2Pac

Tupac Amaru Shakur, 1971-1996. His mother was on trial with the Panther 21 while she was pregnant with him; he studied ballet and Shakespeare in Baltimore; he made four albums in five years and one of them went to number one while he was in prison. He was shot dead in Las Vegas at twenty-five and the case stayed open for twenty-seven years. Built from the interview record, because he talked more, and more carefully, than almost anyone else of his generation.

A chronological documentary of 485 moments spanning 1969–2026 on Loreline.

Curated by Olivier · last updated 2026-08-16

Eras

Where He Came From, Afeni Shakur was acquitted in the Panther 21 case on 13 May 1971, having conducted part of her own defence while pregnant. Her son was born a month later and named for Túpac Amaru II, an Andean rebel executed by the Spanish in 1781. He grew up in the wreckage the FBI left of the Black Panther Party, studied acting and ballet at the Baltimore School for the Arts, and arrived in Marin City with nothing.
Songs, The music videos and the records themselves. Four albums in five years plus enough unreleased material to fill decades of posthumous releases, Me Against the World went to number one while he was in a cell, and All Eyez on Me arrived four months after he left one.
Him Talking, The largest part of this archive, and the reason it can exist at all. He was one of the most-interviewed figures of his era and he took the questions seriously, at seventeen in a Baltimore classroom, at twenty-three in a courthouse corridor, at twenty-four in a prison visiting room, at twenty-five on the Death Row lot.
Onstage, Live footage, from carrying equipment and dancing for Digital Underground to headlining as the biggest rapper alive. The House of Blues set in July 1996 was one of the last times he performed in public.
Films, He could act, and everyone who worked with him said so. Bishop in Juice, Lucky opposite Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice, Birdie in Above the Rim, and Gridlock’d finished shortly before he died.
How It Was Reported, The contemporaneous coverage, what television said about him while it was happening, from the Vice President attacking his first album to the bulletins on 13 September 1996. The framing is often the story: he spent his career being asked to answer for a genre.
Legal Record, An arrest for jaywalking that ended in a lawsuit, a shooting involving two off-duty officers, the New York trial that sent him to prison in February 1995, and the Las Vegas murder case that stayed open for twenty-seven years until Duane Davis was indicted in September 2023.
People Who Were There, Everyone else: Afeni, his family, Jada Pinkett, the producers and label people, the journalists who covered him, the musicians who worked beside him. Testimony from people who knew him rather than commentary from people who did not.
After, The releases did not stop, and neither did the mythology. A Coachella projection in 2012 that everyone called a hologram, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, a star on Hollywood Boulevard, and murals in cities he never visited. He has now been dead considerably longer than he was alive.

1969-04-02 - Bobby Seale on the arrest of the New York 21. A period television news report on the mass arrest of twenty-one Black Panther Party members in New York, including a press conference by Bobby Seale. Afeni Shakur was among those charged; she was acquitted in 1971 while pregnant with Tupac. The inheritance, filmed as it happened, two years before he was born.
1970 - Defending the Panthers at Hunter College. A rally to defend the Black Panther Party at Hunter College in New York, photographed by Bill Andrews on 18 February 1970. His mother was awaiting trial in the Panther 21 case at the time.
1970-07-09 - Afeni Shakur speaks to press after release on bail. Agency newsfilm shot outside court as Panther 21 defendants, Afeni Shakur among them, talk to reporters after being bailed. She was acquitted the following May while pregnant with Tupac; this is his inheritance on camera before his birth.
1971-05-13 - The Panther 21 trial explained. An account of the New York Panther 21 conspiracy trial, in which Afeni Shakur was among the defendants acquitted in May 1971. She was pregnant with Tupac during the proceedings and conducted part of her own defence. The trial is the inheritance the archive starts from.
1971 - Afeni Shakur and Joan Bird speak at a Panther 21 press conference. AP newsfilm of Afeni Shakur and co-defendant Joan Bird addressing the press during the Panther 21 case in New York. Afeni was pregnant with Tupac through the trial and conducted part of her own defence; she and her co-defendants were acquitted in May 1971. This is the political inheritance the archive starts from, in his mother's own voice.
1971 - Undercover officer who infiltrated the Panther 21. Archive film of Ralph White, one of the undercover New York police officers who infiltrated the Black Panther Party and testified in the Panther 21 case. Afeni Shakur was a defendant in that trial and was acquitted while pregnant with Tupac. The footage documents the surveillance and infiltration that shaped his family's history.
1971 - Assata Shakur photographed by police. A police photograph of Assata Shakur taken in April 1971. She is described within the Shakur family as his godmother; accounts of the exact relation differ.
1971 - A patrol car hit during a Queens chase. New York police beside a patrol car struck by a grenade thrown from a pursued stolen car in Queens, 20 December 1971. It records the violence of the period he was born into.
1973 - An FBI photograph of Assata Shakur. 's campaign against the Black Panther Party is the backdrop to the family he was born into.
1973 - A federal photograph of a fugitive. A federal photograph of Assata Shakur circulated after she was named a fugitive. The FBI listed her for decades after her escape to Cuba.
1973 - Listed under her birth name. A federal wanted photograph identifying Assata Shakur under her birth name, JoAnne Deborah Byron. She is also referred to in records as Joanne Chesimard.
1979 - A wanted poster for Assata Shakur. The second FBI wanted poster issued for Assata Shakur. Posters were reissued repeatedly over the following decades.
1981 - Assata Shakur in a press photograph. A 1981 press photograph of Assata Shakur, identified as a member of the Black Liberation Army. She escaped from prison in 1979 and was granted asylum in Cuba.
1988 - Teenage interview from the Baltimore years. A long interview with Shakur as a teenager during his Baltimore School for the Arts period, uploaded decades later from an archival tape. He talks at length before any of the fame, which makes this one of the earliest recordings of him speaking. The precise recording date is not established by the upload.
1988 - Baltimore School for the Arts footage of a teenage Shakur. Period footage of Shakur as a student at the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied acting, poetry and ballet. This is the earliest stretch of his life for which moving images circulate at all, years before any record deal.
1988 - First recorded song as MC New York with Ace Rocker. An audio snippet of "Check It Out!", written and performed by Tupac under the name MC New York with Darrin Keith Bastfield as Ace Rocker during the Baltimore years. The uploader presents it as the first song Tupac ever recorded. It predates his professional career by two years and comes from the same school circle that produced his early poetry and theatre work.
1988 - Talking through Macbeth as a drama student. A short clip of Tupac as a teenage student discussing Shakespeare's Macbeth. It is the clearest surviving trace of the acting and text work he did as a drama pupil, before any recording career. The uploader offers no date, venue or programme.
1988 - A seventeen-year-old and an adult, side by side. An edit that sets Tupac's teenage interview answers against things he said years later, tracking how his views shifted and contradicted themselves. The teenage material is the reason to keep it: his own voice at seventeen is scarce. The later-life segments are drawn from other interviews.
1988 - High school interview recorded in Baltimore. Audio of Tupac speaking as a Baltimore School for the Arts student, years before his recording career. He talks as a teenager about himself and his circumstances, which is the earliest register of his voice available. The uploader offers no recording date beyond the year, and the channel's framing is its own, not the interview's.
1988 - Teenage Tupac on the American education system. A seventeen-year-old Tupac Shakur, then a student at the Baltimore School for the Arts, is interviewed about what schools do and do not teach. It is among the earliest recordings of him speaking, years before any record deal. He argues for practical subjects over what he saw as an irrelevant curriculum.
1988 - Tupac and Jada Pinkett dancing on home video. Amateur footage of Tupac and Jada Pinkett, friends from the Baltimore School for the Arts, dancing to a Will Smith record. The clip carries no broadcast provenance and the reposting channel gives no recording date, so it is placed in the late-1980s Baltimore period on the basis of their ages and the record playing.
1988 - Teenage Tupac filmed in Marin City. A short clip of Tupac as a teenager in Marin City, California, the year his family left Baltimore and moved west. He is years away from any record deal here. The uploader dates the footage to 1988; the exact month is not established.
1988 - Filmed by his teachers at seventeen. An early interview with Shakur as a teenager, recorded by teachers as part of a school exercise in which around a dozen students took part. He is visibly nervous but articulate, and it is among the earliest surviving footage of him speaking. The uploader places the recording in Mill Valley in 1988; the French subtitles are the uploader's addition.
1988 - Seventeen-year-old Tupac speaks to a camera in Marin City. A local interview recorded shortly after the family left Baltimore for Marin City, California. He talks about education, homelessness and social conscience several years before he recorded anything. His own voice at seventeen, before any of it.
1988 - A yearbook photograph at seventeen. Tupac photographed as a Baltimore School for the Arts student in 1988. He studied acting, poetry and ballet here, the part of his life that sits least comfortably with how he was later covered.
1988 - With classmates at the school for the arts. Tupac with fellow Baltimore School for the Arts students, photographed for The Evening Sun in 1988. The paper was reporting on how the school's students dressed.
1988 - On the front of the Evening Sun at seventeen. Photographed for The Evening Sun of Baltimore, published 20 September 1988. This newspaper series is the only period photography of him in the freely-licensed record.
1988 - The same Evening Sun portrait, colourised. A colourised version of the 1988 Evening Sun photograph. He was a student at the Baltimore School for the Arts when it was taken.
1988 - The school style page that photographed him. Page thirteen of The Evening Sun for 20 September 1988, a feature on how Baltimore School for the Arts students dressed. Tupac is among the students pictured.
1988 - The Evening Sun front page, September 1988. The complete front page of The Evening Sun of Baltimore for 20 September 1988, carrying the school-style feature that photographed Tupac as a student.
1988 - Classmates at the school for the arts. Baltimore School for the Arts students photographed for The Evening Sun in 1988. The paper's feature on the school is where the only period photographs of Tupac come from.
1989 - New Jersey news report on Assata Shakur's prison escape. An archival local television report on the 1979 escape from prison of Assata Shakur, tied by the family's account to Tupac's own upbringing. Period broadcast footage rather than later commentary.
1989 - Early Marin City performance footage. Amateur footage of Shakur performing in Marin City, California, after his family left Baltimore and before he joined Digital Underground. The uploader dates it to 1989; nothing in the metadata confirms the day.
1989 - Teenage Tupac recorded before the record deal. A short clip of Tupac as a teenager, circulated from the tapes made around his Baltimore School for the Arts years. He is years away from a record contract here, and the footage is one of the few surviving glimpses of him before he was a public figure. The exact date is not established by the upload.
1989 - An unreleased early demo recording. An unreleased early Tupac recording circulated by collectors, from the period before he joined Digital Underground. Recordings like this are the audio record of his teenage apprenticeship as a writer. No release or session date is documented, so the dating is approximate.
1989 - Early live performance in Marin City. Amateur footage of Tupac performing on stage in Marin City, California, in the period after his family left Baltimore and before he joined Digital Underground. He appears alongside local acts credited as 5150 and Ant D.O.G. It is a record of him working small local shows as an unknown.
1989 - Jada Pinkett reviewed in the school paper. Jada Pinkett and others in a Baltimore School for the Arts production of Joe Turner's Come and Gone, in The Evening Sun of 16 January 1989. She and Tupac were classmates.
1990-01-26 - The Humpty Dance by Digital Underground. The Digital Underground single that made the group's name, fronted by Shock G in his Humpty Hump persona. Shakur joined the group as a roadie and dancer around this period, and the record is the context he entered the music industry through rather than a 2Pac record itself.
1990 - Digital Underground perform on Arsenio Hall. Tupac appears with Digital Underground performing The Humpty Dance on The Arsenio Hall Show, among his earliest television appearances. He is a dancer in someone else's group here, before any record of his own.
1991-01-01 - Trapped, footage from the video shoot. Additional footage from the shoot for Trapped, the first single Shakur released under his own name from 2Pacalypse Now. The song describes being hemmed in by police attention, and this material shows the set rather than the finished cut.
1991-01-01 - Same Song music video with Digital Underground. The official Digital Underground video for 'Same Song', Tupac's first recorded and filmed appearance on a released track. He raps a verse and appears in the group's costumed ensemble as its newest member. This is the point at which he becomes visible on record.
1991 - Shakur on Oakland and the police. Shakur speaking about Oakland and his treatment by police there, the city where he was arrested in a jaywalking stop in October 1991 and afterwards sued. He is making his own account of the encounter. The clip is undated and the outcome of the suit is not addressed here.
1991 - Shakur describes the Oakland jaywalking arrest. Shakur giving his own account of being stopped by Oakland police for jaywalking and what followed. He later sued the city; the settlement terms are not asserted here.
1991 - The Digital Underground cameo in a Hollywood comedy. The Digital Underground sequence from the film Nothing But Trouble, one of the earliest filmed appearances of Tupac during his time with the group. It places him on screen before any of the solo work.
1991 - Oakland jaywalking arrest and the lawsuit that followed. Coverage of the October 1991 Oakland police stop of Tupac for jaywalking, during which he was taken to the ground and arrested. He went on to sue the department for ten million dollars, an unusual step for a rapper at the time. The suit's outcome is not asserted here.
1991 - A brief clip of Tupac with Digital Underground. Under a minute of Tupac performing with Digital Underground during his period with the group. Short and without provenance, but it is period footage of him as a member rather than a frontman.
1991 - Digital Underground perform at the Apollo with Tupac. Live footage of Digital Underground at the Apollo Theater with Tupac on stage as part of the group. It shows him as a working member of someone else's act, dancing and hyping, before he was a solo name. Period performance footage from the year of his recording debut.
1991 - Long interview at the start of his recording career. A near-forty-minute interview with Tupac from 1991, the year of his first recorded appearance and his debut album. Long-form early conversations like this one are the least mediated record of how he presented himself before the fame and the court cases. His own voice, at length, at twenty.
1991 - Digital Underground perform No Nose Job on television. Digital Underground playing No Nose Job for a televised Apollo appearance, with Tupac visible on stage beside the DJ. It shows the working band he came up in and the role he actually held in it at the time. Broadcast footage, re-uploaded by a fan channel.
1991 - Radio interview with Digital Underground at Summer Jam. A radio interview with Digital Underground, Tupac included, around a KMEL Summer Jam. He is speaking as one member of a group rather than as a solo artist, which is what he was at this point. Audio-led, sourced from station tape.
1991 - Same Song on screen in Nothing but Trouble. The "Same Song" performance as it appeared in the 1991 comedy Nothing but Trouble, with Tupac on screen alongside Digital Underground. It is his earliest widely seen filmed appearance, predating his own records. Dated to the film's 1991 release rather than the recent upload.
1991 - Onstage with Digital Underground. Concert footage of Tupac performing with Digital Underground during his time as the group's dancer and hype man. It shows the working apprenticeship that preceded his solo career. No exact date is documented for the show.
1991 - MTV News covers Digital Underground with Tupac. An MTV News segment on Digital Underground from the period when Tupac was the group's newest member. It is contemporaneous broadcast coverage rather than later commentary. He appears here as a member of someone else's act, before his own debut album.
