How big was tupac back then?

[Possum Jenkins]

Tupac? He was decently popular while alive.. but his popularity definitely hit overdrive after he was killed. And part of that was due to how he died, and Biggie dying not long after and it’s connection to Pacs death. No one put him at ‘GOAT’ status while he was alive tho. That shit came after he croaked.

Actually, he was "decently popular" through most of his career, but he was completely taking off right when he got killed. Me Against the World in 1995 reached #1 and got a couple of Grammy nominations.

All Eyez on Me was released 7 months before he got killed and was even bigger. It also reached #1 and "California Love" was #1 on the singles chart for two months!

Tupac was one of those rare rappers that reached his peak in his later albums instead of his first ones. And he got killed just as he had become massive. It is true that he only started receiving GOAT consideration after his death. Same with Biggie though. And I think Tupac had a stronger case.

Me Against the World, All Eyez on Me, and Makaveli being released within 1.5 years of each other is insane. All completely top shelf stuff.

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

Actually, he was "decently popular" through most of his career, but he was completely taking off right when he got killed. Me Against the World in 1995 reached #1 and got a couple of Grammy nominations.

All Eyez on Me was released 7 months before he got killed and was even bigger. It also reached #1 and "California Love" was #1 on the singles chart for two months!

Tupac was one of those rare rappers that reached his peak in his later albums instead of his first ones. And he got killed just as he had become massive. It is true that he only started receiving GOAT consideration after his death. Same with Biggie though. And I think Tupac had a stronger case.

Me Against the World, All Eyez on Me, and Makaveli being released within 1.5 years of each other is insane. All completely top shelf stuff.

Yeah, like I said -while he was alive guys like Nas were talked about as the greatest, not Pac. And yeah, he was popular while he was alive, but the East Coast/West Coast bs pushed that as much as anything he did musically. And he really wasn’t any bigger than other pop stars of his era prior to his death like Snoop, Dre, Bone Thugs.. I even mentioned Alanis Morsette being more popular than him right around then (and outselling him too if I’m not mistaken) but when he was killed? It’s all anyone talked about anywhere for a while. Then Biggie dies in the same way not long after and it just reached this JFK style conspiracy where people that didn’t even give a shit about hip-hop or know who Biggie and Pac were started paying attention because the mystery around the whole thing.


His popularity in pop culture definitely skyrocketed after his death. And it transcended music. Which is all anyone wants to argue when this topic comes up. But it got bigger than that, and you can’t just use music sales to drive your argument. It’s why I chuckled at dude accusing me of being born in the late 90’s. You had to be alive and aware of what was going on to have seen some of this shit. I was just out of high school when he died.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Not only was he "big" he was iconic. He was a fantastic actor as well. His performance in juice was oscar worthy. He also featured in few other box office hit movies. And what can I say about him as a poet, he was the best.

His performance in Gridlock'd is criminally underrated. He actually plays the (relatively) calm guy to in the duo while Tim Roth is the crazy one.

He was going to get in more into acting just as he got killed. He was really on his way to being one of those all-around artists.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Yeah, like I said -while he was alive guys like Nas were talked about as the greatest, not Pac. And yeah, he was popular while he was alive, but the East Coast/West Coast bs pushed that as much as anything he did musically. And he really wasn’t any bigger than other pop stars of his era prior to his death like Snoop, Dre, Bone Thugs.. I even mentioned Alanis Morsette being more popular than him right around then (and outselling him too if I’m not mistaken) but when he was killed? It’s all anyone talked about anywhere for a while. Then Biggie dies in the same way not long after and it just reached this JFK style conspiracy where people that didn’t even give a shit about hip-hop or know who Biggie and Pac were started paying attention because the mystery around the whole thing.


His popularity in pop culture definitely skyrocketed after his death. And it transcended music. Which is all anyone wants to argue when this topic comes up. But it got bigger than that, and you can’t just use music sales to drive your argument. It’s why I chuckled at dude accusing me of being born in the late 90’s. You had to be alive and aware of what was going on to have seen some of this shit. I was just out of high school when he died.

Well yeah, Alanis Morisette was giant, she was outselling everyone out there. Gotta remember that hip hop wasn't nearly as mainstream back then as it is now. I mean, if you look at the Billboard charts now about half of all songs are hip hop. A few months back, Drake was featured in something like 8 out of the top 50 songs or something. That's absolutely insane.

In the 90s, a hip hop song or album breaking into the top 10 was a big deal. Making #1 was even more rare. Look at Billboard's top albums of the 90s list (page YE20) :

https://books.google.com/books?id=9w0EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=RA1-PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false

The highest-selling rap album was E. 1999 Eternal at #54! (MC Hammer and Will Smith don't count)

Pac was definitely at the very top of the rap scene and his death catapulted him into legend status. I really think he would have started getting GOAT consideration anyway even if he hadn't gotten killed. That Me Against the World-All Eyez on Me-Makaveli trio of albums in a 1.5 year span is unbelievable. If he'd lived, people would have started talking about him being the greatest by about 98 or 99.

