Salute 2Pac – 14 Years A.D.

Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), known by his stage names 2Pac (or simply Pac) and Makaveli, was an American rapper. Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide,[1] making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world and the second highest selling rap artist behind Eminem. Rolling Stone Magazine named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time.

In addition to his career as a top-selling rap artist, he was a promising actor and a social activist. Most of Shakur’s songs are about growing up amid violence and hardship in ghettos, racism, other social problems, and conflicts with other rappers during the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry. Shakur began his career as a roadie and backup dancer for the alternative hip hop group Digital Underground.

Violence was a theme not only in his art, but in his life. In November 1993 he was indicted, and later convicted, for sexual assault; he was sentenced to 1½–4½ years in prison.  In September 1996, Shakur was shot in the Las Vegas metropolitan area of Nevada. He was taken to the University Medical Center, where he died of respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.

This is an EP Release is the RIAA Gold certified second Digital Underground release, from which two songs were featured in the film Nothing But Trouble starring Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, and John Candy. Both songs could be considered hip hop hybrids; “Tie The Knot,” for its loose jazzy piano tracks and comedic interpretation of “Bridal Chorus;” and “Same Song” for its extensive organ solo and improvised organ bits throughout the song, making it one of hip hop’s first singles to successfully integrate live instrumentation with music samples. This is also a hip hop landmark for rap star, Tupac Shakur, who made his debut on the latter song, and who fatefully portrayed an African king in the video. Tupac also can be heard on “The Way We Swing”( Remix) as a background vocalist, adding humorous ad-libs between the verses.

“If My Homie Calls”  is the second single by 2Pac from his debut album, 2Pacalypse Now. A music video was also made for this single. He performed this song in the early 1990s on the famed MTV show Yo! MTV Raps.

“Holler If Ya Hear Me” is a song by 2Pac, from his second solo album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.. It was the first single released from this album in 1993. The track, which uses a sample from Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without a Pause”, is an anthem of resistance. Frustrations with black poverty, police injustice, and Tupac’s perceived persecution from political figure Dan Quayle fuel the majority of the track. Hustling, bearing arms, and refusal to conform are the key methods of combating said issues, and the chorus leads those listeners in agreement to join in the movement. The song is autobiographical in nature, referring to various traumas experienced by Tupac himself,[2] and the editor of Vibe was quoted in TIME magazine as stating that the song struck a chord with a large section of disaffected youth. The song was used by Michael Eric Dyson as the title of his book about the life of Tupac Shakur.

“Cradle to the Grave” (referred as: Cradle 2 the Grave) is a song on Thug Life (the first group of 2Pac) album, Thug Life Volume 1. It is the only song from the album to hit the singles charts, peaking at #25 on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart and #91 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart

“Dear Mama” is a rap song by American hip hop artist 2Pac. The track was produced by Tony Pizarro for 2Pac’s third solo album Me Against the World, released in 1995. “Dear Mama” was written by 2Pac as an ode to his own mother, Afeni Shakur.

“Dear Mama” was released on February 21, 1995 as the first single for the album. The single was the most successful of all the singles released from the album. The song is considered by critics, fans, and purists as one of the greatest hip hop songs of all-time, and one of 2Pac’s best songs in particular, being ranked number four on About.com’s “Top 100 Rap Songs” list. It was announced on June 23, 2010 that the Library of Congress is preserving Dear Mama, along with 24 other songs, in the National Recording Registry for their cultural significance.

“I Ain’t Mad at Cha” is the name of a song by rapper 2Pac released as the sixth single from his album All Eyez on Me. Although the album was released exactly 7 months before his death, the single was released shortly after his death. The song is a heartfelt tribute to his friends he knew before he was famous. The song features contemporary African American soul singer Danny Boy who provided the vocals for the song’s hook. The song did well in the United Kingdom, reaching the number 13 on the UK Singles Chart. It was not released as a single in the United States, thus making it ineligible to chart on the Billboard singles charts (due to chart rules at the time), but reached numbers 18 and 58 in the R&B and Pop Airplay charts, respectively. It also reached number two on the New Zealand Singles Chart.