1991 - Digital Underground and Tupac on a network sitcom. Tupac appears with Digital Underground on the Fox sitcom "Drexell's Class," a record of how the group was being booked on mainstream television during his first year with them. He is present as a member of the crew rather than as a star in his own right.
1991 - Tupac in a Juice cast interview. A short snippet of Tupac being interviewed alongside his "Juice" castmates during the film's press cycle, before the January 1992 release. He is nineteen or twenty here and being presented to the press as an actor rather than a rapper.
1991 - Digital Underground perform Danger Zone with him on stage. Live footage of Digital Underground performing "Danger Zone" with Tupac appearing alongside the group. Shows the touring apprenticeship that preceded his own records.
1991 - On the Juice set with Omar Epps and Khalil Kain. Set footage and interviews with Tupac, Omar Epps, Khalil Kain and Jermaine Hopkins during production of Juice. The four leads talk about the film while shooting it, with Tupac speaking about the role of Bishop.
1991 - Digital Underground raw uncut live footage. An extended reel of unedited Digital Underground live and backstage footage from the period when Tupac was touring with the group as a dancer and roadie. It shows the working environment he came up in before his own debut. No specific date is given beyond the era.
1991-10-01 - Brenda's Got a Baby, the video. The debut single from 2Pacalypse Now, a narrative record about a twelve-year-old girl who becomes pregnant and is abandoned by everyone around her. The video follows that story in dramatised scenes intercut with 2Pac performing directly to camera. Released as a single in 1991.
1991-11-12 - Trapped, the 2Pacalypse Now video. A single from 2Pacalypse Now built around the experience of being watched and hemmed in by police. The video stages that directly, showing 2Pac pursued, arrested and confined, cut against performance footage.
1991-11-12 - If My Homie Calls. A single from his debut album 2Pacalypse Now, about loyalty to friends from before he was known. The tone is warmer than most of that record, which is otherwise heavily political. This is the official video, posted by the rights-holder channel.
1992-01-17 - Tupac on the story of Juice. Promotional interview footage of Tupac describing the plot and his character in Juice, his first major film role as Bishop. He talks about the film as its release approached. The clip surfaced as part of the studio's later home-video promotion.
1992-01-31 - Digital Underground live in San Francisco. A full Digital Underground set recorded in San Francisco, with Tupac performing as part of the group alongside the Humpty Dance and Doowhutchyalike. This is the working band he came up in, before he was the draw.
1992-03-25 - Screen test with Janet Jackson for Poetic Justice. Footage from Tupac's screen test with Janet Jackson and Tyra Ferrell for John Singleton's Poetic Justice, shot at a hair salon in Ladera Heights. It shows him auditioning for a lead role a year before the film reached cinemas.
1992 - News report ties a trooper shooting to 2Pacalypse Now. Period television news covering the claim that a man who shot a Texas state trooper was influenced by Shakur's debut album, the episode that drew Vice President Dan Quayle's attack on the record. Whether the album caused the shooting was argued in court and never established.
1992 - Tupac on the Los Angeles riots. Tupac is interviewed about the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of the officers who beat Rodney King. It is a short clip but it is his own voice on the politics of the moment, which is the seam this archive is built on.
1992 - Tupac on the police beating of Rodney King. A brief interview clip in which Tupac talks about the police beating of Rodney King. His commentary on policing is central to how he presented himself publicly and to the argument that followed him about it.
1992 - Tupac answers the campaign against 2Pacalypse Now. Tupac responds to Dan Quayle's public attack on his debut album and to the Texas case in which his lyrics were blamed for a state trooper's killing. He argues he was judged before the shooter's own trial had concluded. Whether the record caused the shooting was argued in court and remains contested.
1992 - Describing the Oakland arrest to a journalist by phone. Tupac describes his 1991 Oakland arrest and the beating he says he received, in a phone interview recorded by journalist Michael Small for a 1992 book. The account of the beating is Tupac's own; he later sued the city. Recorded audio from the period rather than a later retelling.
1992 - On suing Oakland police and the Trapped video. Tupac discussing his lawsuit against the Oakland police department following his arrest there, and the video for Trapped. He connects his own experience of policing directly to the record he made about it. The terms of any settlement are not stated.
1992 - Tupac on wealth and obligation in an MTV News interview. MTV News footage from 1992 in which Tupac argues that the very rich have an obligation to the poor, naming Donald Trump as an example of the greed he is describing. It is a clear early sample of how he talked about money and class in his own words, from the broadcaster's own archive.
1992 - His first television interview, on BET. An early BET interview with Shakur, presented by the uploader as his first substantial appearance on television. It catches him at the 2Pacalypse Now and Juice moment, before the court cases and the feud. The specific broadcast date within the year is not identified.
1992 - The Juice cast on the film they just made. Khalil Kain, Omar Epps, Tupac Shakur and Jermaine Hopkins discuss the plot of Juice around the film's release. Tupac's first major film role, as Bishop, and part of the press run that first put him in front of a national audience.
1992 - A full sit-down interview with Tanya Hart. A twenty-minute interview with Tupac conducted by host Tanya Hart, from the period around his first album and first film. Extended interviews from this early stage are far scarcer than the later ones.
1992 - Between takes at an early interview. Unused footage from around an interview, showing Tupac joking and relaxed while the camera keeps running. Slight, but it is him off-script rather than in performance.
1992 - Speaking at length in the year of Juice. An extended interview with Tupac in 1992, the year Juice opened and 2Pacalypse Now was drawing political attack. He talks across several subjects at a point when he was newly famous and not yet signed to Death Row. Re-uploaded without the original broadcaster named.
1992 - The Juice cast on the film before release. A short press clip of Tupac with the rest of the Juice cast talking about the film ahead of its release. Juice was his first major film role, as Bishop, and this catches him doing publicity as a young actor.
1992 - Performing If My Homie Calls live. A live performance of "If My Homie Calls" from his debut album 2Pacalypse Now, during the first stretch of his solo career. It catches him working as a solo performer rather than as a member of Digital Underground. The performance date is not documented in the upload.
1992 - A long sit-down interview at twenty-one. An extended interview with Tupac from 1992, the year Juice opened and his debut album was under political attack. He is twenty-one and already fluent at explaining himself to a hostile press. The interviewing outlet and exact date are not established by the upload.
1992 - The Video LP interview after his debut album. A televised interview with Tupac at twenty, recorded after 2Pacalypse Now and his breakout role as Bishop in Juice. He talks as a new arrival still being introduced to a national audience. The upload dates it to a 1992 BET broadcast; the exact date is not established.
1992 - Digital Underground perform on Showtime at the Apollo. Television performance footage of Digital Underground with Tupac on stage, from the period when he was touring as the group's dancer and hype man. It shows him as a performer before he was a headliner. The uploader dates the songs performed to 1992; no broadcast date is given.
1992 - On the set of Juice with Fab 5 Freddy. A short interview with Tupac filmed on location during production of Juice, his first major film role. He is twenty and speaking as a new actor rather than an established star. Dated to the 1992 shoot and press period.
1992 - BET Video LP sit-down after the debut album. A television interview with a twenty-year-old Tupac recorded for BET's Video LP, months after 2Pacalypse Now and around his breakout as Bishop in Juice. He speaks at length about the record and the reaction to it. Dated to the 1992 recording.
1992 - Licensed archive interview from the debut-album year. A stock-footage archive holding of a 1992 Tupac Shakur interview, catalogued and licensed by Historic Films. It captures him speaking in the year of Juice and the Quayle controversy, when he was newly famous. The archive's own catalogue record supplies the date.
1992 - Sit-down interview during the Juice press run. A 1992 interview with Tupac from the period around Juice and his debut record. Six minutes of him answering questions directly, in his own words.
1992 - Tupac interviewed about his role in Juice. A brief interview with Tupac talking about Juice, his first major film role, as Bishop. He is 20 here and being asked about acting rather than music. His own voice on his own work, which is the seam this archive is built on.
1992 - Full interview on his debut album. A long-form interview in which Tupac talks through 2Pacalypse Now, his debut, at length and in his own terms. Extended contemporaneous interviews from this early period are comparatively scarce, which makes the full length valuable.
1992 - E! News interview during the Juice press run. An E! News television interview with Shakur built around his first major film role, as Bishop in Juice. It catches him at the point where he was being introduced to a general audience as an actor as much as a rapper. Dated to the 1992 broadcast rather than the re-upload.
1992 - Tupac talks about playing Bishop in Juice. A short press interview from the Juice publicity run, his first major film role. He discusses the part and the reaction to it. Dated to the 1992 release period rather than the upload.
1992 - MTV sit-down with unreleased outtakes. An MTV interview from 1992 presented with material cut from the broadcast. He answers for 2Pacalypse Now during the year the record was being attacked in Washington. The outtakes show him working out answers off the air.
1992 - His first sit-down interview for E!. E!'s own archive of the first time Tupac sat down with the network, recorded in 1992 and reissued by the broadcaster. Early press from the year of Juice and the Quayle attack. Kept as the broadcaster's own copy.
1992-08-13 - MTV News interview about Poetic Justice. A short MTV News sit-down in which Shakur talks about taking the role opposite Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice. His own voice on his acting work, recorded as the film was being made.
1992-08-13 - MTV interview about Poetic Justice casting. Tupac on MTV discussing Poetic Justice, the John Singleton film in which he starred opposite Janet Jackson. A short period sit-down from the point where his acting career was building alongside the records.
1993-01-01 - Cut scenes from the Holler If Ya Hear Me shoot. The director and cinematographer Stephen Ashley Blake discusses scenes cut from the Holler If Ya Hear Me video, which drew objections for its imagery. The record was the lead single from Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. This is material about how that specific video was made.
1993-01-12 - Holler If Ya Hear Me. The lead single from Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., a confrontational record about resistance to policing. The video's staged street imagery drew complaints on release. This is the original video rather than a later edit.
1993-02-12 - Fab 5 Freddy interviews him for Yo! MTV Raps. A Yo! MTV Raps sit-down with Fab 5 Freddy, broadcast days before Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. was released. Tupac was twenty-one and mid-ascent. Dated to the original broadcast.
1993-02-16 - Papa'z Song, the video. 'Papa'z Song' appeared on Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. and trades verses between Tupac and his stepbrother Wycked on growing up without a father. The official video stages the exchange between the two, with Tupac also playing the absent father.
1993-05-25 - I Get Around, with Digital Underground. A single from Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. featuring Shock G and Money-B of Digital Underground, the group Shakur first toured with. The track is loose and comic in tone, unlike most of the album. The video is a poolside house party shot with the Digital Underground crew.
1993 - Keep Ya Head Up live on MTV Jams. Shakur performing Keep Ya Head Up with Digital Underground on MTV Jams, from the Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. period. Live television footage of him performing the record rather than a studio version. Posted here as the second part of the broadcast segment.
1993 - Extended interview from the Strictly 4 period. A long 1993 interview with Shakur, recorded around the release of Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. At three-quarters of an hour it is one of the more sustained conversations from the year he became a headline act. The programme and exact date are not identified on the upload.
1993 - Freestyling with friends during an interview. A brief off-the-cuff freestyle captured while an interview was under way, with friends around him. Unpolished footage of how he actually wrote and played with words away from a booth.
1993 - A long interview around the second album. A 44-minute interview with Tupac for Black Watch TV, from the period of Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. Its length lets him work through arguments rather than deliver soundbites.
1993 - Forty-four minute interview at twenty-one. A long 1993 interview with Tupac, recorded around the release of Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. He is twenty-one and talking about his writing and his politics before prison. The upload is recent but the conversation is period.
1993 - In the studio, then talking about the record. Nearly half an hour of Tupac working in the studio followed by an interview, from the Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. period. Studio footage of him actually making records is rarer than the interviews and shows the process rather than the result. Re-upload with no original credit.
1993 - Shakur on jail, solitude and his own definition of thug. An MTV News interview from 1993 in which Shakur discusses the prospect of going to jail, solitary confinement, growing up with a single mother, and what he means by the word thug. His own definition of the term sits against the way the press was then using it. Uploaded by MTV from its archive.
1993 - Shakur talks about policing. Shakur speaking directly about police treatment of young Black men, a theme that ran through his records and his own repeated encounters with arrest. His own words rather than commentary about them.
1993 - I Get Around performed on Arsenio Hall. Tupac performs I Get Around on The Arsenio Hall Show with Digital Underground, now fronting the record rather than dancing behind one. The song came from Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., released that February.
1993 - Tupac explains THUG LIFE. Tupac setting out what THUG LIFE meant to him. He treated it as an acronym and a written code with rules intended to limit harm in street conflict, drafted with Mutulu Shakur, rather than as the slogan the press reduced it to.
1993 - Keep Ya Head Up performed live. A live performance of Keep Ya Head Up, from Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. The record sits against the press image of him that was forming at the same time, and the performance footage is primary.
1993 - Broadcast coverage of the Atlanta shooting charges. Period news coverage of the October 1993 Atlanta incident in which Tupac was accused of shooting two off-duty police officers. The charges against him were ultimately dropped. Re-uploaded by a third-party channel with commentary framing, but the underlying footage is contemporaneous reporting.
1993 - Tupac discusses Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.. Tupac talks about his second album in a period interview, here carried with added Portuguese subtitles. He is describing his own record in his own words at the time of its release.
1993 - Explaining Souljah's Story on the Jane Pratt Show. Tupac on a daytime talk show explaining what he meant by Souljah's Story and defending his writing to a hostile-to-baffled panel. It is a good record of the gap between how he talked about his work and how the press received it. Excerpt from the programme.
1993 - He talks about THUG LIFE and the prospect of prison. An interview in which Shakur discusses the code he called THUG LIFE, his mounting legal problems and the possibility of going to jail. It is him explaining his own framework rather than someone else interpreting it. The uploader has added decorative titling, but the footage itself is a period interview.
1993 - A full uncut interview from the Strictly 4 period. A long, unedited 1993 interview with Tupac, recorded around the release of Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. The uncut form is the value here: he is allowed to finish his thoughts rather than be cut to a soundbite. The original broadcaster and exact date are not documented.
1993 - Entertainment news covers a court appearance. A brief E! News item from 1993 showing Tupac in court. It is period coverage of how the entertainment press, not just news desks, followed his legal problems as they happened. Under a minute, no other context supplied.
1993 - Freestyling on camera with Freddie Fox. Informal footage of Tupac freestyling, from the period around Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. It catches him rapping off the record and away from a stage, which is where the writing is most visible. The uploader dates it to 1993 and gives no fuller provenance.
1993 - Tupac interviewed and performing at twenty-two. Roughly fifteen minutes of Tupac in interview and in performance during 1993, the year of "Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z." It is primary footage of him talking about his own work and then doing it, though the uploader identifies neither the programme nor the venue.
1993 - Tupac at the New York courthouse. Silent news footage of Tupac arriving at a New York courthouse in the sexual abuse case brought against him. It is a short contemporaneous record of the legal process that would end in his conviction and imprisonment.