 

[AGGAMEMNON66]

Well yeah, Alanis Morisette was giant, she was outselling everyone out there. Gotta remember that hip hop wasn't nearly as mainstream back then as it is now. I mean, if you look at the Billboard charts now about half of all songs are hip hop. A few months back, Drake was featured in something like 8 out of the top 50 songs or something. That's absolutely insane.

In the 90s, a hip hop song or album breaking into the top 10 was a big deal. Making #1 was even more rare. Look at Billboard's top albums of the 90s list (page YE20) :

https://books.google.com/books?id=9w0EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=RA1-PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false

The highest-selling rap album was E. 1999 Eternal at #54! (MC Hammer and Will Smith don't count)

Pac was definitely at the very top of the rap scene and his death catapulted him into legend status. I really think he would have started getting GOAT consideration anyway even if he hadn't gotten killed. That Me Against the World-All Eyez on Me-Makaveli trio of albums in a 1.5 year span is unbelievable. If he'd lived, people would have started talking about him being the greatest by about 98 or 99.

I’d argue Pacs death catapulted him/his image beyond that of Morsette in pop culture tho after his death -which was my point about him blowing up after he died.


And while you could be right about him achieving ‘the greatest’ talk if he’d had lived.. it could have went the other way on him too. Maybe he flops after that, Biggie doesn’t die most likely in this scenario either -so maybe he goes on to outshine anything Tupac does from there on out, maybe Nas does something different and bigger.. too many variables there imo


But those are just ‘what ifs’. The reality is, he did die. And his popularity exploded when that happened and influenced the conversation about him. That cannot be denied, but people continue to blur lines there for some reason.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

I’d argue Pacs death catapulted him/his image beyond that of Morsette in pop culture tho after his death -which was my point about him blowing up after he died.


And while you could be right about him achieving ‘the greatest’ talk if he’d had lived.. it could have went the other way on him too. Maybe he flops after that, Biggie doesn’t die most likely in this scenario either -so maybe he goes on to outshine anything Tupac does from there on out, maybe Nas does something different and bigger.. too many variables there imo


But those are just ‘what ifs’. The reality is, he did die. And his popularity exploded when that happened and influenced the conversation about him. That cannot be denied, but people continue to blur lines there for some reason.

Yeah, there's no doubt his popularity, fame, and prestige went up after death. But I think a lot of people confuse that to him being an average or only "pretty good" rapper that got famous after being killed.

He went from top of the game in hip hop to top of the game in music and entertainment in general. But this is pretty common with a lot of early deaths. I mean, I wasn't alive then but I'm pretty sure John Lennon didn't have this aura of holiness when he was with the Beatles or during the 70s. But in a lot of his videos, I see comments drawing comparisons to Jesus and other saintly figures. It's like WTF? Taking it a bit too far there.

 

[mafuman]

as a casual fan, if you go by radio play you couldnt go 5 minutes without some puff & biggie colab. never heard tupac on the radio other than California love which had dre and a bunch of others as well. busta rhymes was on the radio more than tupac at the time.

tupac was always on the news tho. getting shot up in lobbies or spitting on reporters and such.

either way eminem showed up and that was that. end of the jiggy era.

 

[Pliny Pete]

as a casual fan, if you go by radio play you couldnt go 5 minutes without some puff & biggie colab. never heard tupac on the radio other than California love which had dre and a bunch of others as well. busta rhymes was on the radio more than tupac at the time.

tupac was always on the news tho. getting shot up in lobbies or spitting on reporters and such.

either way eminem showed up and that was that. end of the jiggy era.

Where are you from?

 

[mafuman]

Where are you from?

at that time i was from PR, had just moved to NYC. '97. everywhere was jamaican dance hall music and biggie smalls/puff daddy. and fugees.

 

[POWER2]

So, tupac is one of the legends of the hip hop, one of the biggest, but just wondering how big he was when he was alive.

he was huge. he was the michael jackson of hip-hop. people were talking about whether he was the greatest ever while he was alive.

 

[Nameless Ghoul]

At his time of death I was 12, living in the suburbs and musically transitioning from Nirvana to Pantera/Sepaltura and Rage Against the Machine...so I don't know? lol

 

[defjaam]

Not my time because I was a little boy, but I assume he was comparable to DMX in 2000, or 50 Cent a few years into "Get rich or die tryin".

However, I think everyone will agree that he became bigger post mortem than he ever was alive. Which is pretty strange... I don't think DMX would have ever received a star on the Hollywood walk of Fame if he had died in 2000.

