named Big Psych, who was involved in the hardcore underground
00:37:53scene there.
00:37:54Tupac's brother, Mo Prime, and two other guys, Macadocious and Rated R. And they were Thug
00:38:01Life and they eventually released an album called Thug Life Volume 1, I think in late
00:38:0793, early 94.
00:38:10And that album did go gold.
00:38:13But I guess it got held up for up to a year because the record company decided that the
00:38:21first product that they came out with was too, how do you say, too underground, too hardcore.
00:38:28I never thought I was necessarily the best rapper, the best nothing.
00:38:31I think I'm the realest nigga out there.
00:38:33I do think that.
00:38:34I think I own that.
00:38:35If I could patent being real, I think I own that.
00:38:37Because I think being real is just being true.
00:38:39Is the camera on?
00:38:41Yep.
00:38:42Check this out, G.
00:38:43I'm Tupac.
00:38:44I'm with this one.
00:38:45That's my money.
00:38:46I want my tape, and I want it now.
00:38:49Why do you want it?
00:38:51I want my tape off this thing.
00:38:54Can't sell my shit.
00:38:56I want it now.
00:38:57That's me.
00:38:58Tupac.
00:38:59That's my shit.
00:39:00Take the money out of my pocket.
00:39:01Now I want my shit.
00:39:02I want my tape now, or I'm going to fuck your whole stand up.
00:39:06You understand what I'm saying?
00:39:08You don't understand?
00:39:10That's my tape.
00:39:11That's me.
00:39:12That's my group.
00:39:13Now, you're taking money for me.
00:39:15You're selling my tape, but you got to pay me for my record.
00:39:18You understand that?
00:39:19Now, you have to take my tapes now.
00:39:21Now, if you want to take my tapes down immediately, I'm going to take your tapes down.
00:39:25You take them out at the same time.
00:39:27How much do you like that?
00:39:28Rah!
00:39:29Look.
00:39:30You know what I'm saying?
00:39:32You're not taking anything?
00:39:34You're still joking.
00:39:35You're just taking my tapes down.
00:39:37No.
00:39:38Hey, take the tape off.
00:39:39Come on, man.
00:39:40I'm serious.
00:39:41Hey, hey, take the tape off.
00:39:42You have police to take this out, but not police.
00:39:45I have the right to do.
00:39:46But you take me to the police.
00:39:48No, no.
00:39:49I don't have to take it to the police.
00:39:50You can take it to the police.
00:39:51You can take it to the police.
00:39:53Wait a minute, just Paul.
00:39:53All right, bro, is it, man?
00:39:55I don't know what they do.
00:39:56Ï… fullness.
00:39:57That's not his muerte, man.
00:39:58Da whatever I do.
00:39:59He got my tapes.
00:40:00You're something to shit.
00:40:01Don't throw your watch, man.
00:40:02He's selling my tapes.
00:40:04I'm from this shit.
00:40:05He's stealing something.
00:40:06Do you understand that?
00:40:08I'm your a musician and that's me.
00:40:09I ain't going you guys from there.
00:40:10Did he know if you just told me this?
00:40:11No, he didn't pay for it.
00:40:12He didn't get paid for it.
00:40:13He don't pay.
00:40:14He get paid off my sweat.
00:40:16You can't say shit, mind your business.
00:40:17You mind your business.
00:40:18You know I don't like to do it
00:40:19with this.
00:40:19It's shoot me.
00:40:22If I see my tape with me again, by the word of God, I swear, I'm dropping your shit to the concrete.
00:40:29That's mine. You're robbing. I'm not playing. I'm going to watch a movie.
00:40:34When I finish, I'm coming back. If my shit is out here, I'm dropping it.
00:40:38And if he say something, I'm dropping his watches. I'm serious.
00:40:43Fuck around. Fuck around.
00:40:47Okay, I know you're not paying attention.
00:40:52Okay. I'm not paying attention.
00:40:54I'm not paying attention to my tape.
00:40:56I'm not paying attention to my tape.
00:40:59I'm not paying attention to my tape.
00:41:07You're getting paid, they say, Ned Ron.
00:41:10Fuck with me.
00:41:12But the tape works, Ned Ron.
00:41:13Selling my shit, got the number.
00:41:15Yo, all my homies back in the O and the J, all them niggas, fuck y'all.
00:41:22Y'all ain't here right now, so fuck all of them.
00:41:25What's up, Jamar?
00:41:27I don't know what's up.
00:41:30What's up?
00:41:31What's up?
00:41:32What's up?
00:41:33What's up?
00:41:34I want some eggs.
00:41:35What do I want?
00:41:36Some eggs and sausage.
00:41:38I'm starving.
00:41:40Tracy, baby.
00:41:41What's up, baby?
00:41:42Can I get my morning?
00:41:43See how you do it?
00:41:48See?
00:41:49Clout.
00:41:50Tell them niggas that up.
00:41:51You too.
00:41:52Fuck off.
00:41:53Say it again.
00:41:54Clout.
00:41:55I got clout.
00:41:56Watch this.
00:41:57Watch this.
00:41:58Can I get some orange juice, too?
00:41:59Egg, sausage, and orange juice?
00:42:00Yes, thank you.
00:42:01What you can get here, go and get this as possible.
00:42:04Get three orange juice.
00:42:05Three, because you know me.
00:42:07Thank you, baby.
00:42:08Thank you, baby.
00:42:10See?
00:42:11Three orange juice.
00:42:12Tupac had a charisma.
00:42:15He had a special charisma.
00:42:17There was something special about him.
00:42:19You saw it in some of his records.
00:42:21I saw it a little bit more in his movies.
00:42:24You know, he had that glow.
00:42:25He had that charisma.
00:42:26There was nobody else that looked like him.
00:42:28I mean, he had the eyebrows.
00:42:30He had the cheekbones.
00:42:31He was like, you know, handsome.
00:42:34You know, sometimes when you see him sitting there introspective.
00:42:37You know, if you're a woman.
00:42:38You know, you wanted to go over there and we'll ask him, well, Pac, what's wrong?
00:42:42What can I do for you, baby?
00:42:43You know?
00:42:44He had that special glow about him that attracted you to him right away.
00:42:52That's where I do the doo-doo at.
00:42:53Look.
00:42:54At the film.
00:42:55Oh.
00:42:56Ain't nothing changed.
00:42:57Ain't nothing changed.
00:42:58Ain't nothing changed.
00:42:59All my niggas back home.
00:43:03I want you to know I'm not changing.
00:43:05I'm still real.
00:43:06I'm still that same nigga.
00:43:07I'm blunt.
00:43:08I'm still real jerk.
00:43:09Don't be so hard on your mom, man.
00:43:10I'm going to show her this, man.
00:43:11I love you.
00:43:12I love you, baby.
00:43:13I love you.
00:43:14I love you.
00:43:15You just gonna say that little skinny motherfucker?
00:43:16I love you, baby.
00:43:17Wait, who's the Mac though, Tupac?
00:43:18He ain't the Mac.
00:43:19I'm the motherfucking Mac.
00:43:20That's the Mac.
00:43:21I'm the motherfucking Mac.