1993 - Performing "I Get Around" on MTV Jams. A televised performance of "I Get Around" with Digital Underground on MTV Jams, from the period of his second album. It shows him fronting a single of his own while still working alongside the group that started him. Dated to the 1993 broadcast; this is a re-upload rather than the network's copy.
1993 - Tupac on the Oakland arrest and his lawsuit. Tupac describes being beaten by Oakland police after a jaywalking stop, and the lawsuit he brought against the city. It is his own account of the incident rather than a report about it. Neither the interview date nor the outcome of the suit is documented in this clip.
1993 - Tupac appears in court over the Atlanta shooting. Brief footage of Tupac in court in connection with the Atlanta shooting that involved two off-duty police officers. Charges against him were ultimately dropped. Contemporaneous court footage rather than later commentary.
1993 - Performing I Get Around with Digital Underground on MTV. Live television performance of I Get Around with his Digital Underground colleagues, from the period when he was breaking out as a solo artist while still tied to the group. Primary broadcast footage of him on stage.
1993 - Nervous before a scene in West Oakland. On the set of Poetic Justice, Tupac admits to being nervous about shooting a scene in front of a West Oakland crowd after the director replaced the hired extras with local people. A rare moment of him unguarded at work.
1993 - Talking about playing Bishop with Fab 5 Freddy. Tupac discusses his role as Bishop in Juice with Fab 5 Freddy for Yo! MTV Raps. He talks about the character rather than himself, which is unusual in his interview record. Uploaded by MTV News from their own archive.
1993 - On the Poetic Justice shoot and an HIV test. Tupac describing being asked to take an HIV test before filming his scenes with Janet Jackson on Poetic Justice. He gives his own account of the episode and of how he took it. A short excerpt from a longer interview.
1993 - Short interview during the Poetic Justice period. A brief interview clip recorded around the time of Poetic Justice, passed between fan accounts. It is a minor fragment but it is him speaking rather than someone accounting for him.
1993 - On the Poetic Justice set with John Singleton. Behind-the-scenes footage of Tupac with director John Singleton during production of Poetic Justice, the film he made opposite Janet Jackson. It shows him at work as an actor between records. Dated to the 1993 production rather than the upload.
1993 - Musician recalls opening for Tupac at Tougaloo College. An artist who opened for Tupac and Grand Puba at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, recalls the show and shows his own documentation of it. It is a first-hand account from someone on the bill during the Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. touring period. The recollection is his own and is presented as such.
1993 - Arsenio Hall Show interview and Gotta Get Mine freestyle. A short piece of Arsenio Hall Show footage from 1993 in which Tupac is interviewed and freestyles over "Gotta Get Mine". From the Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. period.
1993 - Behind the scenes on Poetic Justice. Production footage from the making of Poetic Justice, in which Tupac starred opposite Janet Jackson. Brief but period material from the shoot rather than later commentary.
1993 - He talks about making Poetic Justice. A ten-minute 1993 interview in which Tupac discusses Poetic Justice and his approach to acting. His own account of the film, given at the time of its release.
1993 - Tupac talks over a slice of pizza. A short, informal interview clip with Tupac in 1993, eating while he answers. Unguarded off-duty moments like this sit alongside the formal sit-downs and show him at ordinary scale.
1993 - Behind the scenes on the Poetic Justice set. Production footage shot on the set of Poetic Justice, showing Tupac working as an actor between takes. Filmed by a crew member rather than assembled later, which makes it primary material on his film work.
1993 - On the set of Poetic Justice. Behind-the-scenes footage from John Singleton's Poetic Justice, in which Shakur played opposite Janet Jackson. It shows him working as a film actor between records. Dated to the production and 1993 release rather than to the upload.
1993-07-23 - Deleted scene from Poetic Justice. A minute of footage cut from Poetic Justice, the John Singleton film in which Tupac played Lucky opposite Janet Jackson. Off-cuts show him working as an actor rather than performing as himself. Dated to the film's release.
1993-07-23 - Poetic Justice press interview with Janet Jackson and Regina King. Shakur alongside his co-stars Janet Jackson and Regina King in a promotional interview for Poetic Justice. It shows him working as a film actor and handling a studio press round, a side of his career that ran alongside the records. The film opened in July 1993.
1993-07-23 - A deleted scene from Poetic Justice. A scene cut from Poetic Justice, the John Singleton film in which Tupac played opposite Janet Jackson. His film work ran alongside the records throughout this period and was a real part of the career, not a sideline. Dated to the film's release.
1993-07-23 - Deleted and extended scenes from Poetic Justice. Cut and extended footage of Tupac from Poetic Justice, opposite Janet Jackson and Regina King. Material that did not reach the released film, showing more of his performance than the theatrical version does.
1993-11-19 - Arrested in New York on the sexual abuse charge. News footage of Shakur's arrest in New York in November 1993 on the charge that led to his trial and conviction. The complainant, Ayanna Jackson, alleged an assault in his hotel room; he denied the allegation. The case ran through 1994 and ended in a prison sentence in February 1995.
1993-12-01 - Charges filed over the Atlanta shooting. A short contemporaneous news item reporting that charges had been filed against Tupac over the shooting of two off-duty police officers in Atlanta on Halloween 1993. The charges against him were later dropped. Period broadcast, archived by a news-clip channel.
1993-12-01 - Interview with one of the officers shot in Atlanta. Mark Whitwell, one of the two off-duty Atlanta police officers shot on 31 October 1993, interviewed about the incident weeks afterward. Shakur was arrested over the shooting and the charges against him were ultimately dropped. This is one of the few contemporaneous accounts from a participant.
1993-12-01 - Arriving at the Atlanta Municipal Court. Short footage of Shakur attending a hearing at the Atlanta Municipal Court alongside his attorney Chokwe Lumumba, relating to the shooting of two off-duty officers that October. The charges against him were ultimately dropped. The clip is brief but it is contemporaneous court footage with a stated date.
1993-12-21 - Leaving a New York courtroom after a hearing. Shakur outside a New York court following a hearing in the sexual abuse case, addressing the press on his way out. Contemporaneous footage of him during the proceedings rather than an account given afterwards.
1994-03-16 - Tupac answers MTV News about the New York charges. An MTV News interview in which Tupac responds to the sexual abuse charges brought against him in New York, dated by the uploader to 16 March 1994, well before the trial concluded. He is speaking to the case in his own words while it is still pending.
1994 - Cable news covers the Quad Studios shooting. A short archival broadcast tape from late November 1994 showing how cable news handled the shooting of Tupac in the lobby of Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan, where he was shot and survived. The value is in the press treatment as much as the event.
1994 - Tupac arrives at court in a wheelchair. Footage of Tupac being brought to the Manhattan courthouse in a wheelchair after being shot five times at Quad Studios on 30 November 1994. He left hospital against medical advice to attend the closing days of his trial, and the images of him bandaged in court became the defining pictures of that week.
1994 - Speaking in the Quad Studios lobby weeks before the shooting. A long interview in which Shakur talks about class division, social problems in America and THUG LIFE. The uploader states it was recorded for Swedish radio in the lobby of Quad Recording Studios in November 1994, weeks before he was shot in that building; that provenance is the uploader's account and is not independently confirmed. What is on the tape is his own extended political self-description.
1994 - C. DeLores Tucker's record-store protest against gangsta rap. Raw 1994 footage of a protest led by C. DeLores Tucker outside a Sam Goody store, aimed at stopping the sale of gangsta rap. The organised political campaign against the genre in which Shakur was a named target.
1994 - Tupac explains what THUG LIFE stood for. Tupac sets out THUG LIFE as an acronym and a code of conduct rather than a slogan, in a television interview. The written code, drafted with Mutulu Shakur, was meant to limit harm in street conflict, and this is him explaining it in his own terms. The interview date is not documented in the upload.
1994 - Interviewed with Thug Life. A short 1994 interview with Tupac alongside the Thug Life group. THUG LIFE was not only a slogan but a written code of conduct drafted with Mutulu Shakur, intended to limit harm in street conflict. Dated to the 1994 recording.
1994 - Shakur on the rose that grew from concrete. A brief clip of Shakur setting out the image of a rose growing through concrete, the figure that gave his published poetry collection its title. It shows the writer's habit of thinking in metaphor in ordinary conversation. The source interview and date are not identified.
1994 - Yo-Yo testifies at the congressional hearing on rap. Footage of the rapper and actress Yo-Yo defending hip-hop before a US congressional hearing in 1994, part of the mid-1990s political campaign against the genre in which C. DeLores Tucker was a leading voice and Tupac a named target. It shows the hearings as they actually ran. Dated to the 1994 hearing.
1994 - Congressional hearings on gangsta rap. An hour of archival tape from the 1994 congressional hearings on the social impact of gangsta rap, with testimony from figures including the journalist Nelson George and the artist Yo-Yo. Tupac was a named target of the wider political campaign against the genre. The footage shows the argument being conducted in a legislative setting.
1994 - Shakur on his parents and the Black Panthers. Shakur describing his family's Black Panther background in his own words, cut from a longer interview. His account of the inheritance he was born into is the clearest statement of the politics behind his name. The source interview and its date are not identified on the upload.
1994 - He explains what he means by Thug Life. Tupac sets out his own definition of the word thug and of Thug Life, which he framed as a code rather than a boast. His account of the term, in his own voice, against a press narrative that read it very differently.
1994 - Tupac at the courthouse. A short clip of Tupac during a court appearance. Period footage from his run of legal proceedings, though the uploader identifies neither the hearing nor the date.
1994 - Tupac explains what he means by thug. Tupac defining the word thug in his own terms, against the meaning the press attached to it. THUG LIFE was an acronym and a written code with actual rules, not the slogan it was reported as. Short but it is him making the argument himself.
1994 - Tupac speaks on THUG LIFE to a crowd. Tupac addressing an audience about THUG LIFE, from footage later used in the documentary Resurrection. Him arguing the code in public, rather than a later account of what he meant.
1994 - MTV interview during the year of the trial. A twenty-minute MTV sit-down with Tupac from 1994, the year of the New York trial, the Quad Studios shooting and his conviction. MTV interviews are the backbone of his surviving interview record. Re-uploaded by a fan channel rather than the broadcaster.
1994 - He answers for his reputation as a big mouth. MTV News footage from 1994 in which Shakur addresses the controversy that had gathered around the way he spoke publicly. He frames it as speaking from the heart and learning from his own mistakes. This is MTV's own upload of its archive, which makes it the preferred copy of the interview.
1994 - Outside the courthouse during the New York trial. Brief footage of Tupac at court during the New York sexual abuse proceedings. Court appearances are among the few settings where he was filmed without controlling the frame. The upload is a fan edit with a tribute title, but the footage itself is period.
1994 - Shock G on what Tupac said in court. Shock G, who brought Tupac into Digital Underground, recalling the statement Tupac made in court. He was actually present in Tupac's working life, which is the reason to keep a recollection rather than an analysis. A one-minute excerpt.
1994 - Ed Gordon sits down with him for BET. A long interview with Ed Gordon, one of the more substantial television conversations Shakur gave, covering his politics, his reputation and the pressure he was under. Gordon pushes him harder than most interviewers of the period did. This is BET's own upload of its archive, which makes it the preferred copy.
1994 - MTV News reports from outside the courthouse. A period MTV News report filed around Tupac's New York court appearances during the sexual abuse case. Contemporaneous coverage like this is how the trial reached his audience at the time. The exact broadcast date is not documented in the upload.
1994 - Facing the cameras outside the New York trial. Silent footage of Tupac reacting to press cameras during his New York sexual abuse trial. He was convicted on lesser charges and acquitted on the more serious counts. The uploader's framing of the allegations is not adopted here; the archive records the proceeding, not a verdict on it.
1994 - Performing Out on Bail at the Source Awards. Tupac performs 'Out on Bail' at the 1994 Source Awards, during the stretch when he was moving between courtrooms and stages. The song's subject and his actual circumstances were the same thing. It is a live record from the year the legal cases closed in on him.
1994 - Tupac's full sit-down interview with Ed Gordon. A twenty-four minute television interview in which Tupac answers Ed Gordon at length about the charges against him, his reputation and how he is being written about. It is one of the longer unbroken records of him defending himself in his own words.
1994 - Tupac in the courtroom during the New York trial. Silent courtroom footage of Tupac during the 1994 New York proceedings that ended in his conviction on sexual abuse charges and his sentencing the following February. Rarely seen material from inside the room.
1994-09-26 - Pour Out a Little Liquor by Thug Life. A Thug Life record from Thug Life: Volume 1, the group album Shakur made with Big Syke, Macadoshis, Mopreme Shakur and Rated R. The song is a memorial to dead friends, taking its title from the ritual of pouring drink on the ground for them.
1994-11-28 - Tupac speaks to reporters outside a New York courthouse. Tupac addresses reporters outside the Manhattan courthouse during his sexual abuse trial, dated by the uploader to 28 November 1994. It is a brief record of him speaking for himself in the final days of the trial, two days before he was shot at Quad Studios.
1994-11-28 - Interviewed on the courthouse steps in Manhattan. Tupac speaks to reporters outside the Manhattan courthouse on 28 November 1994, during the sexual abuse trial and two days before the Quad Studios shooting. Contemporaneous footage of him addressing the case himself.
1994-11-29 - Speaking outside the Manhattan courthouse during jury deliberations. Tupac talks to reporters outside court on the day a Manhattan jury began deliberating the sexual abuse and weapons charges against him. He was shot at Quad Studios the following night and convicted the day after that. One of the last extended interviews before both events.
1994-11-30 - CNN reports the Quad Studios shooting. A CNN news report from the day Tupac was shot five times in the lobby of Quad Studios in Manhattan and survived. This is the broadcast record of the event itself, before any of the accusations that followed it.
1994-11-30 - News report on the Quad Studios shooting. A television news report on the shooting of Tupac in the lobby of Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan, where he was shot five times and survived. He publicly accused people he had trusted of setting him up; those accusations are contested and remain his claim rather than established fact. Contemporaneous broadcast coverage.
1994-11-30 - Television news reports the Quad Studios shooting. Contemporaneous news coverage of the night Tupac was shot five times in the lobby of a Manhattan recording studio and survived. He later blamed people he had trusted, but those accusations are his own and remain contested. Dated to the shooting the coverage reports.
1994-11-30 - Raw news tape outside Quad Studios after the shooting. Unedited b-roll shot on Seventh Avenue outside Quad Recording Studios in the hours around the shooting in which Shakur was hit five times and survived. Ground-level press footage of the scene, before any of the accusations he later made.
1994-12-01 - In court for the verdict in the sexual abuse case. Shakur appearing in a New York courtroom on 1 December 1994 for the verdict in the sexual abuse case, the day after he was shot at Quad Studios. He was convicted on some counts and acquitted on the more serious ones, and was sentenced the following February. Brief contemporaneous news footage.
