Rest In Peace...or...Ressurect in Praise
Are you where you wanna be right now in your career?
I'm at a point where I'm in charge. I don't have to answer to anybody; I'm in total control. I've got another album droppin' next month under an alias name, under Makaveli. It's called Killuminati. I'm not the king, I'm not the teacher or nothin' like that, but I feel like I don't have no peers. I've been out less than a year, convicted of allegations that usually end niggas' careers. Shot five times in the nuts and the head. I came out, and in less than a fuckin' year outsold Biggie almost three times. I sold more records than his whole fuckin' record label.
What's with this Machiavelli? Why name yourself after a 16th-century politician and philosopher?
That's what got me here, my reading. It's not like I idolize this one
guy Machiavelli. I idolize that type of thinking where you do
whatever's gonna make you achieve your goal.
So now I'm not on no bullshit or anything, I'm gonna change the
rules in this rap game. You know how, like, in politics, the
Republicans are in now; well, I represent that style; I'm the new
nigga. I'ma shake up the whole Congress. By puttin' out a double
album-that nobody ever did-I had the most expensive album on the
charts. My album cost more than any album you could buy on the
charts, and I outsold every one of them muthafuckas. And I did it in
two months!
I'm not dissin' niggas blindly. I'm dissin' niggas that opened up they
mouth. I aspire not to be a reactionary muthafucka. I read. That's all
I do is read. I read books, I read magazines, I read y'all's shit. I listen
to everything a muthafucka says, no matter how slight, no matter
how long ago he said it. Like, when I was in jail, niggas had a lot to
say. When I came home, niggas had a lot to say. I remembered all of
it.
Are you motivated by revenge?
Now, it's for fun. This new Makaveli album I got comin' out, I'm takin' on niggas. It's like, my dopest album ever. It's 12 tracks. I talk about my shooting [in New York]. I say the names of the niggas that shot me, the names of the niggas that set me up.... Everything I couldn't say, I said it in a rap. I also dis Dre, I dis Mobb Deep. All them niggas: Ja˙-Z, Puffy, Biggie. My album cover is me on the cross being crucified, and the cross is the map. It's got New York, Harlem, Brooklyn, everything. And I'm on the cross bein' crucified for keepin' it real.
So is it true you got Dre pushed off Death Row?
I did. Suge is the boss of Death Row, the don, you understand?
But I'm the underboss, the capo. That's my job, to do what's best
for all of Death Row. My decision wasn't based on comin' to Death
Row and taking shit over. My decision was based on Dre not
being there for Snoop during his trial.
Do you and Suge both feel the same way about taking over,
not turning back, and not being pawns?
Nobody respects a man who don't do for himself. I'm a soldier; so
I'm here on Death Row to put my time into this army. It's not like
they got me out of jail and now I gotta do for them. It's that they
believed in me, so I believe in this company when no one else will.
When people said this was played out. I'm breathin' into it. I don't
give a fuck if I don't get along with anybody else on the label. This is
for Death Row. When it comes to the point when I feel it can stand
on its own, I will move on. But me and Suge will always do business
together, forever.
Y'all are kindred spirits?
Everything I don't have, he's got, and everything he don't got, I got.
Together, I think we can only be stopped by each other. We want,
not oppression, but total domination.
Why do you think people always supported you, even in the
ugliest situations?
I don't know. All I can say is I always try to be a real nigga in my
heart. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad; but it's still us. It's
never to hurt nobody. I'm not gonna take advantage of you or bully
you. I'm on some underdog shit. And I truly believe I've been blessed
by God, and God walks with me. Me and my niggas are on some
Black Jesus shit. Not a new religion or anything, but the saint for
thugs and gangstas-not killers and rapists, but thugs. When I say
thugs, I mean niggas who don't have anything.
Biggie's playing it like you got it confused, that he didn't have
nothin' to do with your getting shot...
I have no mercy in war. I said in the beginning I was gonna take
these niggas out the game, and sure enough I will. Already people
can't look at Biggie and not laugh. I took every piece of his power.
Anybody who tries to help them, I will destroy. Anyone who wanna
side with them or do a record with them, whatever, try to unify with
them, I'ma destroy. I swear to God. Can't nobody touch me right
now. Maybe next month all of this will be over, but this month I'm
takin' every moving target out. Black people put all their political
energies, everything they have, into getting loot. Like, right now, it's the
presidential campaign.... And we ain't doin' shit.