00:43:22I'm the motherfucking Mac tonight.
00:43:23Well, show me who's the Mac.
00:43:25Huh?
00:43:26He said you ain't got shit on him.
00:43:28He said he ain't having it.
00:43:29He's the Mac in the movie.
00:43:30He the Mac on the movie.
00:43:31He's the Mac on the movie.
00:43:32He's the Mac on the movie.
00:43:33I'm the Mac on the movie.
00:43:34He's the Mac on the movie.
00:43:35He's the Mac on the movie.
00:43:36He's the Mac on the movie.
00:43:37He's the Mac on the movie.
00:43:38He get all the bitches on the movie.
00:43:40He said he ain't having it though.
00:43:46Y'all go to California?
00:43:47Yeah.
00:43:48You live in California?
00:43:49Yeah.
00:43:50It's gonna be Tupac's new girlfriend.
00:43:51Huh?
00:43:52This is Tupac.
00:43:53Tupac?
00:43:54Yeah.
00:43:55Oh, you didn't want him to tell me your name?
00:43:57Why?
00:43:58What's your name?
00:43:59Shasha.
00:44:00Y'all catch me.
00:44:01This is my nickname.
00:44:03That boy lives right around the corner here.
00:44:05Right on, um.
00:44:06Oh, yeah.
00:44:07So what y'all doing out here?
00:44:09Going to movies.
00:44:10Y'all just out here visiting, do y'all?
00:44:12Doing a movie.
00:44:13Doing a movie?
00:44:14Yeah.
00:44:15Doing a movie.
00:44:16Yeah.
00:44:17Okay.
00:44:18So y'all doing a movie out here?
00:44:23What kind of movie is it?
00:44:24Action in the picture.
00:44:25What is it?
00:44:26Action in the picture.
00:44:27Action in the picture.
00:44:28Yeah, lying.
00:44:29Yeah.
00:44:30Like I'm there for some action in the picture.
00:44:32Don't my niggas look like we down for some action in the picture.
00:44:35Seriously what y'all doing?
00:44:37That's how I am doing.
00:44:39Move me.
00:44:42And move me.
00:44:44That's my niggas.
00:44:45My job.
00:44:46Doing a movie.
00:44:50See, I'm not from here.
00:44:51I'm from this year.
00:44:52But I got to finish school.
00:44:53I'm going to finish school next year.
00:44:55the movie.
00:44:56I'm from New York.
00:44:57Yes.
00:44:58Yes.
00:44:59I'm from New York.
00:45:00Damn.
00:45:01How you doing, man?
00:45:02Good.
00:45:03Okay.
00:45:04Let's see y'all in the movie, I guess.
00:45:05You can't get us a discount?
00:45:06You can't get us a discount?
00:45:07I wish I took a night.
00:45:08No, I don't even get one.
00:45:10You know how New York is?
00:45:11They ain't going to get me one?
00:45:13How long you been going with her, man?
00:45:14Yeah, tell me.
00:45:15I'm not fucking with that big bitch.
00:45:16I'm not fucking with that big bitch. I was trying to get us in.
00:45:19You wanted the coochie.
00:45:20I wanted to get us in. The theater.
00:45:22Sure.
00:45:23She can't play with the yo-yo.
00:45:24She can't play with my yo-yo.
00:45:26Yo.
00:45:27Yeah, she can play with my gazoo.
00:45:31Well, if you look at Bishop and Juice, he was a thug.
00:45:35You know what I'm saying?
00:45:36And that's how Tupac wanted to sort of put a thing out.
00:45:39Like, Bishop, he's a thug.
00:45:40Don't fuck with him.
00:45:41Don't fuck with me.
00:45:42You know what I'm saying?
00:45:43I'm willing to die for what I believe in.
00:45:46This and that.
00:45:46That's the attitude he wanted to portray, but he wasn't really like that.
00:45:49You know what I'm saying?
00:45:50I mean, he probably never got the chance to love nobody because ain't nobody ever loved him.
00:45:56After this Bishop shit, all of a sudden, people thought he was hard, and that's all it took.
00:46:00It convinced him, okay, I just got to be hard.
00:46:03And he started making that change.
00:46:05And before you know it, now you got Tupac thug life.
00:46:08Strictly, you know, he comes strictly for our niggas.
00:46:10He's throwing a couple tattoos and shit.
00:46:12You know, and all of a sudden, you know, he's starting to change that slow progression
00:46:16to the Tupac he was or the Machiavelli he was before he died.
00:46:20Put the camera back here as I can say, fuck y'all bitches.
00:46:24You look like I need y'all.
00:46:26Y'all don't suck my motherfucking ass.
00:46:28Fuck them bitches.
00:46:29Them young disease-carrying hoes.
00:46:32All them young white broads.
00:46:34How you know they got diseases, man?
00:46:35Because they been passing their shits around like they was papers.
00:46:37You cussed them?
00:46:38Never, never.
00:46:39Because I don't fuck with them bitches.
00:46:41I don't fuck with them hoards.
00:46:44Now, Moo, you know which ones is passing them shits around.
00:46:46Because you seem to always catch one.
00:46:48Oh.
00:46:49Sike, you know you are a nigga, Moo.
00:46:52But you do be catching them, though, G.
00:46:54You and Pogo.
00:46:56Y'all some favors.
00:46:57Let me get some.
00:46:58And Vernon.
00:46:59Vernon.
00:47:00Vernon sold his dick, man.
00:47:03Vernon, your dick ain't even working anymore.
00:47:06That shit done went to the clinic so much.
00:47:09You know, we're looking at Miles now.
00:47:11Fuck everybody.
00:47:12Oh, my God.
00:47:13The opening movie Juice, he had a pajama party in Frisco in his first movie.
00:47:18Oh, man, he was so excited, you know what I'm saying?
00:47:20He called my house to Troy, man.
00:47:21I know you're coming, you know, you, Kendrick, and your boys, you know what I'm saying?
00:47:24So we rented a limo, and he had a limo.
00:47:27We was behind his limo.
00:47:28We were in Frisco.
00:47:29And we parlaying.
00:47:30We having a good time.
00:47:31And after the thing was over, they had an after party in Oakland.
00:47:35So he said, yeah, man, y'all follow our limo.
00:47:37And he was kicking half the people out, you know what I'm saying?
00:47:40This was my favorite incident of my boy.
00:47:41He said, okay, these niggas here, I want you to make sure they in, you know what I'm saying?
00:47:45Give them a little pass and everything, you know what I'm saying?
00:47:47He treated like Kenya.
00:47:48That's why I have to say that was my favorite incident that he didn't leave us out.
00:47:51Even though he did, you know, kind of shied away from the jungle after that little incident down here happened.
00:47:57Never forgot about it.
00:47:58He never forgot about his real boys, you know what I'm saying?
00:48:00I'll give him that.
00:48:01And we were following them, and a car, they shot up our limo.
00:48:06Somebody drove by in the car, and my brother was up in, do you remember that?
00:48:10Yeah, I remember.
00:48:11Yeah, my brother was up in the, sticking out his head off the limo, and they said something.