1994-12-01 - Arriving at court in a wheelchair after the shooting. Licensed news imagery of Tupac being brought to the Manhattan courthouse in a wheelchair on 1 December 1994, the day after he was shot five times in the lobby of Quad Studios. He attended court while still badly injured. It is the most widely seen image of the days between the shooting and the verdict.
1994-12-01 - Inside Edition reports the Quad Studios shooting. An Inside Edition broadcast from 1 December 1994 reporting that Tupac had been shot five times in the lobby of Quad Studios in Manhattan and had survived. It is contemporaneous television coverage from the day the verdict in his trial also came down.
1994-12-01 - Leaving New York court hours before he was shot. Tupac speaking to press as he left the New York courthouse, defending himself against the charges he faced. The same night he was shot in the lobby of Quad Studios. Getty-licensed news footage dated by the supplier to 1 December 1994.
1995-02-07 - Report on the sentencing. A short broadcast item marking Shakur's sentencing in the New York sexual abuse case, after which he was imprisoned at Clinton Correctional Facility. He had been convicted on some counts and acquitted on the more serious ones.
1995-02-07 - News report on the prison sentence. A short television news report on Shakur's sentencing in February 1995, after his conviction in the New York sexual abuse case. He was sent to Clinton Correctional Facility, where he was still held when Me Against the World was released the following month. Contemporaneous broadcast footage.
1995-02-21 - Dear Mama, the video. Shakur's tribute to his mother Afeni, released as the lead single from Me Against the World. The record addresses her addiction and the poverty he grew up in without softening either. The video intercuts family photographs and home-movie style footage with Shakur performing.
1995-03-14 - Me Against the World. The title track from Me Against the World, released while Tupac was in prison. It is his most reflective record and it arrived at the lowest point of his life, which makes it the hinge of his career rather than a footnote to the court case.
1995-06-13 - So Many Tears, the video. A single from Me Against the World, written as a reckoning with grief and the friends he had lost. 2Pac was in prison when the video was made, so it was assembled using a stand-in and existing footage rather than a new performance.
1995 - Long interview on making the album that became All Eyez on Me. A long sit-down with Bill Bellamy in which Shakur talks about his life and the record he was then making, released in February 1996 as All Eyez on Me. It catches him in the period after Suge Knight posted his bond and he signed to Death Row. The uploader dates the conversation to 1995.
1995 - Interview after leaving prison. Tupac speaks shortly after his release from prison in late 1995, before All Eyez on Me was released. It catches him at the hinge of his career, between the sentence and Death Row. Ten minutes of him talking, uncut.
1995 - Ambitionz Az a Ridah and California Love at Club 662. Tupac performs at Club 662, the Las Vegas club associated with Death Row, in a set including Ambitionz Az a Ridah and California Love. Live footage from the label period is thinner than the interview record, which makes performance tape like this useful.
1995 - Long interview after his release from prison. An extended interview recorded after Tupac left prison on bail in October 1995, in which he discusses signing to Death Row and the album he was then making. His own account of the deal, given at the moment he entered it. Dated to late 1995 on the strength of what he discusses.
1995 - MTV interview with Dr. Dre after his release. Tupac, sitting with Dr. Dre, talks to MTV's Bill Bellamy about Me Against the World, joining Death Row and what he intended to do next. Recorded within weeks of leaving prison on bail. This copy carries added Portuguese subtitles.
1995 - Interview inside the Death Row Records office. Tupac is interviewed at the Death Row Records office, in the period around his release from prison on bond and his signing to the label. He speaks about the label and his position on it. The setting itself documents how quickly Death Row became his base.
1995 - Luther Campbell interviews him at Club 662. Luther Campbell talks with Tupac at Club 662 in Las Vegas shortly after his October 1995 release from prison on bail. Him speaking in the first weeks of the Death Row period.
1995 - Phone conversation with Sanyika Shakur after release. A recorded telephone conversation between Shakur and the author Sanyika Shakur, dated by the uploader to October 1995, days after his release from prison on bond. It catches him talking privately rather than to a camera, at the moment his Death Row period began. The French subtitles are the uploader's addition.
1995 - Tupac describes the New York shooting from prison. Tupac, days into his sentence, gives journalist Kevin Powell his account of the night he was shot at Quad Studios; the interview ran in Vibe in April 1995. The names he raises are his own accusations against people he had trusted, and they remain contested rather than established.
1995 - His first interview after leaving prison. A long, uncut conversation with Los Angeles Times reporter Chuck Philips, recorded in a Tarzana studio six days after Tupac left prison and signed to Death Row. He is twenty-four and talking about what the eleven months changed. Nearly an hour of his own voice at the hinge of his career.
1995 - Tabitha Soren walks the Venice boardwalk with him. An extended MTV News conversation with Tupac, recorded in 1995, covering his childhood poverty, the meaning of his name, leaving art school and where he expected to end up. Broadcaster's own upload of a long-form sit-down in which he speaks for himself throughout.
1995 - Reading the prison essay on whether Thug Life is dead. A reading of the essay Tupac wrote in prison questioning whether Thug Life still had a purpose. It sets out his own reasoning about the code he had helped draft, in his words rather than a summary of them. The video is a presentation of the text, not footage of him.
1995 - The prison interview with Kevin Powell. Tupac interviewed in jail by journalist Kevin Powell in early 1995, while serving his sentence and with Me Against the World about to be released. The interviews from this period are where he is most reflective about how he got there.
1995 - Police station camera footage. Police camera footage of Tupac in custody at a station, circulated by a fan archive. It is a plain institutional record of him inside the process rather than performing for a camera.
1995 - A long prison interview at Clinton Correctional. An extended interview recorded while Tupac was imprisoned at Clinton Correctional Facility, in the stretch when Me Against the World was topping the chart without him. He talks about trust and about having nowhere to go. The uploader places it around late 1995; the exact date is not established.
1995 - Unidentified footage from a New York courtroom. Brief footage of Tupac in a courtroom during his New York case. The upload carries no description, date or source, so which hearing it shows cannot be established. Placed in the 1994-95 court sequence at the later end.
1995 - Prison interview on what rap is and who he is. Tupac speaks from prison in 1995 about rap music, policing and how he is characterised. One of the incarceration-period interviews in which he reflects on his own position at length.
1995 - Prison interview on being disrespected. A short excerpt from one of the interviews Tupac gave while incarcerated in New York, speaking about disrespect and how he was being written about. The prison interviews are among the most reflective things he recorded. Which sitting this is taken from is not identified.
1995-06-28 - Prison interview as a wrongful-death suit is filed. Shakur interviewed in prison at the end of June 1995, around the time the family of a killed Texas state trooper sued him on the claim that his music incited the shooting. He is speaking for himself while incarcerated and mid-litigation.
1995-08-29 - Temptations, the hotel video. "Temptations" is a single from Me Against the World about the pull of women and fame on the road. Shakur was in prison when the video was made, so it was filmed without him, using a hotel setting and guest appearances by other rappers in his place.
1995-10-12 - Live at Club 662 on the night he left prison. A full previously unseen set at Club 662 in Las Vegas, performed the day Suge Knight posted his bond and he flew west. Five songs including material that had not yet been released. The first night of the Death Row period.
1995-10-18 - A recorded phone call with Sanyika Shakur. An hour-long telephone conversation between Tupac and the author Sanyika Shakur, taped on a home answering machine days after Tupac's release from prison. Neither man knew he was being recorded, which makes it unusually unguarded.
1995-10-19 - First interview after leaving prison. An unedited hour-long interview with journalist Chuck Philips recorded at Can Am studios days after Death Row posted the bond that freed Tupac pending appeal. He is recording All Eyez on Me as he speaks, and this is his own extended account of where he stood at that moment.
1995-12-03 - California Love, the video. 'California Love' paired Tupac with Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman's talkbox hook, and was his first single after leaving prison. The video is the Mad Max-styled desert sequence directed by Hype Williams, with Dre and Tupac at a fortified settlement rave. This copy runs the extended cut that carries the Part 2 material.
1996-01-04 - Full Death Row set at Gund Arena in Cleveland. A complete concert with the Outlawz and Tha Dogg Pound at Cleveland's Gund Arena, opening the tour that preceded the All Eyez on Me release. Forty-five minutes of him performing live.
1996-01-04 - On stage in Cleveland weeks after leaving prison. Short live footage of Tupac performing in Cleveland, Ohio, dated by the uploader to 4 January 1996, less than three months after he left prison on bond. Fifty seconds, shot from the crowd. Live sets from this stretch of the year are less documented than the summer ones.
1996-02-13 - 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted, the video. "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted" teams Shakur with Snoop Doggy Dogg on a Death Row track from All Eyez on Me. The video plays as a short crime story with the two rappers cast as the pair the title names.
1996-02-13 - Footage and promotion around All Eyez on Me. Promotional footage assembled around the release of All Eyez on Me, his first record after signing to Death Row. The album was the commercial peak of his lifetime output.
1996-02-28 - Presenting an award alongside KISS at the Grammys. Tupac shares a Grammy stage with KISS, introducing the band during their reunion year. A glimpse of him inside the mainstream music industry months before his death. Kept for the footage, not the uploader's commentary.
1996-02-29 - Explaining the move to Death Row. A short clip of Tupac accounting for his decision to sign with Death Row Records, months after Suge Knight posted his bond. He gives his own reasoning on camera. The uploader dates the recording to 29 February 1996.
1996-03-07 - Tupac and Snoop Dogg together on Yo, with outtakes. Tupac and Snoop Dogg interviewed together for the show Yo on 7 March 1996, including material cut from the broadcast. The two of them on camera weeks after All Eyez on Me came out, talking rather than performing. Outtakes make it fuller than the aired version.
1996-04-19 - The full KMEL radio interview with Sway. A long radio interview with Sway on KMEL's Westside Radio in San Francisco, recorded weeks after All Eyez on Me came out. Given the airtime and a hometown audience, he lays out his position on the feud, the label and the press at length. Dated to the broadcast.
1996-04-19 - Full KMEL radio interview from the Bay Area. A three-quarter-hour interview on KMEL's Westside Radio, broadcast on 19 April 1996 from the Bay Area station closest to where he grew up. He speaks at length two months after All Eyez on Me and five months before he was killed. One of the fullest surviving radio conversations with him.
1996-05-04 - Tupac and Ice-T in conversation. A short interview pairing Tupac with Ice-T, recorded in May 1996 during the All Eyez on Me run. Two rappers who had both been named targets of the political campaign against the genre.
1996-06-04 - Hit 'Em Up, with the Outlawz. A diss record aimed at the Notorious B.I.G. and Bad Boy, released as a B-side to How Do U Want It and recorded with the Outlawz. It is the sharpest document of the East-West feud in his catalogue. The video stages the group confronting look-alikes of the rappers named in the lyrics.
1996-06-04 - On the set of the Hit Em Up shoot. Extended footage from the video shoot for "Hit 'Em Up", the most direct escalation of the feud between Shakur and his East Coast rivals. It shows the making of the record rather than the finished video. Whether that feud was authentic or largely manufactured by labels and press is genuinely contested.
1996 - Footage described as the funeral service. A brief clip the uploader presents as Tupac's funeral service in 1996. The description supplies only a biography, and the family held no public gravesite, so the material's provenance is doubtful and it is kept only as a record of what circulates.
1996 - Suge Knight interviewed a week after the killing. Knight, who was driving the car on East Flamingo Road and was himself injured, gives a television interview roughly a week after Shakur died. A first-hand participant speaking while the investigation was new.
1996 - Memorial service footage. Footage from the memorial held for Tupac after his death in September 1996. He was cremated and there is no public gravesite, which makes the recorded memorial most of what survives of the mourning. Uploaded on the official channel.
1996 - Footage from the memorial after his death. Seven minutes of footage from the mourning and memorial that followed Tupac's death in September 1996. It records the public reaction at the time rather than a later account of it. No broadcaster credited and the uploader supplies no details.
1996 - How the networks reported the killing as it happened. A compilation of mainstream news coverage broadcast in the days after Tupac was shot in Las Vegas, assembled from the original 1996 reports. It shows how the press framed the story in real time, including the language it reached for. The uploader's own framing of a media conspiracy is not adopted here.
1996 - His death announced from the stage at a Nas concert. Audience footage of the announcement of Tupac's death being made to a crowd at a Nas concert. A record of the immediate public reaction rather than of the events in Las Vegas.
1996 - MTV News reports his death. MTV News coverage from September 1996 reporting that Tupac had died of his injuries in Las Vegas at twenty-five. Period broadcast material from the week it happened.
1996 - Tupac gives his account of the Quad Studios shooting. In a 1996 interview Tupac describes the November 1994 shooting in the Quad Studios lobby, where he was shot five times and survived. What he says about who was responsible is his own accusation and was contested at the time; it is not established fact. The exact interview date is not documented.
1996 - Vibe interview: his account of who knew about the shooting. Part of a Vibe magazine interview in which Tupac talks about prison and states his belief that Sean Combs had prior knowledge of the Quad Studios shooting. The accusation is his own and was denied; it has never been established as fact. It is kept because his stated version of events is itself part of the record.
1996 - KMEL radio interview on being shot. A long radio interview in which Shakur talks about being shot, about loyalty and about fame. His account of the 1994 shooting is his own telling, and the accusations he made about it are contested rather than established. Dated to the 1996 recording, not the recent re-upload.
1996 - So Many Tears live at the House of Blues. Shakur performing So Many Tears with the Outlawz at the House of Blues in 1996, from the concert film later issued commercially. The show is among the last full performances he gave. Released on video in 2005 from the 1996 recording.
1996 - MTV interview alongside Snoop Dogg. Shakur and Snoop Dogg interviewed together for MTV during the Death Row period, talking about the label and the pressure around them. The uploader's claim about exactly when in 1996 it was recorded is not established here.
1996 - Interview with Bobby Brown surfaces years later. A joint interview with Bobby Brown recorded in the summer of 1996 that only came to light when it was posted in 2011. Late footage of him talking in the last months of his life.
1996 - Performing Hit 'Em Up at the House of Blues. Shakur performs Hit 'Em Up with the Outlawz at the House of Blues, the most direct escalation of the East/West feud delivered live. How much of that feud was real and how much was driven by labels and press is still argued over.
1996 - Performing I Ain't Mad At Cha on network television. A late-1996 network television performance of I Ain't Mad At Cha, one of the last times he appeared on a national stage. Primary broadcast footage rather than a fan edit.
1996 - Shakur on his acting ambitions. Shakur talking about his commitment to acting in an interview from 1996, the year he was working on Gridlock'd and Gang Related. He treated film as a career in its own right rather than a sideline to the records. The source programme is not identified on the upload.
1996 - Backstage interview with Ice-T at a television taping. Shakur and Ice-T interviewed around a 1996 network television appearance, two rappers who had both been political targets talking side by side. Primary footage of him speaking in his final year.
1996 - Interview about making Gridlock'd. Shakur talking about Gridlock'd, the film he shot in his last year and which opened after his death. One of the late interviews in which he discusses acting as the work he wanted to be taken seriously for.
