#436: 2Pac, ‘All Eyez on Me’

DEATH ROW, 1996

News broke today that someone in connection with 2Pac’s murder has been arrested. We are only 27 years late on this investigation. 

This leads me to the last album he released during life, the double album, “All Eyez on Me.” 

Tupac wrote this album right after serving eight months of an 18-month to 4.5-year prison sentence for a sexual assualt charge. 

His release was paid for by the notoriously cruel Suge Knight of Death Row Records (Knight is currently in prison for manslaughter). Effectively, Pac promised three albums and absolute loyalty to Suge in exchange for a $1.4 million bail.  All Eyez on Me being a double album fulfilled 2/3rds of that deal. 

During the production of these albums, Pac was protested by civil rights activist C. Delores Tucker. She even sued 2Pac for slander for his references to her in the songs “How Do You Want It?” and “Wonda Why They Call You Bitch?” The case was thrown out, but goodness gracious. 

It is also believed that he was actively tracked by the FBI for fear of opening rebellion. A brief understanding of the 90s War on Drugs and fear of Black organizing by the federal government makes this feel very realistic. I don’t have evidence of the FBI with Tupac but I wouldn’t be surprised. 

Pac died just seven months after the release of All Eyez On Me and only dream hampton, journalist, producer and brilliant brain, was brave enough to draw a direct line from Suge Knight to the events of Pac’s murder. 

It’s a lot. 

Tupac was a person with All Eyez on him at all times. The media/national political world/and just suburban parents were obsessively preoccupied with him. Either they hated him or they loved him. There was no in-between about it. 

And honestly this whole album is a lot. 

Each song on this album covers a different corner of his multi-faceted self. Each song contributes to the understanding of the intense pressures surrounding him. The albums are a chaotic mix of anger, violence, love, understanding, questioning the afterlife, brotherhood and lust. 

One fun little side note is that a lot of the songs on these albums have ridiculously long outros with quiet and whispered conversations/monologues. It feels very “of that era” with some of the ear straining speeches ending with a cute lil’ ‘West SIIIIIDE!’

Throughout my listen, I kept thinking about Mary Oliver’s poem “Loneliness” published in her 2014 Blue Horses. 

I too have known loneliness.
I too have known what it is to feel 
misunderstood,
rejected, and suddenly 
not at all beautiful

All Eyez on Me is a meditation on all the layers of loneliness. Within loneliness, we can love and be loved and still feel on the outside.

I think when we take a moment to really breathe and feel and look around ourselves, we realize that we are alone. Our interactions only take us so far. This separation can either be colored through a veil of peace or that of disease. 

Tupac’s work flows through both curtains seamlessly. We hear a lot of violence and anger, the disease of bitter loneliness. We also hear love and brotherhood, a peaceful tone. Each extreme played over the fundamental understanding that he is “other.”  He still had a community who loved him but was overwhelmed by people staring him up and down, worshipping and damning. 

He is messy, he is dangerous, he is wise, he is impulsive, mean, kind and thoughtful. This album is all of that. 

Mary Oliver’s poem ends with this stanza: 

Oh, mother earth,
your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this.
Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning.
Oh, motions of tenderness!

Mary copes with her loneliness by looking at the simple and divine around us. 2Pac’s power is in that he already knew this skill. He knew his existence had already been written and prepared in the same way that this earth has been. He knew his life had worth from the moment he lay in his Black Panther mother’s womb in that prison cell. 

Some of us confuse our loneliness for boredom or lack of purpose or even lack of community. 

This is not always accurate. 

It is true that without community, we cannot survive. But without grappling with our loneliness and otherness, we cannot thrive. 

This double album is the grappling, both in solitude and with community. 

I guess I could have saved a lot of ink just by saying: Tupac is a gemini. 

Done. 

The end. 

Jk jk jk jk jk… I am only half serious.