00:48:14And we don't know if they were after Pac or after us, you know, it was just like three limos, and we were following their limo.
00:48:19They just came and just blasted our limo.
00:48:21And bullet holes all through the car doors and shit, one bullet went through my partner's legs, then hit the radio, and I'm right here on the door.
00:48:29And it, if it would have went through it, it shot me straight in the ass.
00:48:33He was very hot.
00:48:35Our game.
00:48:37If Bishop from Juice was a reflection of a young black male today, I wouldn't be honest if I didn't show another reflection.
00:48:46All of our young black males are not violent.
00:48:48They're all not taking the law into their own hands.
00:48:50They're all not going to that extreme to accomplish some sort of achievement in their life.
00:48:55So this is just another way of showing how you can be a young black male and accomplish something.
00:49:00Lucky is doing it the opposite way the Bishop did.
00:49:02He's working.
00:49:03He's very responsible.
00:49:04He's deliberate about the things he's doing.
00:49:05He's taking care of his daughter.
00:49:07He's a respectful person, you know what I'm saying?
00:49:09He lives at home with his mother.
00:49:10He's not sweating it.
00:49:11That's where he wants to be.
00:49:12He wants to work.
00:49:13He wants to set goals and accomplish it.
00:49:15This is the barbecue.
00:49:17Where the house look?
00:49:18The process ain't no about the hot sauce.
00:49:22You got to take the hot sauce.
00:49:24You got to have the hot sauce.
00:49:26It's real.
00:49:27It's just how you feel when you get around somebody you like and you can't express yourself.
00:49:31Everybody's going to feel that frustration.
00:49:33Everybody's going to feel that stutter when you want to say something and you don't come
00:49:36out right.
00:49:37Everybody can relate to that black, white, small, tall, fat, sore skinny, all that.
00:49:41So that's what it's about.
00:49:42It's just that awkwardness of being around somebody that you really enjoy and you really
00:49:46want to get to know better.
00:49:47But you don't want to give up nothing.
00:49:49They don't want to give up nothing.
00:49:50So it's a tug of war game.
00:49:52He used to come back and I remember the first time he got into an argument, he came down.
00:49:59He first learned how to drive.
00:50:01He had a little green Celica.
00:50:02He used to always drive in the jungle and shit.
00:50:04He had his little backpack on, had his little sailor phone.
00:50:07He used to shoot dice.
00:50:08He was in the morning shooting dice too late night and all that shit was in the jungle.
00:50:12So he was shooting dice and shit.
00:50:13He was winning and losing a little bit of money and then he'd come back kicking smoke weed
00:50:18and he'd play some of his songs he'd been making, you know what I'm saying, to give
00:50:21vibes or whatever.
00:50:22I guess he was coming to town to get away.
00:50:24But one day he came out there and we was in his car and we was just, you know, grooving
00:50:28off the blunts and Ricky Coleman, he came, he was like, you know, Tupac, what's up?
00:50:34Why are you claiming Oakland?
00:50:35You know what I'm saying?
00:50:36Why are you saying Marin City ain't nothing but, you know what I'm saying, motherfuckers
00:50:40selling dope and bitches getting pregnant, you know, because that was what was going
00:50:43around the town.
00:50:44So Rick addressed, you know, he ain't dressing in a respectful way.
00:50:47He was like, fuck you.
00:50:48You know what I mean?
00:50:49Get the fuck up out of here.
00:50:50You know?
00:50:51So Tupac was like, man, I got to go, man, before I shoot somebody out of this motherfucker.
00:50:54And I'm like, man, that's cool, man.
00:50:56And Ricky was like, man, you a punk motherfucker.
00:50:58You know, call him on his name and shit.
00:51:00And Pac was like, I got to go.
00:51:01He always received love from us because we all had love for him.
00:51:04You know what I'm saying?
00:51:05It wasn't like when he made it, it was like that it was bad vibes for all of us.
00:51:09But it was like, you know what I'm saying?
00:51:10It was one brother that made it.
00:51:11We just expected a little bit of life from him to help us out, his other fellow rappers.
00:51:16The complaint was over negative comments Tupac made concerning the residents of Marin.
00:51:20The conflict came to a head at the annual Marin City Festival, which Tupac attended as a guest.
00:51:25The end result was a six-year-old child being fatally shot.
00:51:27A few weeks before the incident took place, me and Tupac was backstage in the Richmond
00:51:32Auditorium here.
00:51:33He was performing there that night.
00:51:34And it was me, my brother Charles Jr. and my cousin Brian Tyne.
00:51:38So as we got to talking and shit, we brought up the festival because it was time for the festival to come around.
00:51:43And then we had told Pac the festival was going to take place, you know.
00:51:46Maybe he ought to come over and, you know, holler at us or something like that.
00:51:50So we left there and headed on back to Marin City.
00:51:53Then when the festival came about, he came.
00:51:57He was actually there.
00:51:58The girl, Layla, she had came up to me and she said, are you still cool with Tupac?
00:52:02I'm like, yeah, that's my dog.
00:52:03We're still cool.
00:52:04Ain't no problem.
00:52:05Because there was some type of controversy.
00:52:06Yeah, a poster said something about the people here in Marin City.
00:52:10So she said it was cool.
00:52:12You know, I told her it was cool.
00:52:14And at that time, 5150 was on the stage, you know, and they had just got off the stage.
00:52:19And my brother Charles Jr. came and said, you know Pac here, don't you?
00:52:22You know what I'm saying?
00:52:23Let's go holler at Pac.
00:52:24I was like, okay, in a minute.
00:52:25I was with my kids and we enjoying the show and shit.
00:52:27So I walk over there and Pac with Man Man and a few bodyguards and shit like that, Maurice Harding.
00:52:35And I walk up to him and I'm like, man, what's happening?
00:52:38How you doing, Pac?
00:52:39He's like, what's up?
00:52:40Where you been, boy?
00:52:41I've been looking for you all over the place.
00:52:42So we get to talking and shit.
00:52:43We cutting it up, you know, trying to establish the next time we're going to meet or something like that, right?
00:52:47And this guy walked over and he's like, man, what's up?
00:52:51And he was walking up on Pac like he was ready to hit him, right?
00:52:53And Man Man stepped up in front of him like, man, you know what I'm saying?
00:52:56What's up?
00:52:57You got a problem with something?
00:52:58You know, like, you know, bodyguard and Pac and shit like that.
00:53:01I'm like, no, ain't no problem.
00:53:02He do say it.
00:53:03Ain't no problem.
00:53:04So he walk off, right?
00:53:05And Demetrius come over, you know?
00:53:07And he's like, man, you know, you're not supposed to be around here, you know?
00:53:10And he fire on Pac.
00:53:11Boom.
00:53:12He hit him and then all kinds of commotion start jumping off.
00:53:14You know, like when it's a fight, everybody come to, you know, see what's going on.
00:53:17And when that commotion jumped off, it was a backpack that was handed around.
00:53:21You know, these little kids that came with Pac.
00:53:23It was about six little kids, you know?
00:53:25And they had a little backpack and that's what a gun came out of.
00:53:28So they got the gun off the pack and shit like that.
