bouncing in the clubs, “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted” was an anthemic song for Shakur and Snoop, and even a touching piano-driven dedication to homies who got out of the life called “I Ain’t Mad at Cha” cracked the Billboard charts. Dre and “How Do U Want It” with K-Ci and JoJo had everybody from L.A. Party anthems like “California Love” featuring Dr. This double disc was a success by any defintion though spawning a long list of singles and videos which were certainly ‘Pac at his finest. What’s left is his catalogue of work to judge for better or worse, and 1996’s “All Eyez On Me” contains a lot of both. Whether Knight was a thug too big for even hip-hop’s best known thug to handle is ultimately a moot point. We’ll never know for sure because dead men tell no tales, although the urban myth that 2Pac whispers the words “Suge shot me” in the intro to his Makaveli album live on to this day. In their eyes, Shakur was recording as many albums worth of material as quickly as he could in order to fulfill his contractual obligations and break North with haste. Accounts of how bad this deal was are legendary, and some have even accounted for the large number of posthumous 2Pac records as proof.

This was not a match made in heaven though – by some accounts it was a match made in desperation since Knight personally agreed to bankroll Shakur’s bail and get him out of jail. Tupac Shakur – the actor, artist, poet and INTERNATIONAL THUG EXTRORDINAIRE and Suge Knight – the ex-street thug who had turned saavy, an intimidating physical presence, and fat reality/gangsta rap records into the million dollar empire called Death Row Records. Some would have said it was an unstoppable combination.

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