“Hail Mary” is 2Pac’s last single from his final album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory. A music video was shot for the song.

On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur attended the Mike Tyson – Bruce Seldon boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. After leaving the match, one of Suge’s associates spotted 21-year-old Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, a member of the Southside Crips, in the MGM Grand lobby and informed Shakur, who then attacked Anderson. Shakur’s entourage, as well as Suge and his followers, assisted in assaulting Anderson. The fight was captured on the hotel’s video surveillance. Earlier that year, Anderson and a group of Crips had robbed a member of Death Row’s entourage in a Foot Locker store, precipitating Shakur’s attack. After the brawl, Shakur went to rendezvous with Suge to go to Death Row-owned Club 662 (now known as restaurant/club Seven). He rode in Suge’s 1996 black BMW 750iL sedan as part of a larger convoy including many in Shakur’s entourage.

At 10:55 p.m., while paused at a red light, Shakur rolled down his window and a photographer took his photograph. At around 11:00–11:05 p.m., they were halted on Las Vegas Blvd. by Metro bicycle police for playing the car stereo too loud and not having license plates. The plates were then found in the trunk of Suge’s car; they were released without being fined a few minutes later. At about 11:10 p.m., while stopped at a red light at Flamingo Road near the intersection of Koval Lane in front of the Maxim Hotel, a vehicle occupied by two women pulled up on their right side. Shakur, who was standing up through the sunroof, exchanged words with the two women, and invited them to go to Club 662. At approximately 11:15 p.m., a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac with an unknown number of occupants pulled up to the sedan’s right side, rolled down one of the windows, and rapidly fired a surfeit of gunshots at Shakur; bullets hit him in the chest, pelvis, and his right hand and thigh. One of the rounds apparently ricocheted into Shakur’s right lung. Suge was hit in the head by fragmentation, though it is thought that a bullet grazed him. According to Suge, a bullet from the gunfire had been lodged in his skull, but medical reports later contradicted this statement.

At the time of the drive-by Shakur’s bodyguard was following behind in a vehicle belonging to Kidada Jones, Shakur’s then-fiancée. The bodyguard, Frank Alexander, stated that when he was about to ride along with the rapper in Suge’s car, Shakur asked him to drive Kidada Jones’ car instead just in case they were too drunk and needed additional vehicles from Club 662 back to the hotel. Shortly after the assault, the bodyguard reported in his documentary, Before I Wake, that one of the convoy’s cars drove off after the assailant but he never heard back from the occupants.

After arriving on the scene, police and paramedics took Suge and a mortally wounded Shakur to the University Medical Center. According to an interview with one of Shakur’s closest friends the music video director Gobi, while at the hospital, he received news from a Death Row marketing employee that the shooters had called the record label and were sending death threats aimed at Shakur, claiming that they were going there to “finish him off”. Upon hearing this, Gobi immediately alerted the Las Vegas police, but the police claimed they were understaffed and no one could be sent. Nonetheless, the shooters never arrived. At the hospital, Shakur was in and out of consciousness, was heavily sedated, breathed through a ventilator and respirator, was placed on life support machines, and was ultimately put under a barbiturate-induced coma after repeatedly trying to get out of the bed.

Despite having been resuscitated in a trauma center and surviving a multitude of surgeries (as well as the removal of a failed right lung), Shakur had gotten through the critical phase of the medical therapy and was given a 50% chance of pulling through. Gobi left the medical center after being informed that Shakur made a 13% recovery on the sixth night. While in the critical care unit on the afternoon of September 13, 1996, Shakur died of internal bleeding; doctors attempted to revive him but could not impede his hemorrhaging. His mother, Afeni, made the decision to tell the doctors to stop. He was pronounced dead at 4:03 p.m. (PDT) The official cause of death was noted as respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest in connection with multiple gunshot wounds. Shakur’s body was cremated and some of his ashes were later mixed with marijuana and smoked by members of Outlawz.

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