00:53:31Some people would say Pac got the gun, but I never seen the gun in Pac's hand.
00:53:35I seen it in Maurice's hand.
00:53:37So Maurice was over here at this time.
00:53:40When the commotion broke off, somehow he ended up over here.
00:53:43And it's like people running around frantic and shit like that, you know?
00:53:46You know, at first they're looking at the fighting incident.
00:53:49So when Maurice got the gun, that's when people went into a panic.
00:53:52And he cocked the gun and he tried to shoot the gun jam.
00:53:56And he cocked it again.
00:53:58I'm looking at him the whole time.
00:54:00He cocked it again, tried to shoot, nothing happened.
00:54:03Then like on his third time cocking it, he shot and boom, that was it.
00:54:08Everybody starts screaming and yelling and running.
00:54:11And I turned around and I ran and dove.
00:54:14After the shots was fired and shit, you know, when I didn't hear no more shots,
00:54:18I raised my head up, you know what I'm saying, to see what was going on.
00:54:21And then it was people already in pursuit of him, you know?
00:54:25They was already chasing him and Hardy and the little kids had went a different way.
00:54:28You understand what I'm saying?
00:54:29You understand what I'm saying?
00:54:30And it was Hardy and Tupac that went the same, ran the same way.
00:54:33So what they did, they ran here and they jumped over this fence.
00:54:36You know, even at that time, Puck being my friend, I had to make a decision.
00:54:40You know what I'm saying?
00:54:41I mean, I got, he didn't, somebody shot, you know what I'm saying?
00:54:43He's shooting around and all my family down here, my kids and shit.
00:54:46I'm like, you know, I felt like, you know, fucking him up or something.
00:54:49So I grabbed the big ass rock and I ran behind Michael Gibson and Hardy, right?
00:54:55I'm finna just hit the car, break the window or something so we can wreck or something so we can get in that ass or something, right?
00:55:02But, um, when I went over there and I got over the fence, Michael Gibson was already there.
00:55:07And he in the car, he just putting him on, Puck.
00:55:09Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh.
00:55:11He just throwing, you know what I'm saying?
00:55:12He just putting him on, right?
00:55:13While the police and everybody is around, I'm like, well, goddamn, I don't got to do shit.
00:55:18There it is, you know what I'm saying?
00:55:19So I stepped back and, um, somehow Puck get him out of the car and I think, uh, I think Maurice is driving at this time.
00:55:27It's like people trying to just turn the whole fucking car over and shit like that.
00:55:31He was in a Cherokee, actually a Cherokee Jeep.
00:55:33So he, he, they, they're going to just run people over, you know what I'm saying, getting the fuck up out of there.
00:55:38He continued up this street right here, you know, um, you got about 200 mad motherfuckers, you know, running behind him.
00:55:47He wasn't driving fast or nothing like that.
00:55:49I think he wanted to turn into the police station right there.
00:55:52But for some reason, um, he stopped like about right here for some reason and just stopped.
00:55:59But I think he got out because the police presence was known.
00:56:02But at the same time, you got 250 motherfuckers mad.
00:56:05They hit, they, they already tearing, destroying the truck.
00:56:08They hitting, hitting the truck with bottles and bricks.
00:56:11I mean, you should have seen that car after they finished with it.
00:56:13They beat the, they fucked the car up so bad.
00:56:16But, um, let's see.
00:56:19When I, when I came around, the police was standing with their shotguns.
00:56:23They was trying to, you know, people to calm down and shit like that.
00:56:27They was hitting pox so hard with rocks and bottles that he climbed up under the, the front end of the police car.
00:56:34He was literally up under the, under the, on the ground up under the car.
00:56:37You understand what I'm saying?
00:56:38And the, the police couldn't do nothing to, to stop it from happening.
00:56:41So, um, they finally was able to, um, calm people down and disperse people, you know, as more police units came and shit like that.
00:56:48It was finally able to, um, get the crowd calmed down.
00:56:52So they, they took him and instead of taking him to the substation right here, they took him around the Sausalito to the, um, substation of Sausalito.
00:56:59Which was a probably smart decision because you would have had a thousand people out there, you know, not, not gonna wait until Tupac came out.
00:57:06You know, wouldn't have been able to get him out of there. And that's pretty much was it.
00:57:10Although not directly involved, the Marin City shooting was first in a long line of troubles that Tupac faced.
00:57:16As his fame grew, so did his legal troubles all across the country.
00:57:20Charges ranging from assault to the shooting of two off-duty police officers splashed across headlines,
00:57:26making Tupac Chacol the most famous rapper in America.
00:57:29But his most serious charge was one of rape, an accusation that Tupac always denied.
00:57:35It was on the night of November the 30th, 1994, when Tupac and his entourage went for a recording session at the Quad Studio in New York,
00:57:47when two gunmen opened fire and shot him a total of five times.
00:57:56Once he, once he was shot and then survived, and you know, was pulled, pulled into the ambulance, you know, giving the finger, you know,
00:58:04and then came back to his case the next day to, you know, to find out, you know, whether they prosecuted him or not, whether he was guilty or not.
00:58:13I mean, that was it. You know, legend was made.
00:58:16There was, you know, there was no turning back for the hip hop, you know, community as far as Tupac was concerned.
00:58:22He was like, you know, a heroic figure.
00:58:25When he got shot, I feel he got shot for a reason, you know.
00:58:28I mean, like, say he got shot in the balls, that's for raping a girl.
00:58:31He got shot in the hand, that was for always holding guns and shit.
00:58:35Then he got shot damn near to the head, and that was for Kai.
00:58:38You know what I'm saying? I mean, so, and he still lived, you know what I'm saying?
00:58:42I feel that was his chance for him to turn around, because that's when he did me against the world.
00:58:46But I feel that all that anger and shit ate him up so much that he couldn't hide it, you know what I'm saying?
00:58:53I think he tried, but he couldn't hide it.
00:58:55You know, that's why he always talk about, well, I'mma die and bury me at G and all that other crazy shit.
00:59:02Tupac wasn't crazy, but from when he grew up from a little boy until he was 25 when he died, you know, he didn't really get to be a man.
00:59:12But that's why he was so mentally fucked, you know, his mom was on drugs, his sister, you know, it was hard because he was older, he couldn't do that for her at the time.
00:59:22And, I mean, I feel the same way because I live that way.
00:59:26And it's like, I mean, by the time you get the money or where you need to go, it doesn't even matter.
00:59:32It's like the money supports the habit now, you know what I'm saying?
00:59:35So, I mean, he wasn't crazy, he had a lot of sense, but there was a lot of things he couldn't control.
00:59:41It was after he went to jail for his sexual assault conviction and nobody would bail him out.
00:59:50His bail was set at a million dollars, you know.
00:59:52He was, here was this guy that was just a bad boy.
00:59:56His media image portrayed him as someone completely out of control who was very much like his screen persona.
01:00:06You know, nobody would bail him out. Nobody would put up the one million dollars.
01:00:11And the only person that did that was Suge Knight of Jethro Records.
01:00:16Right, right, right.
01:00:17When I was in jail, bad boy, Puffy was the crown fucking Don.