1996 - On a boat with Suge Knight during the album shoot. Tupac with Death Row chief Suge Knight during the All Eyez on Me photo shoot, talking about the record's songs and producers and sending a message to the men he says shot him in New York. His accusations here are his own claims and were never established as fact.
1996 - In the studio with Snoop Dogg and the Outlawz. Studio and set footage filmed during a visit by Lemika, a young woman Tupac invited to California after a car accident left her paralysed, showing him working with Snoop Dogg, the Outlawz and Danny Boy. It catches the recording process and how he behaved off-camera at once.
1996 - A Death Row era interview. A short interview with Tupac from his Death Row period. The uploader supplies only an encyclopedia entry rather than a date or broadcaster, so the setting is unidentified.
1996 - Promotional interview during the Gridlock'd shoot. Tupac gives a promotional interview on the set of Gridlock'd, the film he was shooting in 1996. He talks about the work as an actor at a point when his acting and his records were running in parallel. Subtitled in French by the uploader; the interview itself is period.
1996 - House of Blues with Snoop Dogg and the Outlawz. Tupac performing Ambitionz Az a Ridah and So Many Tears at the House of Blues in Los Angeles, months after leaving prison on bail and signing to Death Row, sharing the stage with Snoop Dogg, Tha Dogg Pound, Nate Dogg and the Outlawz. One of the best-documented live sets of his final year.
1996 - Interviewed on the set of his last film. Tupac talking during the making of Gang Related, the crime film he shot in 1996 and which was released after his death. He speaks about the work itself, on camera, in his own words. The clip is a re-upload with no broadcaster credited.
1996 - Interviewed on Luke's Peep Show before the album. Tupac talks to Luther Campbell on Luke's Peep Show around the release of All Eyez on Me, including his account of the Quad Studios shooting and who he held responsible. Those accusations are his own and are contested in the record. A period television interview rather than later commentary.
1996 - Interview crew inside the mansion with the Outlawz. An hour-long interview recorded at Tupac's home during his birthday week in June 1996, with the Outlawz and members of his household present. He discusses the One Nation project and the people around him in an unusually loose setting. Among the last extended interviews before his death that September.
1996 - Interview on the Gridlock'd set. A full-length interview filmed on the set of Gridlock'd, in which Tupac talks about playing the character Spoon and about his work more broadly. He was still filming and recording heavily in the last year of his life.
1996 - The Vibe interview released two decades later. Vibe's own publication of a long Tupac interview from its archive, held back and issued for the twentieth anniversary of his death. He speaks at length in his own words. The magazine conducted the interview during his lifetime.
1996 - Live at the House of Blues. Tupac performing live at the House of Blues in 1996 with the Outlawz. It is the best-documented concert footage from his final year and one of the few full-band performances filmed properly. Part one of the set.
1996 - Performing on stage in Cleveland. A short clip of Tupac performing "What'z Ya Phone #" on stage in Cleveland. Amateur audience footage of a 1996 date, the kind of record that survives from shows no broadcaster filmed. Fragmentary but primary.
1996 - Studio session footage from the Death Row year. Footage from inside the studio during the 1996 sessions, showing how quickly he was recording in this period. Material of him actually working, rather than talking about working, is comparatively rare. The specific session date is not documented in the metadata.
1996 - Performing Dear Mama live. A live performance of "Dear Mama", the song addressed to his mother and among the most direct pieces of writing he did. The upload is an unofficial remaster of period concert footage. The venue and date are not documented.
1996 - Hour of vault footage from the Death Row years. Roughly an hour of unedited recordings from the Death Row archive covering Tupac's time at the label. Off-duty and behind-the-scenes material of this length is unusual and shows the working environment rather than the finished output. Provenance is stated as the label vault but not otherwise documented.
1996 - Performing 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted at the House of Blues. Tupac performs "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted" at the House of Blues in Los Angeles in July 1996, from the officially released recording of the show. It is one of the last filmed concert performances of his life, about two months before he was killed. Dated to the performance.
1996 - Behind the scenes at a Death Row video shoot. Unedited footage from behind a 1996 music video shoot, with Tupac alongside Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Kurupt, the Outlawz and others from the Death Row roster. It shows the working atmosphere of the label in his last year. The shoot date is not documented.
1996 - Interviewed alongside Suge Knight. Tupac and Suge Knight speak to camera together during the Death Row period, the year the label released All Eyez on Me. Seeing the two of them answer questions side by side shows how the arrangement was presented publicly. The clip carries no broadcast date beyond the year.
1996 - Officer wounded in Atlanta speaks on a talk show. One of the police officers shot in the 1993 Atlanta incident appears on the Jenny Jones show to give his account. Charges against Tupac over the shooting were ultimately dropped, and this is a contemporaneous television airing of the other side of it.
1996 - On signing to Death Row. A short piece of period footage in which Tupac explains his decision to sign with Death Row and speaks warmly about Suge Knight. It is his own framing of the move, recorded while he was in it. The upload has been digitally upscaled and carries no broadcast date.
1996 - Sway interview on the East and West rivalry. A long 1996 radio interview in which Tupac is pressed on the East Coast and West Coast conflict and answers at length in his own terms. How much of that rivalry was genuine and how much was amplified by labels and the press is still argued over. Dated to the 1996 recording, not this later repost.
1996 - House of Blues concert filmed from the crowd. Long audience footage of Tupac's House of Blues performance in 1996, one of the last full concerts he played. It runs well over two hours and shows the set as it was experienced from the floor rather than as broadcast. Dated to the 1996 performance.
1996 - August interview weeks before Las Vegas. Tupac speaking in August 1996, during the Death Row period and a few weeks before he was shot in Las Vegas. It is his own voice close to the end of his life, when he was recording at an extraordinary rate. The first part of a longer recording.
1996 - Suge Knight interviewed during the Death Row year. A 1996 interview with Suge Knight, the Death Row co-founder who posted the bond that freed Tupac and signed him to the label. He speaks about the operation he was running. It is a period record from the label side rather than later recollection.
1996 - Two of Amerikaz Most Wanted live at the House of Blues. Tupac performs 'Two of Amerikaz Most Wanted' at the House of Blues in 1996, in what became one of his last filmed concerts. He works the crowd on material from All Eyez on Me. The recording captures him performing at the height of the Death Row period.
1996 - Tupac speaks to MTV at Snoop Dogg's murder trial. Snippets of an MTV interview with Tupac outside the Los Angeles courthouse where his Death Row labelmate Snoop Dogg was on trial for murder. Snoop was acquitted in February 1996, placing this in the first months of Tupac's Death Row period.
1996 - Tupac interviewed at the Death Row offices. Tupac speaks to camera at the Death Row Records offices for a television piece on the label's publicist, filmed in 1996. It places him inside the organisation he signed to out of prison, talking on its own premises.
1996 - How Do You Want It live at the House of Blues. Tupac performs "How Do You Want It" at the House of Blues in 1996, backed by the Outlawz and a live band. The set is one of the few filmed full-band performances from his Death Row year and shows how the records were staged live.
1996 - Tupac and Snoop Dogg interviewed together at Death Row. Nearly ten minutes of Tupac and Snoop Dogg being interviewed together during their Death Row year, talking about the label and about each other. The pairing was central to how Death Row presented itself in 1996.
1996 - Preparing the All Eyez on Me artwork at Death Row. Behind-the-scenes footage from inside Death Row Records of Tupac working with publicist Papa G on artwork for his double album. Shows the label's working environment in the months around the record's completion.
1996 - Suge Knight interviewed after the killing. Part of a long interview in which Suge Knight, who was driving the car in Las Vegas, answers questions about Tupac's death. Knight's own account, and one that has to be weighed against the rest of a contested record.
1996 - MTV News assembles his own words. An MTV News segment built from Tupac's own recorded remarks, captured off a VHS tape. The uploader notes it aired after his death but before the Makaveli album appeared in November 1996.
1996 - The Angie Martinez interview, mostly unreleased for decades. A long 1996 radio conversation between Tupac and Angie Martinez, only a fraction of which was broadcast at the time. Him speaking at length in the final year of his life.
1996 - Performing When We Ride at Club 662. Tupac performs "When We Ride" with the Outlaw Immortals at Club 662 in Las Vegas in 1996. Live footage from the Death Row touring period.
1996 - Tattoo Tears live at the House of Blues. Tupac and the Outlawz perform "Tattoo Tears" at the House of Blues, from the 1996 show later issued commercially as a concert film. One of the last filmed full performances of his life.
1996 - Full uncut concert with Snoop Dogg, introduced by Suge Knight. An unedited two-and-a-half-hour recording of a 1996 show featuring Tupac and Snoop Dogg, with Suge Knight introducing. A rare complete performance document from the Death Row period.
1996 - MuchMusic's last interview with Tupac. The Canadian broadcaster MuchMusic's final interview with Tupac, from its own archive. A broadcaster-held sit-down from the last year of his life, uploaded by the channel that recorded it.
1996 - Vibe lost interview on leaving the streets. An instalment of Vibe magazine's extended interview with Tupac, posted by the magazine itself, in which he talks about leaving street life behind, falling in love and Bill Clinton. Uploaded by the publication that conducted it, which makes it the best available copy.
1996 - Snippets from a New York Post interview. Short excerpts from an interview Tupac gave the New York Post during the All Eyez on Me period. Fragmentary, but it is him speaking to a newspaper at the height of his Death Row output.
1996 - MTV joins Tupac and Snoop on a video shoot. MTV behind-the-scenes footage with Tupac and Snoop Dogg during the making of 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted, from the broadcaster's own vault. Working footage of the Death Row period from the network that shot it.
1996 - Troublesome performed at the House of Blues. Tupac performing Troublesome at the House of Blues in 1996, shot from an unusual angle. One of the last filmed performances of his life, from the final year of his touring.
1996 - Simon Rex interviews him for MTV. A short clip of Shakur being interviewed by the young MTV VJ Simon Rex, posted decades later by the interviewer himself. Rex describes it as 1996 and as one of the last interviews he gave. The value here is Shakur's own manner in an offhand promotional setting rather than the content of the questions.
1996 - Broadcast report on Dr. Dre leaving Death Row. A 1996 television news segment on Dr. Dre's departure from Death Row Records to found Aftermath, and on the coast-to-coast feud surrounding the label. It is period reporting on the business Shakur had just joined. How much of that feud was genuine and how much was amplified by labels and press remains a live argument.
1996 - Short interview from the Death Row period. A brief on-camera interview with Shakur during his time at Death Row Records. It is short and carries no description, but it is his own voice in the final year of his life. The original broadcaster is not identified.
1996 - With Snoop Dogg between takes on a video shoot. Shakur and Snoop Dogg interviewed together during a break in filming the video for "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted". The two of them talking side by side documents the Death Row roster at its peak. Dated to the 1996 shoot rather than the upload.
1996 - A short lost interview from the All Eyez on Me period. A brief interview recorded around the release of All Eyez on Me, the double album that opened his Death Row year. Little-circulated footage of him speaking in the months before his death.
1996 - A brief clip of Tupac outside the House of Blues. About a minute of candid footage of Tupac outside the House of Blues in 1996. Incidental material rather than a staged interview, showing him in the last year of his life.
1996-07-04 - House of Blues set with Snoop Dogg and the Outlawz. Part of Tupac's House of Blues performance of 4 July 1996 with Snoop Dogg, Tha Dogg Pound, Nate Dogg and the Outlawz. It is the best-documented full concert of his last year and was later released commercially by Death Row. This upload covers one segment of the set.
1996-07-04 - Ambitionz Az a Ridah at the House of Blues. Tupac performs Ambitionz Az a Ridah at the House of Blues in Los Angeles on 4 July 1996, roughly two months before he was killed. It is one of the last filmed performances of the Death Row period.
1996-08-15 - Speaking at the Brotherhood Crusade rally against Proposition 209. Tupac appears with Suge Knight, Snoop Dogg and MC Hammer at a Los Angeles rally opposing California's Proposition 209. He speaks in an explicitly political setting, weeks before he was killed. Rarely seen footage of him addressing a campaign rather than a camera crew.
1996-09-04 - Tupac and Snoop Dogg interviewed at the MTV Video Music Awards. Tupac and Snoop Dogg speak to MTV at the Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall on 4 September 1996. It was his last public appearance; he was shot in Las Vegas three days later.
1996-09-07 - The last footage of Tupac in Las Vegas. Brief footage of Tupac in Las Vegas on 7 September 1996, the night he attended the Tyson-Seldon fight at the MGM Grand with Suge Knight. He was shot in a car on East Flamingo Road later that evening and died six days later.
1996-09-07 - Footage from the East Flamingo Road scene. Footage taken around the Las Vegas scene where Tupac was shot on the night of 7 September 1996, while stopped at a light on East Flamingo Road with Suge Knight driving. He died of his injuries six days later.
1996-09-13 - Agency report on his death in Las Vegas. A brief agency news report that Shakur had died at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, six days after being shot on East Flamingo Road. He was 25.
1996-09-13 - A local newscast on the night he died. The complete 10pm KNXV newscast from Phoenix on 13 September 1996, the day Tupac died at University Medical Center in Las Vegas at twenty-five. An unedited local broadcast shows how the death was reported as it happened, alongside the ordinary news of the day. Dated to the broadcast.
1996-09-14 - NBC Evening News reports his death. The NBC Evening News report broadcast the day after Tupac died in Las Vegas. Ninety seconds of how a national network told the story at the time.
1996-09-14 - Television news reports Tupac's death. News coverage broadcast on 14 September 1996, the day after Tupac died at University Medical Center in Las Vegas of gunshot wounds received six days earlier. It is contemporaneous reporting of the death itself, aged twenty-five.
1996-09-19 - Suge Knight interview six days after the death. Suge Knight interviewed on 19 September 1996, less than a week after Shakur died and having been in the driver's seat when the shooting happened. He was the closest witness to the attack and the head of the label Shakur was signed to. A contemporaneous account from a direct participant.
1996-09-19 - Suge Knight on MTV News a week after the death. MTV News interviews Suge Knight on 19 September 1996, six days after Tupac died and while Knight was still the central figure at Death Row. The segment's producer posted it with the recording date. It is contemporaneous reaction from the man who was driving the car in Las Vegas.
1996-09-24 - Coolio reacts on Geraldo Rivera's show. Geraldo Rivera interviews Coolio about Tupac's killing on 24 September 1996, eleven days after his death. Coolio talks about what Tupac had spoken out against and how the death was being read. It is contemporaneous reaction broadcast while the story was still unfolding.
1996-11-05 - Toss It Up, the video. Released under the Makaveli name from The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, with Danny Boy, Aaron Hall and K-Ci and JoJo on the hook. The video was shot in the days before Shakur was shot in Las Vegas and issued after his death.