So what is the source of this power?
I tried to see if it was, like, a white thing. Everywhere I go with
money, they let me in. Everywhere I go with none, they don't let you
in. Trust me. That's all it is. It's all about money. When you got
money, you got power. I guarantee if people keep supportin' me-just
buyin' my record, just goin' to my concerts-I'ma keep givin' money.
Every time I go platinum I'm puttin' money up for community
centers. Every time I go platinum, somebody's gettin' a big check. I
feel like an elected official.
What distinguishes you from everybody else?
I never thought I was the best rapper-the best nothin'. I think I'm the realest
nigga out there. I do think that. I think I own that. 'Cause I think being real
is just being true. I'm the nigga that will wear a suit when everybody's got on
khakis. I'll be baldheaded when
everybody's wearing braids. I'll wear braids when they all
baldheaded. It's just being real. I don't have insecurities-well, I do, but I
just put them in front of everybody, like my mom and my life
and me being little.
I'm not no dumb-ass muthafucka. I don't bang for the color or the
land. It's for the principles, for the honor. I'm banging for the
Wesside. It's in my heart. When I be throwing up the W, it ain't for
California, it's a W for war. When the West Coast and the middle and
the East get together, we got power. You won't be seeing me
throwing this when we're all together. But we ain't there, we still all
separate tribes, and I know what tribe I'm in. I'm a soldier. I'll always
be true to those who are true to me. New York shouldn't be trippin',
they should be loving this, because they gave me the game to do
this. What made me raw is that I got both. I'm the future of black
America.
I lived and almost died for Thug Life. And after that VIBE article,
people said "Tupac, I thought Thug Life was dead." Yeah, but read
the rest of the article. Puffy, in that letter in VIBE, gave me some
advice that brought me back to the Thug Life shit. He said you can't
be a thug for a second or a minute and get in and out of it, you gotta
be in it forever. He didn't mean it as advice at the time, he said it to
dampen things. So now, when I'm whoopin' his muthafuckin ass,
and it hurts, and all these people talkin' about "Stop, now,"
remember what he told me. These words came out of his mouth.
We're voting on Tupac and Biggie, 'cause that's where we
live. Who's gonna get dead presidents, not who's going to be
president.
But see, rap is like a politician's race. If I lost New York, I won the
other 49 states, and that makes me in control. Now I'm the new
president for the next four years. Crucial Conflict could go five times
platinum, but nobody's gon' let them sign no bills. They can't make
no hip hop laws.
You know what I thought when I was in jail, I was, like, No politician
is even gettin' at us. I represent five million fuckin' sales. And no
politician is even checkin' for us. But by the next election I promise
I'll be sitting across from all the candidates. I promise you! I'ma be
so far from where I am now in four years-God willin' I'm alive-it's on! I
guarantee we will have our own political party. It won't just be for blacks.
It's gon' be for Mexicans, for Armenians, all you lost-tribe muthafuckas. We
need to have our own political party 'cause we all have the same muthafuckin'
problems. We built this nation and we get none of the benefits.
We got to kill this niggeritis. Niggas hate me just 'cause of what you
doin', niggas plotting on you 'cause of women, and niggas hatin' to
see you shine. We got to kill that. Before we can kill it in our black
nation, we got to kill it in the Hip Hop Nation, and that's what I'm
doin'. It's the only reason I'm back: to bring the heat. And I feel like God is
tellin' me to do it. I feel like Black Jesus is controlling me. He's our saint
that we pray to; that we look up to. Drug dealers, they sinning, right? But
they'll be millionaires. How I got shot five times-only a saint, only Black
Jesus, only a nigga that know where I'm coming from, could be, like, "You know
what? He's gonna end up doing some good." I gotta do that.
People might be, like, "This nigga's conceited," but fuck it. I feel like I
shine. And I don't give a fuck how much white people, the media, niggas, black
people, playa haters, police, whoever, try to darken my shine, I'ma always
shine through. They could lie about my
words, but they always gonna ring true 'cause it's my essence; it's
in my essence, and that's what's always gonna come through.
Copyright © 1996 VIBE Magazine. All rights reserved.
His Last Interview...Exit 2pac...Enter Makaveli