01:00:21Even though Suge as big as he was and Snoop.
01:00:23Right, right.
01:00:24At that point, they just with two million sales, they took the whole shit.
01:00:28Yeah.
01:00:29Because Suge had Snoop to worry about with the trial.
01:00:31He couldn't be out there, that's what you're supposed to do.
01:00:33Right, right, right, right.
01:00:34Into Tupac, a young captain.
01:00:37I want to join the family, dog.
01:00:39Get me out.
01:00:40I want to join the family.
01:00:41Got me out.
01:00:42I'm out.
01:00:43I'm in the family.
01:00:44We make out.
01:00:45We did.
01:00:46We went through some sacred shit, me and this nigga.
01:00:47Me and this nigga too.
01:00:48He was, every day I did my album, he was there every day.
01:00:51Every night we stayed up.
01:00:52We tossed it up together.
01:00:54We went out.
01:00:55We went to Mexico together.
01:00:56Went to Hawaii together.
01:00:57We went everywhere.
01:00:58Took this chain right here.
01:01:00He probably made this the most popular item in the world.
01:01:04I mean, he took it and he flashed it on all eyes on me.
01:01:08He flashed it all the time.
01:01:09It was the, it was the proudest thing he could be involved in.
01:01:13He was, Pac was, Pac come from a real deep background for us, the Panther Party.
01:01:21And Pac used to say, me and you and Death Row, we like the Panthers Party.
01:01:27But we're not going around there saying black power, this black power, that.
01:01:30We actually doing stuff.
01:01:32You know, we feeding people, we, we giving jobs, we giving, we giving hope.
01:01:37Tupac wanted to be a leader.
01:01:39You know, he had the charisma to be a leader.
01:01:42You know, he had the intelligence to be a leader.
01:01:45You know, he had everything, you know, he had the credentials to be the leader.
01:01:49But he didn't have, you know, have what, what the psychological know-how.
01:01:54You know, to really, to really be, become a leader.
01:02:01Instead, he was more of a follower.
01:02:03And I think that's what brought him into the Death Row camp with, with Suge Knight.
01:02:09He was impressed with Suge.
01:02:11You know, it was almost, it was almost like hero worship.
01:02:16The greatest joy to me, that Pac would tell you, he wouldn't sugarcoat it.
01:02:21He would tell you the truth.
01:02:23Like the first time, it was things I didn't even know.
01:02:26The first time he ever, first time he ever been to a basketball game in his whole entire life, I took him.
01:02:31And it was the Lakers playing the Bulls.
01:02:34And, you know, we had our floor seats around the floor.
01:02:37You know, with the food and cracking jokes.
01:02:40Talking about the players, robbing around the head.
01:02:43Talking about this person.
01:02:44And we would make a big, big thing about it.
01:02:46So after the game, he'd grab me.
01:02:49He'd be hugging me.
01:02:50He'd say, man, I had so much fun.
01:02:52He'd say, don't you know, this is the first time I ever been to a basketball game.
01:02:57So you'd look back and go, man.
01:03:00Yeah, that's like you've actually done something good.
01:03:03About four of my partners, we flew down to Vegas.
01:03:05My buddy lived down there.
01:03:07And we was going to the clubs and hanging out.
01:03:096-2-2.
01:03:106-6-2.
01:03:11Yeah, that's it.
01:03:126-6-2, yeah.
01:03:13So we pull up to the club on a Friday night.
01:03:15We get there Thursday.
01:03:16We come up on a Friday night.
01:03:17And we ask them what time the club closes.
01:03:18And they say, oh, it closes around whenever Pac and them leave.
01:03:21We say, Pac in there?
01:03:22He said, yeah.
01:03:23I said, we need to hook up with our boy.
01:03:24And we're looking.
01:03:25He and his drop top Rolls Royce.
01:03:26You know, I'm proud of him.
01:03:27I said, Pac, we jump out the car.
01:03:28You know what I'm saying?
01:03:29All these brothers rush up with guns.
01:03:30You know what I'm saying?
01:03:31Come out with their guns out and shit.
01:03:32And we was like, you know what I'm saying?
01:03:34Straight up, hey, man.
01:03:35I ain't got nothing to do with nothing.
01:03:36He said, they're my partners.
01:03:37They're my partners.
01:03:38So he rushed up.
01:03:39He gave us nothing but love.
01:03:40You know, he hugged us.
01:03:41He said, man, I ain't going to lie.
01:03:42I like to kick with you niggas as much as I can.
01:03:44But I'm about to go fuck baby.
01:03:45And we was like laughing and shit.
01:03:46You know what I'm saying?
01:03:47He said, but I'll tell y'all what.
01:03:48Y'all meet me here tomorrow.
01:03:49And I'll get y'all in.
01:03:51I was like, all right, cool, cool.
01:03:53So next night, we, you know, we parlaying.
01:03:55After the fight, went to the fight, kicking it.
01:03:57We go to the club.
01:03:58He pulls up in the roads, him and Shug.
01:04:00And, you know, there's so many people just going Tupac, going crazy.
01:04:04I just, I knew he had love for us when I just broke out and said,
01:04:07Jungo.
01:04:08That's all he looked.
01:04:09He looked.
01:04:10He spotted my face and said, you.
01:04:12So I, you know, feel like a little celebrity.
01:04:14Pull on up.
01:04:15You know what I'm saying?
01:04:16He say, yeah, ma'am, y'all niggas meet me in the back.
01:04:18And I'll get y'all in.
01:04:19I'll get out there for about an hour.
01:04:20You know what I'm saying?
01:04:21My partners is ready to go.
01:04:22I'm saying, man, fuck it.
01:04:23He ain't getting us in.
01:04:24It's parlay night.
01:04:25You know what I'm saying?
01:04:26Let's get on.
01:04:27So right when we get ready to leave, he looks.
01:04:28He sticks his head out the door and say, there he is right there.
01:04:30Treat us like kings.
01:04:31Got us in.
01:04:32We're in the back chilling like superstars.
01:04:33You know what I'm saying?
01:04:34Danny Boy, Tyson, Pac, Shug.
01:04:38We back there just kicking like major giants.
01:04:40You know what I'm saying?
01:04:41Whatever y'all want to drink, man.
01:04:42You know, we drinking, drinking and smoking blunts, weed, everything.
01:04:45We goes in the club.
01:04:46We parlay.
01:04:47I don't see my boy for the rest of the night because I'm a freak.
01:04:49They only niggas know I'm a freak.
01:04:50You know, I get freaky.
01:04:51You know what I'm saying?
01:04:52I'm on the dance floor all night.
01:04:53You know what I'm saying?
01:04:54And after we, you know, it's about five o'clock in the morning.
01:04:57We about to bounce up out the club.
01:04:58I come up to him.
01:04:59I give him a hug, man.
01:05:00I say, man, you stay up, man.
01:05:01I'm proud of you, boy.
01:05:02You know what I'm saying?
01:05:03You keep, keep alive.
01:05:04You know what I'm saying?
01:05:05And the look in his face, you know, I can tell that he wasn't, you know, it wasn't really
01:05:08happy.
01:05:09You know what I'm saying?