1996-11-05 - Hail Mary, the video. Credited to Makaveli, "Hail Mary" appeared on The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, the album issued weeks after Shakur was killed. The video is a dark graveyard and church treatment featuring the Outlawz. This is the 2PacVEVO rights-holder copy.
1996-11-05 - Toss It Up, behind the scenes. On-set footage from the shoot for 'Toss It Up', one of the last videos Shakur made, showing him and Suge Knight between takes. The record appeared under the Makaveli name after his death. Kept as genuine behind-the-scenes material from a specific shoot.
1996-11-05 - To Live and Die in LA, the video. A single from The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, released under the name Makaveli after 2Pac's death. The record is an address to Los Angeles, and the video moves through the city's streets, car culture and neighbourhood gatherings.
1997-02-24 - Biggie's final interview, months after the killing. BET's Rap City interview with the Notorious B.I.G. on the set of the Hypnotize video, recorded on 24 February 1997 and the last he gave before he too was killed weeks later. He reflects on Tupac's death and on his own Life After Death album.
1997 - MTV assembles his own interviews after his death. An MTV News special built from the network's own sit-downs with Tupac between 1992 and 1996, broadcast a year after he was killed and updated with a report by Chris Connelly. It is the broadcaster's own archive of his voice, edited into a single account. Dated to the 1997 broadcast.
1997 - Afeni Shakur speaks a year after his death. Afeni Shakur making a public statement, dated by the uploader to September 1997, roughly a year after her son was killed. She was the person closest to both his origins and his estate, and her own words are primary material. The clip is brief and its original broadcast source is not identified.
1997 - Assata Shakur filmed in exile in Cuba. Gloria Rolando's documentary portrait of Assata Shakur, in which Shakur speaks at length in exile in Cuba. She is part of the family and political inheritance Tupac was born into, and this is her own account rather than a summary of it. The film's own release year is used, not the upload date.
1997 - Assata Shakur documentary filmed in Havana. Gloria Rolando's documentary portrait of Assata Shakur, the former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member who escaped prison and received asylum in Cuba. She speaks at length about her own life and politics. She is described within the Shakur family as Tupac's godmother, a relation the archive records as the family's own account.
1997 - Afeni Shakur interviewed after her son's death. A long interview with Afeni Shakur recorded roughly a year after Tupac was killed, in which his mother speaks for herself. She was a defendant in the Panther 21 trial while pregnant with him, and her account is the closest thing the archive has to a first-hand origin source.
1997-08-03 - Assata Shakur tells her own story in Havana. Assata Shakur, a member of Tupac's extended family, addresses a student workshop at the World Youth Festival in Havana in August 1997, giving her own account of her prosecution and exile. It is first-person testimony from the Panther generation whose history Tupac inherited, recorded a year after his death.
1997-11-25 - Do For Love, the video. 'Do For Love' was released posthumously from R U Still Down? (Remember Me) and builds on a Bobby Caldwell sample, with Eric Williams of Blackstreet on the hook. The official video uses animation to stand in for Tupac, who had died the year before it was made.
1998-01-01 - Unconditional Love. A posthumous track issued on the Greatest Hits compilation, produced by Tony Pizarro. Shakur addresses loyalty, family and the cost of the life he was living. The video assembles footage of him against street scenes.
1998 - Assata Shakur's open letter to the Pope. A reading of the open letter Assata Shakur wrote in 1998, after New Jersey state troopers asked Pope John Paul II to call for her extradition. She is part of the Shakur family circle that forms the political background to Tupac's upbringing. The recording is a later reading of the letter rather than period footage.
1998 - Afeni Shakur on faith and losing her son. Afeni Shakur speaking about faith and loss roughly two years after Tupac's death. She is a first-hand voice on the family the archive begins with, and her own account carries weight the commentary around her does not. A one-minute excerpt from a longer sit-down.
1998 - A news broadcast on the campaign against gangsta rap. An archival news segment on the political campaign against gangsta rap, featuring C. DeLores Tucker and Bill Bennett alongside rappers answering them. Tupac was a named target of that campaign while he was alive. The upload dates the broadcast to 1998, after his death.
1998-10-13 - Changes. Built on a sample of Bruce Hornsby's The Way It Is, Changes was released as a single from the posthumous Greatest Hits compilation. The lyrics deal with racism, policing and drugs. The video sets archival street and protest imagery against footage of Shakur.
1999 - MTV programme on the poems he left behind. An MTV programme built around The Rose That Grew from Concrete, the collection of poems Tupac wrote as a young man. His writing outside the records is a real part of the work and is thinly documented on film. Broadcast material, re-uploaded without an air date.
2000-01-01 - Baby Don't Cry, Keep Ya Head Up II. A posthumous record credited to 2Pac and the Outlawz, released on the Still I Rise album and framed as a sequel to Keep Ya Head Up. The verse addresses a woman surviving assault, and the video pairs Outlawz performance with a narrative of the woman it speaks to.
2000 - Nikki Giovanni reworks The Rose That Grew From Concrete. The poet Nikki Giovanni performing her own reworking of Tupac's poem The Rose That Grew From Concrete, recorded in 2000. Giovanni's Black Arts and civil-rights lineage connects his writing back to the tradition it came from.
2000 - Assata Shakur in later life. A later photograph of Assata Shakur, formerly of the Black Liberation Army. She has lived in Cuba since being granted asylum.
2000 - Nikki Giovanni reads The Rose That Grew From Concrete. The poet Nikki Giovanni performing Tupac's poem 'The Rose That Grew From Concrete', from the album built around the collection of his verse published in 1999. His writing treated as writing, by a poet who took it seriously.
2001-03-27 - Until the End of Time, the video. The title track of the posthumous album Until the End of Time, built on a sung hook from R.L. Huggar. The official video intercuts performance footage with archive of Shakur, released almost five years after his death.
2002-11-26 - Thugz Mansion with Nas. A posthumous release from Better Dayz imagining an afterlife free of the pressure the verses describe, with Nas added to the released version and J. Phoenix on the hook. The video sets the two rappers against footage of the neighbourhoods the song is written about.
2003 - Resurrection, told in his own recorded words. The 2003 feature documentary Resurrection, assembled so that the narration is entirely Shakur's own recorded speech, with no outside narrator. It was made with his mother Afeni's involvement and was nominated for an Academy Award. Presented here as a full-length copy.
2003 - A segment of Resurrection as broadcast in Turkey. Part six of Tupac: Resurrection, the Academy Award-nominated documentary narrated entirely from his own recorded words, in its Turkish MTV broadcast. The film is the fullest assembly of him telling his own story.
2003 - Resurrection, narrated from his own recordings. The Resurrection documentary, assembled so that the narration is Tupac's own recorded speech rather than a presenter's. It is the main authorised film account of his life and belongs in the archive as a posthumous work about him. This is a fan upload rather than the distributor's.
2003 - Resurrection, narrated in his own words. The feature documentary Resurrection, assembled so that the narration is drawn entirely from Tupac's own recorded interviews. It is the most substantial authorised account of his life and it was made with his mother's company.
2003 - MTV special for Tupac Resurrection. A broadcast special made around the release of Tupac: Resurrection, the documentary assembled so that the narration is drawn entirely from his own recorded words. It is the main attempt to tell his life in his own voice after his death. Dated to the 2003 release.
2003-11-11 - Runnin', Dying to Live. )" reworks an unreleased Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. recording for the Tupac: Resurrection soundtrack, over an Eminem-produced Edgar Winter sample. The video intercuts archive footage of both rappers.
2003-11-14 - The trailer for the authorized documentary Resurrection. The trailer for Tupac: Resurrection, the first authorized documentary about his life, assembled so that the narration is drawn entirely from his own recorded words. It was nominated for an Academy Award. Dated to the film's release.
2004-11-15 - Ghetto Gospel, the video. A posthumous single built by Eminem around an Elton John sample, released on the Loyal to the Game album. The video combines animation with archival images of Shakur. Kept as the copy of the released video.
2005 - Amiri Baraka speaks in her defence. The poet Amiri Baraka speaking at a Hands Off Assata rally in Newark, New Jersey. The rallies drew writers and organisers from the Black Arts and Panther generations.
2005 - Demonstrators at a Hands Off Assata rally. Demonstrators holding signs in defence of Assata Shakur and Sundiata Acoli at a Hands Off Assata rally. Campaigns against her extradition ran for years.
2008 - Afeni Shakur speaking. Afeni Shakur giving a speech. She was acquitted in the Panther 21 case in May 1971 while pregnant with him, having conducted part of her own defence.
2008 - Afeni Shakur at the Dream Reborn conference. Afeni Shakur speaking at the Dream Reborn Conference in Memphis on 4 April 2008, the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.
2008 - Afeni Shakur addressing the conference. A second photograph of Afeni Shakur at the Dream Reborn Conference in Memphis, 4 April 2008. She spent her later years as the custodian of her son's estate.
2008 - Afeni Shakur and the foundation. Afeni Shakur with the executive director of the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, Memphis, 2008. She ran the foundation and the estate until her death in 2016.
2008-08-25 - Mopreme Shakur on Thug Life and the group. Tupac's stepbrother Mopreme Shakur, a member of Thug Life, interviewed at length by Ray Luv, who also knew Tupac from the Bay Area years. Two people who were actually there, on the group and the code behind it.
2010 - Painted on a wall in Ipanema. Graffiti of Tupac in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro. He has been painted onto walls in cities he never visited, which is one measure of what happened to his memory.
2010-09-01 - The written rules of the Thug Life code. A segment laying out THUG LIFE as an actual written code with rules, drafted with Mutulu Shakur and intended to limit harm in street conflict. The document behind the slogan is more specific than the phrase suggests. Dated to this programme, not to the code's drafting.
2011 - CBS reports a confession claim in the lobby robbery. A CBS News segment reporting Dexter Isaac's statement claiming responsibility for the November 1994 robbery and shooting of Tupac. The claim is Isaac's own and, like the other accounts of that night, is contested rather than established fact.
2011 - Dressed as him in the street. A man dressed as Tupac, photographed under the caption "2Pac Lives". The persistence of the impersonation is part of how the mythology works.
2012-04-15 - Projected onstage at Coachella. Audience footage of the Tupac projection that appeared during Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg's Coachella set, sixteen years after his death. It was widely called a hologram but the effect is a Pepper's ghost projection, not a hologram.
2012-04-15 - Coachella projection performs alongside Snoop and Dre. The Coachella set in which a projected image of Tupac performed with Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre. It was widely called a hologram but was a Pepper's ghost projection, an old stage illusion rather than new technology.
2012-04-15 - Projection performs at Coachella with Dr Dre and Snoop. Wall Street Journal coverage of the Coachella set in which a projected image of Tupac appeared on stage alongside Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg. It was widely called a hologram but was a Pepper's ghost projection, an optical illusion using a reflected image. Broadcast the day after the performance.
2012-04-15 - The Coachella projection with Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg. The Coachella performance in which a projected image of Tupac appeared onstage with Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg. It was widely called a hologram but was a two-dimensional projection using the Pepper's ghost technique, as the uploader notes.
2012-04-15 - The Coachella projection performs Hail Mary. The much-discussed Coachella appearance in April 2012, in which a projected image of Shakur performed alongside Snoop Dogg. It was a Pepper's-ghost stage projection rather than a hologram, despite being universally reported as one. Audience footage from the festival.
2012-04-15 - A projected likeness performs at Coachella. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg performing at Coachella alongside a projected image of Shakur, running through "California Love", "Hail Mary" and "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted". It was widely called a hologram but was a Pepper's-ghost projection. The moment marked how far his image had travelled sixteen years after his death.
2012-04-15 - The Coachella projection, filmed from the front row. An audience recording of the Tupac projection during Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg's Coachella set, sixteen years after his death. Widely called a hologram, it was a Pepper's-ghost projection. Filmed on a phone from the front row on the night.
2012-04-15 - Snoop Dogg performs beside a projection of him at Coachella. Footage of the 2012 Coachella set in which Snoop Dogg performed alongside a projected image of Tupac, produced by AV Concepts to Dr. Dre's concept. Widely called a hologram, the effect was a Pepper's-ghost projection rather than a true hologram.
2012-04-15 - Coachella projection performs Hail Mary with Snoop Dogg. The Coachella performance in which a projected Tupac appeared on stage with Snoop Dogg for 'Hail Mary', sixteen years after his death. The effect was a Pepper's-ghost projection rather than a hologram, despite how it was reported. Audience footage from the festival.
2012-04-15 - The Coachella projection performance. Footage from the Coachella festival appearance in which a projected image of Tupac performed alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. It was widely called a hologram but was a Pepper's ghost projection, an illusion using reflected imagery. Filmed at the 2012 festival.
2012-04-15 - Projected on stage at Coachella beside Snoop Dogg. The Coachella performance in which a projected image of Tupac appeared on stage with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. It was widely called a hologram but was a Pepper's-ghost projection, an old stage technique rather than a new one. Full-set recording of the segment.
2012-04-15 - Coachella projection performs alongside Dr. Dre and Snoop. Audience footage of the Coachella set in which a projected image of Shakur appeared with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. It was widely called a hologram but was a Pepper's-ghost projection, an optical illusion using a reflective film.
2012-04-15 - The Coachella projection of Tupac performs with Snoop Dogg. Audience footage of the 2012 Coachella performance in which a computer-generated projection of Tupac appeared on stage alongside Snoop Dogg. It was widely called a hologram but was a Pepper's-ghost style projection, not a hologram.
2012-04-15 - The Coachella projection performs alongside Snoop Dogg. Audience footage of the Coachella performance in which a projected image of Tupac appeared onstage with Snoop Dogg, sixteen years after his death. It was widely called a hologram but was a Pepper's-ghost projection, an old stage illusion rather than new technology. Dated to the performance.
2012-06-14 - Prodigy on how the Mobb Deep conflict began. Prodigy of Mobb Deep, named directly on "Hit 'Em Up", describes how the conflict with Tupac and Death Row started and how he reacted to the record. He was a participant, not an observer. How much of the East-West feud was genuine and how much was driven by labels and press remains an open argument.
2012 - Afeni Shakur speaks about her son. His mother Afeni Shakur talking about Tupac in a recorded interview, excerpted as one part of a longer conversation. She was a Panther 21 defendant who was pregnant with him during that trial, and she is a first-hand source on his upbringing. Neither the original interview nor its date is identified on the upload.
2012 - Mutulu Shakur profiled as activist and healer. A movement-produced profile of Dr Mutulu Shakur, Tupac's stepfather, covering his work as an acupuncturist and his role in the New Afrikan Independence Movement. Mutulu co-drafted the THUG LIFE code with Tupac and was imprisoned for most of Tupac's adult life. Made by activists rather than a broadcaster, and it argues a position.
2012 - Afeni Shakur speaks at the Dream Reborn conference. Afeni Shakur addresses the Dream Reborn conference, filmed by an attendee. She was a Black Panther defendant who conducted part of her own defence while pregnant with Tupac, and her own public speech is the most direct available account of the political inheritance he was born into.
