How Tupac predicted his own death
The late Death Row legend Tupac Shakur was an insightful and knowledgeable emcee who made music with meaningful and powerful messages. However, not all of his lyrics were positive, and sometimes the narratives veered into dystopian territory.
The 2Pacalypse Now creator often rapped about death, and occasionally, his tracks had morbid overtones. Still, his observations were prescient, and in some of his material, the emcee even predicted his own tragic demise.
Horrifically, in 1994, while in New York to work on music, the rhymer was shot at Quad Studios in Manhattan while exiting the building. The now-shut recording facility was located on Seventh Avenue between 48th and 49th Street near the famous Times Square. Upon his exit from the establishment, while in the lobby, Shakur was shot five times: twice in the head, twice in the groin area, and once in his left hand.
After this, he felt that he was on the brink of death, and years later, we know this was indeed the case. That year, Tupac recorded the track ‘If I Die Tonight’ for his 1995 project Me Against The World. In the song, the Oakland icon rhymes, “I hope they bury me and send me to my rest, Headlines reading ‘Murdered to death, My last breath.”
The second single of the single, titled ‘So Many Tears’ also makes some extremely powerful statements about his mindset and how, due to the stress, the emcee would be grateful if somebody killed him. In the song, he raps, “My every move is a calculated step, to bring me closer, To embrace an early death, now there’s nothing left.”
Scarily, Me Against The World was the last album that Tupac was able to see released. It is also considered to be his most introspective body of work. Death was a constant theme throughout the project and had a much darker tone to All Eyez On Me.
Shakur spoke multiple times about dying. In a 1995 MTV News interview, he stated, “We look at death from a selfish side, you know like, ‘That guy died, oh it’s so sad.’ Why is it sad? He’s away from all of this bad stuff that’s here on earth.”
He continued, “At the worst, he’s just somewhere quiet, no nothing. At best, he’s an angel, or he’s at the next existence, or he’s a spirit somewhere. What is so bad about that? It’s only bad for the people who he left. Because you guys are mad, and that’s just some crabs in a bucket-type stuff.”
Tupac’s final album, All Eyez On Me, had a more aggressive energy and, featured songs like ‘California Love’, that was more braggadocious and less introspective than Me Against The World. Although the latter is considered his most reflective project, many insist that Tupac’s most underrated and vulnerable material appeared on his 1991 album 2Pacalypse Now.