01:05:10So we, me and my boys bouncing.
01:05:11I said, man, that man ain't happy, man.
01:05:12He said, how you can tell?
01:05:13He said, man, you see his face?
01:05:14It's like Suge was running everything.
01:05:16I'm going to have to let that be known.
01:05:17Suge was running everything.
01:05:18Like snapping his fingers and niggas was just running and shit.
01:05:21You know what I'm saying?
01:05:22But I told him, you know, he didn't look happy.
01:05:24People felt that Tupac or myself attacked people.
01:05:30Pac only attacked the people who wasn't right with the community.
01:05:35That's how he really felt.
01:05:37If it was a rapper who was fake and they were only doing it for the money, Pac attacked
01:05:43him.
01:05:44If it was a rapper that messed with guys and go both ways, Pac didn't feel that was good.
01:05:52He was, because Pac felt, he was real serious about the music.
01:05:56So if you're a producer or you rap, and regardless if you're married or not, and you got a boyfriend
01:06:02who worked for you, a real boyfriend who used to be a dancer, Pac studied all the facts.
01:06:07Pac was real smart.
01:06:09So before he'd say something, he'd go over and do his homework.
01:06:12He'd say, okay, this guy right here, they say he gay, he go both ways.
01:06:17I'm not going to put it out there on him yet.
01:06:19But I'm going to do my research.
01:06:20And if it's true, the world should know.
01:06:23Because this guy might be around one of those little kids one day and mess around with him.
01:06:28And you know, so I'm going to do it to actually save him from molesting a little child.
01:06:35That's why Pac attacked certain rappers and said, they gay.
01:06:40Suga's the boss.
01:06:41He the boss of Death Row.
01:06:42Suga's the Don.
01:06:43You understand?
01:06:44But I'm the under boss.
01:06:45I'm the copo.
01:06:46That is my job.
01:06:47For the protection of all of Death Row to do what's best for all of Death Row.
01:06:50And Snoop to do what's best for all of Death Row.
01:06:53My decision wasn't based on, I'm coming to Death Row, taking shit over.
01:06:56My decision was based on Dre not being there for Snoop doing his trial.
01:07:00And this was all for real shit.
01:07:02You understand?
01:07:03And that he wasn't producing shit.
01:07:06Other niggas was producing the beats like on my album.
01:07:09Other niggas was doing the beats and Dre was getting the credit.
01:07:11And I got to go on MTV and be like, yeah, he did this, he did that.
01:07:14No, he ain't do it.
01:07:16He is a dope producer, but he ain't worked in years.
01:07:20And I got tired of that.
01:07:22I didn't think we needed that.
01:07:23I think we didn't need that.
01:07:25And he was owning the company too and he chilling.
01:07:28He owning the company, he chilling this house, sucking dick, eating pussy.
01:07:32I'm out here in the streets.
01:07:33You know what I mean?
01:07:34Whooping niggas ass, starting wars and shit.
01:07:37Putting it down, dropping albums, doing my shit.
01:07:40And this nigga taking three years to do one song.
01:07:43I couldn't have it.
01:07:44But it was not my decision.
01:07:46It was sure the decision.
01:07:47Sure the one that was coming to me.
01:07:48Cause I was soft on it.
01:07:49Like, you know, well, fuck you.
01:07:50We're just keeping it in the dark.
01:07:52But the biggest battle, Tupac Wade, was against his former friend and rapper,
01:07:56Notorious B.I.G., or known as Biggie,
01:07:59which added fuel to the East versus West Coast rivalry.
01:08:02I possess his soul, his Aunt Puffy.
01:08:05They know that I was the truest nigga involved with Biggie's success.
01:08:09I was the biggest help.
01:08:10I was the truest nigga.
01:08:11I don't write his rhymes, but he know how much he borrowed from me.
01:08:14He know how I used to stop my shows and let him touch the show.
01:08:17Let him blow up and do his whole show in the middle of my show.
01:08:20How I used to buy him shit and give him shit and never ask for it back.
01:08:24How I used to share.
01:08:25How I used to share my experiences in the game and my lessons and my rules and my knowledge on the game with him.
01:08:30You know what I mean?
01:08:31He owed me more.
01:08:32He owed me more than to turn his hair and act like he didn't know niggas was about to blow my fucking head off.
01:08:36He knew.
01:08:37He knew.
01:08:38And then, if that's cool, if he disappeared, be a fucking mouse.
01:08:41Be a mouse.
01:08:42If you are a mouse, be a mouse.
01:08:43But for me to know, like, three weeks ago this happened and then three weeks later your album's coming out and you are a fucking Don in your album.
01:08:50But you don't know who shot me in your fucking hometown.
01:08:53This nigga's from your neighborhood.
01:08:55And I gotta find out by myself and I don't even call myself a dumb, just a capo.
01:09:00From the west side.
01:09:01And I'm on the east side in jail and I know who touched me and I know everything that happened.
01:09:05That's power.
01:09:06And he didn't know so he was faking.
01:09:08And I was mad about that.
01:09:10And then I'm out of jail and I couldn't believe that everybody was treating Biggie like the biggest fucking star in the world.
01:09:15I couldn't believe that people was buying into the player image.
01:09:18And I just wanted to bring back that reality.
01:09:21You know what I mean?
01:09:22Just like, I can't never, I can't never, nobody can never be confused and think I'm fucking Mike Tyson.
01:09:27And I'm a heavyweight champion.
01:09:28I'm a little nigga.
01:09:29That's why it's so raw to watch me just battle lions.
01:09:32Cause I'm a little skinny nigga battling niggas three times my size.
01:09:36But Biggie is not a player.
01:09:38He's never been.
01:09:39He's never had bitches until he got some fucking money.
01:09:42That's a trick.
01:09:43That's not a player.
01:09:44That's not a popper.
01:09:45So my point was to prove him wrong.
01:09:48I took everything that he glamorized and I personified it.
01:09:51When he first got released from jail, I had hopes for him.
01:09:57You know, we had hopes for him that maybe he would get his life back on track.
01:10:02But I don't know what happened in the last year of his life, you know, to make him come to the conclusions that he drew.
01:10:13I'm not the same guy that would come to the awards, have a problem with somebody and whoop their ass in front of everybody.
01:10:18So now I got the radio.
01:10:19I see a problem.
01:10:20We're quelching.
01:10:21It's out.
01:10:22No big fires.
01:10:23Just small little tiny sparks that could be put out.
01:10:26People were starting to say it's an East Coast, West Coast rivalry because it was people just trying to make money.
01:10:32It was people trying to make careers.
01:10:35It was people trying to get famous.
01:10:37It was people hustling other people out of money on the East Coast.
01:10:43You don't have no team.
01:10:44You need us.
01:10:45We're from the East Coast.
01:10:46Pay us extra amount of dollars for protection.
01:10:49And some of these idiots was doing it.
01:10:52For us, how we looked at it is, we looked at it as we're representing the West Coast, but we're representing the ghetto.
01:11:01Tupac got a conversation with me and he said, how do you feel I should be in the future?
01:11:09Would you like to see from me?
01:11:11And if anything I told him, he would have followed it.