Tupac creating so much buzz out of his grave for like 10 years after his death (including nominations for awards, most notably an Oscar for best documentary) was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. It was like he was finishing what he started as a dead man.

 

[Belaya Smert]

He was the biggest thing going. People would go back and forth between him and Biggie. Even a lot of white kids saw through the wannabe gangster shit that got Tupac killed. Claiming sets you don’t belong to and starting shit with street people did not end well for that man.

 

[Mohawk Mauler]

My buddy came home from school the day he died and said all the girls were crying when they found out,upstate ny nothing but farmers n amish near our reservation so that kind of surprised me how known he was in my area.

 

[defjaam]

He was the biggest thing going. People would go back and forth between him and Biggie. Even a lot of white kids saw through the wannabe gangster shit that got Tupac killed. Claiming sets you don’t belong to and starting shit with street people did not end well for that man.

Honestly, I think that there might be zero correlation between his street shit and his death.
It's pretty obvious that David Kenner and The Wrights with the help of their dirty cops pulled off the hits on both Tupac & Biggie Smalls.
The motive was money. Maybe enviousness was a factor too.

 

[Belaya Smert]

Honestly, I think that there might be zero correlation between his street shit and his death.
It's pretty obvious that David Kenner and The Wrights with the help of their dirty cops pulled off the hits on both Tupac & Biggie Smalls.
The motive was money. Maybe enviousness was a factor too.

I still think it was Orlando Anderson and Wardell Fouse respectively in their individual roles. Although that assertion would come with a 13,000 dollar bounty paid by Knight through his girlfriend CI (Theresa Swann) in the Biggie Killing.
I don’t see the dirty cops on the payroll with Suge trying to kill their golden goose.

 

[nonoob]

Not familiar myself, but a co-worker's 7 year old was continuously listening to California Dreamin, said that music made him feel "powerful".

That convinced me of his ability to affect people back then.

 

[NoSmilez]

Music was bigger back then. We didn't know the artists "personally" and they weren't as accessible as today's artists.

 

[defjaam]

I still think it was Orlando Anderson and Wardell Fouse respectively in their individual roles. Although that assertion would come with a 13,000 dollar bounty paid by Knight through his girlfriend CI (Theresa Swann) in the Biggie Killing.
I don’t see the dirty cops on the payroll with Suge trying to kill their golden goose.

I mean the actual shooters are not that interesting to me. If I had to bet, I'd say it were the Patton brothers (Malcolm and Danny) and Donald Smith, who was also known as Lil Half Dead. Kevin Gaines also a possibility.
There are reports of Orlando Anderson being far away in a hospital by the time the shooting happened. And speaking of far away - what was a Compton gang member doing in Las Vegas anyway? They usually never leave their area. At least not so far away.

What's interesting to me are the people who set it up.
Reggie Wright Jr desperately tried to
get Suge Knight's probation revoked
immediately after the shooting. Wright
told LAPD directly that Suge was using
convicted felons as security & that Suge
had been traveling out of the country
direct violations of his probation.
Following the shooting, Suge was sent to
jail from the MGM fight video - evidence that was submitted by his own attorney David Kenner.

It's so obvious what went down that day, though I can't blame people who think it was a straight street thing... Because in a way it was. Also can't blame people that say Tupac was asking for it, because in a way he was.

Nonetheless, if you haven't seen the "Tupac Assassination" docs, I highly recommend them.

 

[Belaya Smert]

I mean the actual shooters are not that interesting to me. If I had to bet, I'd say it were the Patton brothers (Malcolm and Danny) and Donald Smith, who was also known as Lil Half Dead. Kevin Gaines also a possibility.
There are reports of Orlando Anderson being far away in a hospital by the time the shooting happened. And speaking of far away - what was a Compton gang member doing in Las Vegas anyway? They usually never leave their area. At least not so far away.

What's interesting to me are the people who set it up.
Reggie Wright Jr desperately tried to
get Suge Knight's probation revoked
immediately after the shooting. Wright
told LAPD directly that Suge was using
convicted felons as security & that Suge
had been traveling out of the country
direct violations of his probation.
Following the shooting, Suge was sent to
jail from the MGM fight video - evidence that was submitted by his own attorney David Kenner.

It's so obvious what went down that day, though I can't blame people who think it was a straight street thing... Because in a way it was. Also can't blame people that say Tupac was asking for it, because in a way he was.

Nonetheless, if you haven't seen the "Tupac Assassination" docs, I highly recommend them.

Just something I noticed on the Tupac autopsy report. He is hit multiple times on the left side. For a guy in the passenger seat this seems to not fit. Was he shot initially when he was hanging out the sunroof distracted by the car of women screaming his name? Most reconstructions have him facing the rear of the car. Or When Keefe D says he tried to jump in the back seat Everything I’ve seen seems to indicate the shooting happened after the exchange with the women.