2013-05-03 - Angela Davis and Lennox Hinds on Assata Shakur's case. A Democracy Now! segment recorded the day after Assata Shakur was added to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, with her longtime attorney Lennox Hinds and Angela Davis. It sets out the state's decades-long pursuit of the Panther generation Tupac was born into. Reposted here by a third-party channel.
2013-05-03 - Assata Shakur's lawyer on the FBI case against her. Democracy Now! interviews Lennox Hinds, Assata Shakur's defence attorney, after she was added to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list. Assata is part of the Shakur family story that formed Tupac's political background, and this is a broadcaster's own upload rather than a re-cut.
2013 - Engineer Jay Lean on the sessions he ran. An interview with Jay Lean, an engineer on tracks from Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. and Me Against the World, talking about how those recordings were made. It is testimony from someone who was in the room, which is what the archive wants when Shakur's own voice is not available. The conversation was recorded long after the fact.
2013 - A wanted poster reissued decades later. A third FBI wanted poster for Assata Shakur, issued on 2 May 2013, the fortieth anniversary of the New Jersey Turnpike shooting for which she was convicted.
2013-10-25 - Mouse Man on the Baltimore years and meeting Tupac. An interview with Dana 'Mouse Man' Smith, who knew Tupac as a teenager in Baltimore and performed with him there. He is a first-hand witness to a period with very little surviving footage. Dated to the interview's own recording rather than the years it describes.
2014 - A drawn portrait. A freely-licensed drawing of Tupac. Because almost no photograph of him carries an open licence, drawings and murals are much of what the free record holds.
2015 - The Graham House from the street. Another view of the Baltimore School for the Arts building on Cathedral Street. The school is a competitive public arts high school and remains open.
2015 - Inside the old Alcazar Hotel building. A second view of the former Alcazar Ballroom incorporated into the Baltimore School for the Arts. The school occupies a set of repurposed historic buildings.
2015 - The building that houses the school. The William H. Graham House on Cathedral Street, part of the Baltimore School for the Arts campus. A modern photograph of the place, since no free photography of its interior in his years exists.
2015 - The former Alcazar Ballroom
2015 - Mopreme Shakur on the Atlanta shooting case. Tupac's stepbrother Mopreme Shakur gives his account of the 1993 Atlanta incident involving two off-duty police officers. He is a family member describing events he was close to, though the account is his own recollection told two decades later.
2015-07-14 - Mopreme Shakur on the meaning of Thug Life. Mopreme Shakur, Tupac's stepbrother, explains the Thug Life acronym and says Tupac intended it for the poor and disenfranchised. Testimony from inside the family about a phrase widely used against him.
2016 - A mural in a Vienna underpass. Tupac painted in the Lobkowitztunnel in Vienna, part of a student wall gallery. The murals are how he persists in public space rather than in archives.
2016 - Stencilled on a wall in Vilnius. Stencilled portraits of Ray Charles, Jimi Hendrix, Tupac, Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye on a wall in Vilnius, Lithuania. The same set of faces recurs on walls across the world.
2016 - Eyes of the Rainbow documentary on Assata Shakur. Gloria Rolando's documentary film on Assata Shakur, who was part of the Shakur family circle and lived in exile in Cuba. It gives the Black Panther and COINTELPRO background against which Tupac was born and named. The family relation is described differently in different accounts.
2016-09-04 - Dhoruba Bin Wahad on the Panther 21 acquittal. A co-defendant of Afeni Shakur describes the Panther 21 prosecution in New York and the undercover informants who built the case. First-hand testimony from someone who stood trial alongside Tupac's mother, recorded decades later.
2016-10-26 - Sekou Odinga on the Panthers and COINTELPRO. A Democracy Now! interview with Sekou Odinga, a Black Panther who spent decades in prison, on joining the party, the FBI's COINTELPRO campaign against it and Assata Shakur's escape. Odinga was a participant in the events, and the broadcast documents the political world Tupac was born into.
2016-12-20 - The Hall of Fame announcement. A short news item reporting that Tupac had been selected for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in his first year of eligibility and alongside nominees including Janet Jackson and Kraftwerk. The induction itself followed the next spring.
2017-03-28 - Snoop Dogg announced as Tupac's Hall of Fame inductor. A short REVOLT news item from March 2017 reporting that Snoop Dogg would induct Tupac into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the ceremony on 7 April. It records the announcement rather than the induction itself.
2017-04-07 - Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Footage from Tupac's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, twenty years after his death. The induction marked hip-hop's arrival in an institution that had been slow to admit it. Dated to the ceremony.
2017-04-07 - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Footage from Tupac's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, twenty years after his death. Recognition from an institution that had largely kept hip-hop at a distance until then.
2017-04-07 - Hall of Fame induction tribute at Barclays Center. The full tribute segment for Tupac at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, held at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on 7 April 2017. Twelve minutes covering the induction as it happened, shot in the room. He was inducted twenty years after his death.
2017-04-07 - Snoop Dogg inducts him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Snoop Dogg delivers the induction speech for Tupac at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in Brooklyn. Snoop knew him and recorded with him on Death Row, which makes the speech testimony as much as tribute. Filmed from the audience at the ceremony.
2017-04-07 - Snoop Dogg's induction speech at the Rock Hall. Snoop Dogg inducts Tupac into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the 2017 ceremony, speaking about working with him at Death Row. The induction came twenty years after his death. It marks his entry into an institution built around rock music.
2017-04-07 - Treach performs Hail Mary at the induction ceremony. Treach performs "Hail Mary" at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony that inducted Tupac. The Hall of Fame's own upload of the tribute.
2017-04-07 - Alicia Keys performs at the Hall of Fame induction. Alicia Keys plays "I Ain't Mad at Cha", "Ambitionz az a Ridah" and "Changes" at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony that inducted Tupac. Audience footage of the tribute performance.
2017-04-07 - Alicia Keys performs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Alicia Keys performing at the April 2017 ceremony at which Shakur was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, more than twenty years after his death. Audience-shot footage of the tribute set. The induction marked his entry into the institution's canon.
2017-04-07 - Snoop Dogg inducts Tupac at the Rock Hall. Snoop Dogg delivers the induction speech for Tupac at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony at the Barclays Center. This is the institution's own upload of the ceremony.
2017-04-07 - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Footage from the ceremony inducting Shakur into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, twenty years after his death. He was inducted as a solo hip-hop artist.
2017-04-07 - Rock Hall tribute performance for the induction. Snoop Dogg and YG perform 'Two of Amerikaz Most Wanted' at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony honouring Tupac, posted by the Hall's own channel. The performance followed the induction speech. It is the institution's record of how the night marked him.
2017-04-07 - Keep Ya Head Up performed at the Rock Hall induction. T.I., Snoop Dogg, YG and Treach perform "Keep Ya Head Up" at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony that inducted Tupac, from the institution's own archive. Snoop Dogg delivered the induction.
2017-04-07 - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute performance. Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg, T.I., Treach and YG perform at Tupac's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at Barclays Center. He was inducted twenty years after his death.
2017-06-10 - One of the officers shot in Atlanta gives his account. An Atlanta station revisits the 31 October 1993 shooting involving two off-duty officers, with one of the men involved speaking. The charges against Tupac were ultimately dropped. A participant's account, recorded long after the event and dated accordingly.
2017-06-13 - The original ending of Juice, from the studio archive. Paramount's own 25th-anniversary featurette on the ending first shot for "Juice," the film that gave Tupac his first major role as Bishop. The material comes from the studio that made it and documents a production decision about the film's close.
2017 - The school on a summer afternoon. The Baltimore School for the Arts on Cathedral Street, photographed in 2017. He was admitted here as a teenager and studied acting and ballet.
2017 - Cathedral Street frontage. A further 2017 view of the Baltimore School for the Arts. The buildings are repurposed nineteenth-century hotel and ballroom structures.
2017 - The school buildings from the corner. Another 2017 photograph of the Baltimore School for the Arts campus in Baltimore, Maryland.
2017 - Snoop Dogg inducts him into the Hall of Fame. Snoop Dogg's induction speech for Tupac at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, delivered by someone who recorded and performed with him. Tupac was the first solo hip-hop artist inducted, though that framing is worth checking before it is repeated.
2017 - Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee profile. The Hall of Fame's own profile of Shakur, made for his induction in his first year of eligibility. It is institutional rather than period material, but it documents how his work was formally canonised two decades after his death. Published by the institution itself.
2017 - Quoted again after an acquittal. A Black Lives Matter rally at the Minnesota State Capitol after the not-guilty verdict in the Yanez trial. His words continue to appear at protests two decades on.
2018-02-21 - Death Row Chronicles asks whether the feud was constructed. A segment from BET's Death Row Chronicles series examining the falling-out between Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. and putting the question of whether the feud was manufactured by labels and press. Broadcaster documentary treating that argument as open, which it remains.
2018-05-22 - Khalil Kain on acting opposite him in Juice. Kain, who played Raheem in Juice, gives a full-length account of making the film and working with Tupac. A recollection from someone directly on the production, recorded long afterwards.
2018 - Mutulu Shakur on sovereignty and political imprisonment. Mutulu Shakur, Tupac's stepfather, speaking about New Afrikan nationhood, self-determination and political-prisoner status. He is a direct participant in the political tradition Tupac was raised inside, which makes his own account primary for that inheritance. The recording date is not stated in the metadata.
2018 - A broadcaster history of how Death Row was built. The opening episode of BET's Death Row Chronicles, on Suge Knight's founding of the label and his partnership with Dr. Dre, with participants interviewed on camera. It sets out the business Tupac signed into in 1995. A later documentary, dated to its own broadcast.
2019 - Assata Shakur and the Black Liberation Army. A short piece on Assata Shakur, a figure in the Shakur family's political inheritance and part of the Black Panther and Black Liberation Army history behind Tupac's name. The compilation is a later upload and its footage is not individually dated. Assata Shakur's exact family relation to Tupac is described differently in different accounts.
2019 - A stretch of road named for him. The section of MacArthur Boulevard in Oakland named for Tupac Shakur. Oakland is where he was arrested for jaywalking and later sued the city.
2020 - Assata Shakur in her own words. Assata Shakur speaking for herself about the Black Liberation movement. The recording's own date is not stated by the uploader, and her exile means such recordings span decades.
2020 - Mutulu Shakur interviewed from federal prison. Part of a prison interview with Dr Mutulu Shakur, Tupac's stepfather, recorded during his federal sentence. The upload is tied to the campaign for his compassionate release; he was granted parole in December 2022 and died in July 2023. A first-hand voice from the family, with an advocacy frame.
2020 - A designed portrait. A portrait of Tupac by the designer Hungry Blvd, released under a free licence. It is an artist's rendering rather than a photograph.
2021 - Assata Shakur speaks in Havana. Assata Shakur addresses an audience in Havana, Cuba, where she has lived since receiving political asylum. She is part of the Panther and Black Liberation Army generation that Tupac was born into. The recording preserves her own voice rather than accounts of her.
2021-09-12 - A childhood friend remembers the young Tupac. A long podcast interview with a man who says he was one of Tupac's close friends in his early years, recorded for the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. It is recollection rather than period record, but it comes from someone who describes himself as present at the time. Dated to the recording, not to the events discussed.
2021-11-18 - A writer on Afeni Shakur beyond her son. A long-form conversation with Tashan Reed about his Jacobin piece on Afeni Shakur, treating her as a political figure in her own right rather than as Tupac's mother. Useful for the Panther background the music is usually detached from.
2022 - Marin City from the hills above it. Marin City, California, seen from the Alta Trail. The family moved here from Baltimore in 1988 and he arrived with nothing; the town sits in one of the wealthiest counties in America.
2022-06-24 - Suge Knight from prison on the Death Row years. Suge Knight, interviewed from prison, on posting Tupac's bond, the label's business and his dealings with Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg. He is an interested party describing events he was central to, and should be read that way.
2022-08-04 - Assata's Chant and the Black Liberation Army. The opening episode of a documentary series asking who Assata Shakur was and how her case fits the wider history of the Black Liberation Army. Background on the political lineage of Tupac's family rather than on Tupac himself.
2022-08-08 - Mopreme Shakur on his father's imprisonment. Mopreme Shakur describes the medical neglect his father Mutulu Shakur faced in federal prison while terminally ill. A first-hand account from inside the family, recorded while Mutulu was still incarcerated.
2023-01-10 - Scholars trace where the Thug Life code came from. A clip in which Akinyele Umoja and Kalonji Changa discuss the origins of the written Thug Life code and Mutulu Shakur's part in drafting it. It treats the code as an actual document with rules rather than a slogan, which is the more substantial story. Discussion, not period footage.
2023-03-13 - Albert Hughes on his fight with Tupac. Director Albert Hughes describes the altercation with Tupac that followed Tupac's removal from "Menace II Society," an incident that led to an assault conviction and a jail term. Hughes was a direct participant, and this is his own account given in a filmmaking interview decades later.
2023-04-23 - Long-form conversation on Afeni Shakur and the Panther 21. Professor Jared Ball interviews Dhoruba Bin-Wahad at length about Afeni Shakur and the Panther 21 case. Nearly two hours with a participant in the trial, discussing the political history behind the family Tupac was born into.
2023-04-25 - His brother on the Oakland arrest. Mopreme Shakur describes the 1991 Oakland incident in which Tupac was stopped after jaywalking and beaten, and says he photographed the injuries afterwards. A first-hand family account of an episode Tupac later sued the city over.
2023-05-08 - Dear Mama scene on Afeni Shakur's organising. A clip from FX's documentary series Dear Mama, on Afeni Shakur's political organising and its reach beyond the Black Panther Party. Broadcaster-produced material about his mother rather than period footage of her. Included as serious documentary from a broadcaster.
2023-06-07 - Tupac's Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's own recording of the ceremony at which Tupac received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, nearly twenty-seven years after his death. The full ceremony includes the speeches given on the day.
2023-06-07 - A posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Associated Press coverage of the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony honouring Shakur, held days before what would have been his fifty-second birthday. His sister Sekyiwa Shakur accepted the star on the family's behalf. Agency news footage.
2023-06-07 - Receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Footage from the ceremony at which Shakur received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The upload is a fan channel's recording of the public event rather than a broadcast report. Its date matches the ceremony.
2023-06-07 - Walk of Fame star unveiled in Hollywood. A local news report on Tupac receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, days before what would have been his fifty-second birthday. Broadcast the day of the ceremony.
2023-06-07 - Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony. Footage from the ceremony at which Tupac received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with family and collaborators present. It is one of the formal markers of how his work came to be regarded long after his death. Uploaded the day of the ceremony.
2023-06-07 - Walk of Fame star unveiled with his sister present. Footage of the Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony for Tupac, with his sister speaking at the unveiling. Family members accepting posthumous honours on his behalf is a recurring shape of his afterlife.
2023-06-07 - The Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in full. Variety's full coverage of the ceremony at which Tupac received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, with his family and collaborators speaking. It is the complete event rather than an edited highlight. Dated to the ceremony.