01:11:15Chain of command.
01:11:16That's how we was.
01:11:17I said, I want to see you have a record label.
01:11:20I'll just distribute it for you.
01:11:22You can have your own label because I don't want you to be 35 years old Pac rapping.
01:11:27He said, well, cool.
01:11:28The talent got a parlayer to something, so that's what I'm doing.
01:11:31I'm tired of sucking and jiving.
01:11:33This Machiavelli album is my proof of that.
01:11:35I'm not predicting what it's going to sell.
01:11:37I'm not predicting none of that, but I guarantee it's going to shake the world.
01:11:40You know, it was just as if he didn't really care anymore and he bought into a lot of the stereotypes that the hip-hop community has embraced.
01:11:51It was just incredible to just listen to him.
01:11:55It was at the same time it was frightening, it was funny, and it was also very sad because that could have been any one of us.
01:12:03Had he been corrupt, it made you ask questions.
01:12:06Was he corrupted by his fame?
01:12:08You know, was he taking bad advice?
01:12:11Or when he threw in with Death Row, you know, was that like his own personal death wish?
01:12:16Two block down the album, he called me and said, look, call my house right now.
01:12:25It's about 3 in the morning.
01:12:27I go over his house.
01:12:29I smoke my cigar.
01:12:32He's smoking his cigarette.
01:12:34He said, look, I want the album cover to be me on the cross.
01:12:41Because I feel I've been being crucified.
01:12:45I'm here to be crucified like Jesus.
01:12:48He said, I'm not climbing religion or nothing, but that's what I feel.
01:12:52And I told him, you know, as usual, I had it for you.
01:12:57So I called Whiskey and he and our art department, and they done it.
01:13:03And Machiavelli is like, he feel better about that album than he do All Eyes On Me.
01:13:11He said, you know, I'm speaking so real.
01:13:14I'm coming all the way from my gut to my heart, all through my mouth, telling the people how I feel.
01:13:21Then I got an album called One Nation.
01:13:23That's for everybody that's shooting darts at me, play hatin', you know what I mean, behind this East Coast, West Coast shit.
01:13:30My plan was always to unify, you know what I mean?
01:13:33It was only to, it's like a military coup.
01:13:35When the CIA, they don't just go to the country and start, you know what I mean?
01:13:39They got to get the niggas that run it out of here.
01:13:41So that's what we doing.
01:13:42They're gone now.
01:13:43Now we got One Nation with Greg Knights, Buckshot, Smith & Wesson.
01:13:48Smith & Wesson, Melly Mel, Scorpio, The Looney, Snoop, Corrupt, Daz, Me, Scarface, Cocaine, Bone Thug, Spice One.
01:14:01All of them are my shit.
01:14:03One Nation.
01:14:04And it's just about to hit our nation, all the real niggas that I recognize in the gang.
01:14:08And it's Hip-Hop Nation.
01:14:09And everybody's rapping like we're one group.
01:14:11Right, right.
01:14:12And it's gonna be more than one.
01:14:13The first one's coming out on my shit, Machiavelli.
01:14:14And the next, Duck Down, gonna put it out on the East Coast.
01:14:17One Nation Vol. 2.
01:14:19How we met, how we came together to work on One Nation was kind of like a spiritual vibe.
01:14:25Like a meeting of the minds.
01:14:27Like when you hear Tech and Steel talk about I shine, you shine.
01:14:31And we speak about The Shining.
01:14:32And if you've seen the movie The Shining, dealing with a type of mental telepathy or inner knowing and just calling out to that knowing.
01:14:43And it's kind of like he called out specifically to us and just speaking to him over the phone.
01:14:52And it was like we knew each other.
01:14:53We never hung out before.
01:14:54So we knew each other.
01:14:55So everything was, everything was spiritual.
01:14:58And when we met, it was all love.
01:15:02So like five, yo, what's up?
01:15:05Yo, I seen you before type of thing.
01:15:08You know what I'm saying?
01:15:09Tech and Tupac come down the stairs with a blunt early in the morning.
01:15:15Drew High and Buckshot is playing with the water guns.
01:15:20And like, it's funny to me to see Pop pick up a water gun and play.
01:15:27You know what I'm saying?
01:15:28He's playing with him, Buck, Tech, Drew.
01:15:31They're running around his big house, his pool.
01:15:34And they're playing with water guns.
01:15:37And it was funny because he actually stopped and said, hey, don't wet the windows.
01:15:41It costs a lot of money to clean the windows.
01:15:44But it was just like, it was a sunny day.
01:15:47And it was all good.
01:15:49We would go into the studio like we did the, we did One Nation album in like seven days.
01:15:54It was like we was going in like sort of a Bruce fire.
01:15:58People would challenge, challenge.
01:16:00We was all Bruce Lee's.
01:16:02All Bruce Lee's stepping into the studio.
01:16:04The studio was the challengers.
01:16:06All the different artists who would come up to challenge us.
01:16:09Alright, this is how we're going.
01:16:10You want to challenge?
01:16:11We got to kick your ass right now then.
01:16:13Go in, boom.
01:16:14Lay it down, ride it, boom.
01:16:16Artist to artist, he inspired me.
01:16:18He put the fire in my butt.
01:16:20Because I seen him really get to work.
01:16:24And he really was, he got us, he gave us a saying.
01:16:28We borrowed a saying from him called goat mouth.
01:16:30Which is what he called his engineers and anybody who was like slacking.
01:16:35He would scream goat mouth.
01:16:37Goat mouth.
01:16:38Come on goat mouth.
01:16:39Let's go.
01:16:40We got to get the work.
01:16:42And it was so bugged because nobody took it personal.
01:16:45Or maybe they just were scared of him.
01:16:47I don't know.
01:16:48I don't know.
01:16:49On September the 7th, 1996, Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight found themselves ringside at the Mike Tyson-Bruce Saldon championship fight.
01:17:00By all accounts, Tupac was in a happy mood until one of his entourage pointed out a man who had robbed him a few weeks earlier of his death row medallion.
01:17:08Tupac immediately confronted Orlando Anderson, a known gang member with the South Side Crips, and a brawl ensued.
01:17:15After security came, Tupac and his ever-growing entourage left the MGM Grand Hotel.
01:17:21Orlando Anderson refused to press charges and left with his friends.
01:17:28At 9 o'clock, Suge took Tupac to the Luxor Hotel where he changed his clothes and then went to Suge's Vegas home for a party.
01:17:35Approximately two hours later, the party decided to go to 662 Suge's Club.
01:17:40The caravan, led by Suge's black BMW, headed up the Vegas Strip.
01:17:44When he was stopped by bicycle police because of his license plates and was let go shortly after.
01:17:50A few minutes later, the caravan made a riot at the Flamingo when a white Cadillac pulled up next to them at the crossroads of Flamingo and Caval.
01:17:58A man came out of the car shouting at the BMW and then started to fire a gun.
01:18:02When I heard the shots being fired, Pac stood up the toilet source to try to get in the back seat to get out the way of the shots.
01:18:20That's how he got shot in his hip, which hit one of the bones, the doctor said, and traveled to hit his lung.
