2-pac

2-Pac Vs Makaveli

Shakur was born on June 16, 1971, in the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City. He was named after Túpac Amaru,a Peruvian revolutionary who led an indigenousuprising against Spain and was subsequently executed. His mother, Afeni Shakur, and his father, Billy Garland, were active members of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The infant boy was born a month after his mother was acquitted of more than 150 charges of "Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks" in the New York "Panther 21" court case.

Although unconfirmed by the Shakur family, several sources (including the official coroner's report) list his birth name as Lesane Parish Crooks. This name was supposedly entered on the birth certificate because Afeni feared her enemies would attack her son, and disguised his true identity using a different last name. She changed it later, following her separation from Garland and marriage to Mutulu Shakur.

Shakur lived from an early age with people who were convicted of serious criminal offences and who were imprisoned. His godfather, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a high ranking Black Panther, was convicted of murdering a school teacher during a 1968 robbery, although his sentence was later overturned. His stepfather, Mutulu, spent four years at large on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list beginning in 1982. Mutulu was wanted for having helped his sister Assata Shakur (also known as Joanne Chesimard) to escape from a penitentiary in New Jersey. She had been imprisoned for killing a state trooper in 1973. Mutulu was caught in 1986 and imprisoned for the robbery of a Brinks armored truck in which two police officers and a guard were killed.Shakur had a half-sister, Sekyiwa, two years his junior, and an older stepbrother, Mopreme "Komani" Shakur, who appeared in many of his recordings.

Though Shakur had been using the name Makaveli as far back as All Eyez On Me, the Makaveli album was conceived as a sort of introduction for Shakur's alternate stage name. Thus, the album’s sleeve contains the text, "Exit 2Pac, Enter Makaveli", referring to the exit of the Shakur of the past and the entrance of a new person, Makaveli.

The album cover, which features Shakur on the cross in an attempt to convey his crucifixion by the media, is intended to imply an artistic resurrection and according to some of his fans a literal one after his death. Within the next year in 1997, a music video entitled Smile by Scarface of the Geto Boys on his album The Untouchable featured the late Shakur as a performer, some showing his name listed as Makaveli. The video showed him depicted in a very similar type of crucifixion resembling the cover of this album.

While All Eyez on Me was considered by Shakur "a celebration of life", The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory is a much darker album. Makaveli's style of rappingis still emotional, but is intensified throughout this album. Some songs on the album contain both subtle and direct insults to Shakur's rivals at the height of the East Coast-West Coast feud. Rappers insulted on the album include Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy, Mobb Deep, Jay-Z & Dr. Dre . Although Shakur insulted rapper Nas on "Intro/Bomb First (My Second Reply)" and "Against All Odds", rapper Young Noble, who appeared on several songs on The 7 Day Theory, stated in an interview that the Nas song "I Gave You Power" served as a main inspiration for Shakur's "Me and My Girlfriend". Nas was to appear on Makaveli: 7 day theory, due to his and Shakur's reconciliation in 1996; Shakur was murdered before any collaboration could occur. The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory was recorded and mixed in a mere 7 days in August 1996. It was released November 5, 1996 and debuted at number one on both the pop album and R&B/Hip-Hop album charts, with 663,000 albums sold in its first week.

Studios in Tarzana, Los Angeles, California over 3 days in the month of August 1996. During those three days 21 songs were completed, 12 of which made the final product. The album did not feature the star-studded guest list that All Eyez on Me did. Most of the guest verses are supplied by Shakur's group The Outlawz. The only verse that was not from one of the Outlawz was from Bad Azz. Young Noble of the Outlawz recalled:

We had started writing the shit and we was taking long. 'Pac was like, "Who got something? Bad Azz you got something?" and it fit perfect, so it was meant for Bad Azz to be on that song. We had already been on a million 'Pac songs. That was his way of motivating us like, "If y'all ain't ready, then you don't make 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, Nevada. After leaving the match, one of Knight's associates spotted Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson, an alleged Crips gang member from Compton, California, in the MGM Grand lobby. Earlier that year, Anderson and a group of Crips had robbed a member of Death Row's entourage in a Foot Locker store. Knight's associate told Shakur, who attacked Anderson. Shakur's entourage, as well as Knight and his followers, assisted in assaulting Anderson. The fight was captured on the hotel's video surveillance. After the brawl, Shakur went with Knight to go to Death Row-owned Club 662 (now known as restaurant/club Seven). He rode in Knight's 1996 black BMW 750iL sedan as part of a larger convoy, including many in Shakur's entourage.

At around 11:00–11:05 pm, they were halted on Las Vegas Boulevard by Metro bicycle police for playing the car stereo too loudly and not having license plates. The plates were found in the trunk of Knight's car; the party was released without being fined a few minutes later. At about 11:10 pm, while they were 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 left 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 pm, a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac with an unknown number of occupants pulled up to the sedan's right side, rolled down a window, and rapidly fired gunshots at Shakur. He was hit in the chest, pelvis, and his right hand and thigh. One of the rounds went into Shakur's right lung. Knight was hit in the head by fragmentation, though it is thought that a bullet grazed him. The bodyguard, Frank Alexander, stated that when he was about to ride along with the rapper in Knight's car, Shakur asked him to drive the car of Shakur's fiancée Kidada Jones instead, in case they needed additional vehicles from Club 662 back to the hotel. The bodyguard reported in his documentary, Before I Wake, that shortly after the assault, one of the convoy's cars drove off after the assailant but he never heard from the occupants.

After arriving on the scene, police and paramedics took Knight and a wounded Shakur to the University Medical Center. According to an interview with 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 threatened Shakur. Gobi told the Las Vegas police, but said they claimed to be understaffed. No attackers came.^] At the hospital, Shakur was heavily sedated, was placed on life support machines, and was ultimately put under a barbiturate-induced coma after repeatedly trying to get out of the bed. While in the critical care unit, on the afternoon of Friday, September 13, 1996, Shakur died of internal bleeding; doctors attempted to revive him but could not stop the hemorrhaging. His mother, Afeni, made the decision to tell the doctors to stop. He was pronounced dead at 4:03 pm (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 the next day and some of his ashes were later mixed with marijuana and smoked by members of the Outlawz.

Phily Coombes