2023-06-07 - A star on Hollywood Boulevard. Coverage from the ceremony where Tupac received the 2,758th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, accepted on his behalf by his sister Sekyiwa Shakur. Twenty-seven years after his death.
2023-06-07 - Walk of Fame star ceremony. Shakur's posthumous Hollywood Walk of Fame star is unveiled, with family and collaborators present. Footage shot at the ceremony itself.
2023-06-07 - Walk of Fame star unveiled with family present. The Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony at which Tupac's star was unveiled posthumously on 7 June 2023, with family and collaborators attending and speaking. Includes interviews recorded on the day with DJ Quik and Young Noble. Twenty-three minutes of the event itself.
2023-06-08 - A Walk of Fame star, in the month of his birthday. Local news coverage of Tupac receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The report notes he was selected in 2013 and that the ceremony waited on his family and estate to choose a date.
2023 - Davis is arraigned in district court. Las Vegas Review-Journal footage of Duane Davis appearing in District Court for arraignment on a murder charge over the 1996 shooting. The first courtroom appearance in a case that had stalled for decades.
2023 - Mutulu Shakur on drafting the THUG LIFE code. Mutulu Shakur, Tupac's stepfather, discussing the THUG LIFE code he helped draft as a set of rules intended to limit harm in street conflict. A first-hand account from one of its authors, in conversation with Dr Akinyele Umoja.
2023 - A Vibe editor recalls the New York arrest. Alan Light, who edited Vibe and covered Tupac as a journalist at the time, discusses the November 1993 sexual abuse allegation and arrest in New York. He is a witness to how the press handled the case as it broke. This is a later recollection, not period footage.
2023 - Afeni Shakur on losing her son. A short clip of Afeni Shakur speaking about her son's death, circulated alongside the FX series Dear Mama. Afeni is a first-hand witness to his life and her account of the loss belongs in the record of how his death was absorbed by the people closest to him.
2023 - Death Row's security chief on Dr. Dre's exit. Reggie Wright Jr, who ran security for Death Row Records, describes how Dr. Dre told Suge Knight he was leaving the label in 1996. He was present for the period he is describing, and the account is his. A later recorded interview, not period footage.
2023-06-16 - Fox 5 revisits the Quad Studios shooting. A FOX 5 New York report on the November 1994 Quad Studios shooting and the rift that followed between Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. Tupac publicly blamed people he had trusted; those accusations remain contested and are his claim rather than established fact.
2023-07-21 - Report on the Las Vegas search warrant. News coverage of the police search of a home connected to a surviving witness, executed in July 2023 and the first visible movement in the case for years. It preceded the indictment that September.
2023-09-06 - Mopreme Shakur on Mutulu and the Thug Life code. Shakur's stepbrother Mopreme discusses Mutulu Shakur, who died in July 2023, and Mutulu's part in drafting the Thug Life code. First-hand family testimony about the written rules behind the slogan.
2023-09-29 - Local news reports the indictment in the killing. A local television report on the September 2023 indictment of Duane Davis for murder in the 1996 shooting of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas. The report notes that Davis had himself described being in the car the gunfire came from, in interviews and in a memoir. It is the first charge brought in the case in twenty-seven years.
2023-09-29 - Local news reports an arrest in the murder case. A broadcast news item on the day Duane Davis was arrested in Las Vegas and charged over the 1996 killing. It marks the point at which a case that had stalled for twenty-seven years produced a prosecution. Davis has pleaded not guilty.
2023-09-29 - Accused shot caller indicted for murder. A network news report on the day Duane Davis was charged with murder in the 1996 shooting, twenty-seven years after the killing. Davis, described as one of the last living witnesses to the drive-by, has pleaded not guilty.
2023-09-29 - Las Vegas police announce a murder charge. Associated Press footage of Sheriff Kevin McMahill announcing that Duane Davis, long known to have been in the car, had been indicted for murder in the 1996 shooting. Twenty-seven years after the killing, the first charge in the case.
2023-09-29 - Las Vegas police announce an arrest in the killing. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police news conference on the day Duane Davis was arrested and indicted over the 1996 shooting, after an investigation that had stalled for decades. Davis has pleaded not guilty. Broadcast footage from CBS Los Angeles.
2023-09-29 - Las Vegas police press conference on the murder arrest. Full local-news coverage of the police press conference announcing that Duane 'Keefe D' Davis had been arrested and charged with murder, nearly 27 years after the shooting. Davis has pleaded not guilty.
2023-09-29 - Las Vegas police announce the arrest in full. The full police and prosecution briefing given in Las Vegas on the day of Duane Davis's arrest, setting out what the indictment alleges about the 1996 killing. It is the case as the authorities themselves stated it, rather than as later reported. Davis has pleaded not guilty.
2023-09-29 - Las Vegas police set out the arrest timeline. Police in Las Vegas brief reporters on their investigation and on the arrest of Duane Davis, indicted for the 1996 murder. After decades in which the case stalled, this is the contemporaneous record of the charge being brought.
2023-09-29 - Charges filed after decades without an arrest. News coverage of the day Duane "Keffe D" Davis was arrested and indicted in Las Vegas for the 1996 murder, after an investigation that had stalled for nearly thirty years. The report sets out what the indictment alleges. Davis has pleaded not guilty.
2023-09-29 - Las Vegas police give a full briefing on the arrest. The complete Las Vegas Metropolitan Police press conference of 29 September 2023 following Duane Davis's arrest in the 1996 killing. Investigators set out the case in their own words at the point of charging.
2023-09-29 - Local news reports the arrest in the killing. KTVU reports the arrest and murder charge against one of the last living witnesses to the 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, after a case that had stalled for decades. Broadcast the day the charge was announced. Reported as a charge, which is what it was.
2023-09-29 - Sky News reports a charge in the Las Vegas killing. Sky News at Ten on the day Las Vegas police charged a man with the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur, after an investigation that had stalled for decades. Broadcast-desk coverage of the charge itself rather than speculation about it. The bulletin also carries unrelated stories.
2023-09-29 - News report on the indictment of Duane Davis. A wire news report on a Nevada grand jury indicting Duane 'Keefe D' Davis for murder in the 1996 shooting, after a case that had stalled for decades. Davis has pleaded not guilty. Dated to the broadcast.
2023-09-30 - News report on the charge brought over the murder. A news report from the end of September 2023 on the arrest and murder charge against a sixty-year-old former gang leader in the Las Vegas killing, the first charge brought in the case after twenty-seven years. The report covers the indictment; it does not establish guilt.
2023-10-03 - Crime scene photographs and video released to the public. NewsNation reports on the release of previously unseen crime scene photographs and video from the night of the shooting, following the arrest earlier that autumn. A reporter explains what the material adds to a case that had been treated as cold. Contemporaneous reporting on the evidence, without speculation about it.
2023-10-03 - Local report on the evidence behind the indictment. Las Vegas station KTNV reports on what led investigators to charge Davis, pointing to his own interviews and book. Contemporaneous legal reporting on the case as prosecutors framed it.
2023-10-04 - Duane Davis makes his first court appearance. A news report on Duane Davis appearing in court for the first time on the murder charge brought in the 1996 killing. Contemporaneous coverage of the case reaching the courtroom.
2023-10-04 - Murder suspect arraigned in a Las Vegas court. Live news coverage of Duane Davis appearing in court to be arraigned over the 1996 shooting, days after his arrest. Davis has pleaded not guilty. Contemporaneous broadcast reporting of the first court step in the reopened case.
2023-10-05 - The accused appears in court in Las Vegas. Brief news footage of Duane Davis appearing in a Las Vegas court in October 2023 on the murder charge over the 1996 shooting. Prosecutors allege he organised the attack; he has pleaded not guilty. Reported by The Mirror.
2023-10-19 - Arraignment delayed for the man charged in the killing. Access Hollywood reports that the arraignment of Duane "Keefe D" Davis was postponed a second time in October 2023 because his attorney needed more time on representation. Davis entered no plea at this hearing and has denied the charge.
2023-11-02 - Not-guilty plea entered at arraignment. Las Vegas station coverage of Duane Davis's arraignment, at which he pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and prosecutors confirmed they would not seek the death penalty. The report covers the procedural steps after the indictment. It records the case as it stood at that hearing and asserts nothing beyond it.
2024-04-10 - Joe Torry recalls the Poetic Justice set. Joe Torry, who acted alongside Tupac in Poetic Justice, describes what happened between them during filming. He was actually there, which is the test this archive applies to people talking about Tupac. It is a recollection given three decades later on a podcast, not contemporaneous record.
2024-07-23 - Bail hearing in the Las Vegas murder case. Las Vegas station coverage of a July 2024 hearing at which the judge heard arguments about bail for Duane Davis, and Davis objected to the prosecution's treatment of his family. It documents the case's slow progress through the court. The report goes no further than the proceeding itself.
2024-12-01 - Billy Garland on Afeni and his son's birth. Tupac's biological father describes Afeni Shakur giving birth and the circumstances around his own absence from his son's early life. It is first-person testimony about the origins the archive begins with, given decades later. Dated to the interview's release.
2025-01-21 - Judge rules against immunity claim in murder case. A Las Vegas station reports a judge's ruling that the man accused of orchestrating Tupac's murder has no immunity from prosecution in Nevada. A narrow procedural step in the case, reported by a local broadcaster.
2025-01-22 - Defence motion blames another figure for the killing. Legal-news coverage of a motion by Duane Davis's lawyers seeking dismissal, in which they argue that Sean Combs gave the order for the 1996 shooting. The claim is an argument in a defence filing, not a finding of any court, and no such charge has been brought. The archive records that the motion was filed and what it asserted.
2025-03-06 - The accused gives a jailhouse interview to ABC News. Duane "Keffe D" Davis, indicted in 2023 over the 1996 shooting, tells ABC News from jail that investigators have the wrong man. It is his first interview since his arrest and is reported here as his denial, not as a finding. Davis has pleaded not guilty.
2025-07-02 - Juror questioned in a separate trial involving Davis. A Las Vegas news report on a juror being asked by a judge whether he had improperly discussed the case, during a battery trial involving the man charged in Tupac's killing. It is a procedural episode in a separate proceeding, not the murder trial itself. Broadcast the day this report is dated.
2025-07-30 - Defence asks the state high court to throw out the case. A Las Vegas station reports that lawyers for Duane Davis have asked the Nevada Supreme Court to dismiss the charges over the 1996 killing. Contemporaneous local coverage of the case's progress through the courts.
2025-08-12 - Defence lawyers hold a press conference on the case. A local news recording of a press conference given by attorneys for the man charged over the 1996 killing. Duane Davis has pleaded not guilty. Coverage of the defence's public position as the case moved toward trial.
2025-08-12 - New defence attorneys brief reporters before trial. A full press conference on 12 August 2025 at which Michael Pandullo and Robert Draskovich addressed reporters after taking over the defence of Duane Davis. Recorded and posted by a Las Vegas station, it documents the case's progress through the courts. Davis has pleaded not guilty.
2025-12-25 - Defence asks judge to suppress evidence from a night search. Las Vegas station 8 News Now reports on a defence filing asking the court to exclude evidence seized in a nighttime search of the home of the man charged in Tupac's killing. It is routine pre-trial legal reporting on the case as it stood at the end of 2025.
2025-12-26 - Defence moves to suppress evidence from a night search. A local news report on Duane Davis's attorneys filing to keep evidence taken in a 2023 night-time search of his home out of his murder trial. It is ordinary pre-trial procedure in the only prosecution ever brought over the killing. Broadcast the day this report is dated.
2026-07-01 - Daz Dillinger on producing the first five tracks. Daz Dillinger describes producing the opening tracks of All Eyez on Me and says he was never paid for the work. A producer's own account of how the record was made, recorded decades later.
2026-08-04 - Mopreme Shakur on who wrote the THUG LIFE code. Mopreme Shakur, Tupac's stepbrother, explains how the THUG LIFE code was drafted and the part Mutulu Shakur played in shaping it. The code was a written set of rules meant to limit harm in street conflict, not just a slogan. A family member speaking, recorded decades after the fact.
2026-08-08 - Coverage as the murder trial is due to open. A news segment previewing the trial of Duane Davis, charged with orchestrating the 1996 shooting, reported as scheduled to begin on 10 August 2026, nearly thirty years after the killing. Davis has pleaded not guilty. The broadcast covers the case as pending, and the archive reports it the same way.
2026-08-09 - Mopreme Shakur speaks before the trial begins. An ABC7 report on the eve of the Las Vegas murder trial, including an interview with Tupac's step-brother Mopreme Shakur about the family's long wait for the case to be heard. A family member speaking for himself about a case still before the court. Broadcast 9 August 2026.
2026-08-10 - Davis gives a jailhouse interview before trial. NewsNation reports a face-to-face jailhouse interview with Duane Davis, who maintains his innocence and says his earlier account of a role in the killing was not truthful. The report was broadcast around the date his trial had been scheduled to begin.
2026-08-10 - Live coverage as the murder trial opens in Las Vegas. Live news coverage from the opening of the Las Vegas trial of Duane Davis, charged with orchestrating the 1996 shooting. Davis has pleaded not guilty. Broadcast on 10 August 2026, the date the proceedings were scheduled to begin.
2026-08-10 - Jury selection opens in the Davis trial. A Las Vegas station reports live from the courthouse as jury selection begins in the murder trial of Duane Davis, accused of arranging the 1996 shooting. Davis has pleaded not guilty.
2026-08-10 - Nightline reports jury selection in the Davis trial. An ABC News Nightline broadcast whose opening segment reports that jury selection was under way in the trial of Duane "Keffe D" Davis over the 1996 killing, followed by a segment on the East Coast-West Coast rivalry. It documents the case reaching trial thirty years on.
2026-08-10 - Jury selection begins in the Las Vegas murder trial. Live coverage as jury selection opens in Duane Davis's trial in Clark County District Court, thirty years after the shooting. Davis faces a murder charge with a deadly weapon enhancement and has pleaded not guilty; prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. The proceedings were repeatedly postponed before reaching trial.
2026-08-11 - Fox News panel on the murder trial underway. A Fox News segment discussing the trial of the man charged over the 1996 killing, with a correspondent and a defence lawyer. Duane Davis was indicted in 2023 and has pleaded not guilty. Broadcast reporting on where the long-stalled case now stands.
2026-08-11 - Jury selection continues in the Las Vegas murder trial. A FOX5 Las Vegas report from inside the courtroom as jury selection continued in the prosecution over the 1996 killing. Duane Davis was indicted in 2023 and has pleaded not guilty. Local broadcast reporting on the case as it proceeds.
2026-08-11 - Former Death Row security chief denies involvement. A FOX 5 segment in which a reporter relays an interview with Reggie Wright Jr., former head of security at Death Row, who denies claims by Duane Davis that he helped orchestrate the killing. Both the claim and the denial are assertions by the men making them, not findings of fact.

Full text archive: /loreline-text/2pac.md