01:18:29When he stood up, I grabbed him and said, get down, and covered him.
01:18:35When I pulled him down, that's when I got shot in my head.
01:18:38About 11.17 p.m. tonight, we had several vehicles traveling eastbound on Flamingo.
01:18:45Officers were at the Maxim Hotel investigating a stolen vehicle when they heard several gunshots being fired down below.
01:18:53They saw a caravan of about five cars that were traveling eastbound, heard the shots again.
01:18:59Approximately 12 to 13 shots were fired.
01:19:02The officers saw the black BMW, followed by a black BMW station wagon, and three other cars make a U-turn on Flamingo near the Maxim Hotel.
01:19:13They made a U-turn seated westbound, coming onto Las Vegas Boulevard, where they were driving very erratically.
01:19:22They radioed that they heard the gunfire and saw these vehicles traveling in such an erratic fashion.
01:19:27Other officers who were working in the strip area were able to get the vehicles stopped here.
01:19:33As you see, the black BMW was traveling on the rims on the right side.
01:19:39Once they got here, they found that the passenger in the black BMW had been shot four times,
01:19:44and the driver appeared to be hit with a fragment in the head area.
01:19:49I got a deep slash or bullet grazed the back of my neck,
01:19:53which if it would have went another inch, it would have hit my spine and paralyzed me all the way down.
01:20:01But before this incident, Pac saved my life also.
01:20:08The reason why I say he saved my life is because the average person gets shot in the head,
01:20:13and the first thing you think is, damn, I'm about to die.
01:20:18You know, a head shot is different.
01:20:20And there was blood coming everywhere.
01:20:24And my concern was him.
01:20:27I said, you're hitting me.
01:20:28He said, I'm hitting.
01:20:29So I said, I'm going to get you to a hospital right now.
01:20:32So I'm driving like a madman, trying to get help to help him.
01:20:35And the first thing he said, laughingly, jokingly, loudly, is, I need a hospital?
01:20:44You're the one shot in the head.
01:20:46Don't you think you need a hospital?
01:20:47His car was riddled with bullets Saturday night in Las Vegas.
01:20:50Tonight, rapper Tupac Shakur is in critical condition.
01:20:53We started getting a lot of phone calls, you know.
01:20:56People were saying that he got shot.
01:21:00People were saying that, you know, they saw it on the news.
01:21:02And a lot of people were calling us to find out what happened.
01:21:05And we didn't know.
01:21:07Rapper Tupac Shakur remains in very critical condition tonight
01:21:10after being shot in an ambush in Las Vegas over the weekend.
01:21:14Shakur's right lung was removed after he was shot four times in the chest.
01:21:18I went to the hospital to kind of find out what was going on.
01:21:21He was still, you know, struggling for life.
01:21:24And they had just heard that he had opened his eyes.
01:21:26So, like, people were kind of hopeful that, you know, he would make it through it.
01:21:33And plus, everyone thought that Tupac was so strong because of the prior shooting.
01:21:38You know, he was kind of seen as like this hip-hop Lazarus.
01:21:41Coming up next on the 10 o'clock news, his lyrics, his life, reflected a gangster lifestyle.
01:21:46Tonight, Bay Area rapper Tupac Shakur is dead of gunshot wounds.
01:21:50Controversial rap star Tupac Shakur dies of gunshot wounds from a drive-by shooting.
01:21:55Tupac's mother was the first one to say,
01:21:58when you have a war, I don't want nobody to wear black.
01:22:01I'm wearing white.
01:22:03Tupac has gone to a better place.
01:22:06He's free now.
01:22:07There's nothing nobody can do nothing to him.
01:22:09And I sat back and I thought, I was like, yeah.
01:22:13Can't nobody arrest him.
01:22:15Can't nobody try to put him down.
01:22:18Can't nobody fire shots at him.
01:22:21Can't nobody hurt him no more.
01:22:22He's in heaven in a better place.
01:22:24He was the good, the bad.
01:22:26He is the good.
01:22:27He is the bad.
01:22:29Represented the living, the dead.
01:22:31Represented the ones who walked on the street.
01:22:34The ones that walked behind the gates.
01:22:37Represented the mothers, the children.
01:22:39So nature, Tupac is nature.
01:22:41He's an Einstein, man.
01:22:43He's a fucking great guy.
01:22:44And at the end, he was like getting ready to, you know, getting ready, not getting ready
01:22:51to check out of here, but you could see that, you know, somewhere along the line, you had
01:22:55that, you kind of had that feeling he was going to die according to his preaching.
01:22:58You know, he seemed to have taken up power and weapons and, you know, this posse lifestyle as his deity.
01:23:09I mean, Tupac, you know, he went from one extreme to the other.
01:23:16There was really no middle ground with him.
01:23:19And by the time he, at the time of his death, he was like, what, 24, 25 years old.
01:23:24But it was a, it was age without maturity.
01:23:30Knowledge without wisdom.
01:23:32I mean, order turning to chaos.
01:23:38You know, it seems, Tupac Shakur should stand as a living testament in the hip-hop nation
01:23:45as the pinnacle of greatness achieved, but at the same time, the frailties of human weakness and tragedy.
01:23:57A lot of people have called him a martyr.
01:23:59I don't know if that's exactly true.
01:24:02You can't really say that he died for a cause.
01:24:06I mean, he, I guess he died defending what he believed in, and he definitely, you know, lived that life.
01:24:13A lot of people say live by the sword, die by the sword.
01:24:16But I think Tupac's legacy really lies in the fact that he exemplified the condition of the young black male in the 1990s.
01:24:28I mean, I was really feeling it when he died.
01:24:30And all I could think about really was how much potential had, like, we as a people and as a community,
01:24:36as black people, as the hip-hop community, as, you know, just young people, a generation, how much we had lost.
01:24:46People die all the time, but it takes a real special person to die and always be remembered.
01:24:53Tupac is on a level of Macklemax, Martin Luther King.
01:24:58I mean, you see, they live forever.
01:25:00What do you think is something?
01:25:01I don't owe nobody nothing.
01:25:04I owe, I owe to put back on this planet more than I took.
01:25:08And if I stop right now, I already do that.
01:25:10To New York, I got a 40, not a quarter.
01:25:12So listen to the thought.
01:25:14Back in the J-Town, I bet they didn't know that Tupac would come up and I'm never going down.
01:25:20And I won't sell my soul.
01:25:21I left where a silver came back to what gold.
01:25:24Drake, no, I ain't fake.
01:25:26And I'll rape any Trump that tries to play me out because I know how to pump the funk.
01:25:30So either back up or get dunked because you know Tupac ain't no chump.
01:25:35My homies from the old block, they all down with Tupac because they know my rhymes rock.
01:25:40And they never really change because I came back the same, still with the same name.
01:25:45Tupac, I drop any pump I pop.
01:25:47If you think you can rock, then get dropped.
01:25:49Here we go, I can flow and I ain't through yet.
01:25:52I ain't frontin' but the blunt is going out, don't sweat.
01:25:54I'm in New York, watch me walk high.
01:25:58Anybody wants to front, they can get hit like a motherfuckin' blunt.
01:26:03And you don't stop.