Tupac was born in New York City and has often moved with his family. In 1988, his family moved to California, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1990, he was hired as a dancer for the alternative rap group Digital Underground. Tupac`s debut album, 2Pacalypse Now, was acclaimed and criticized for its controversial lyrics. Shakur became the target of various lawsuits and experienced legal problems. Most notably, he was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in 1993 (although he has vigorously denied the allegations). The day before the guilty verdict, Shakur was shot five times in the lobby of a Manhattan recording studio. After the incident, Shakur began to suspect that other figures in the rap industry knew about the shooting and did not warn him. The controversy would help spark the eventual feud between the East Coast and the West Coast. After serving eleven months of his sentence, Shakur was released on bail by Marion “Suge” Knight, the CEO of Death Row Records. In return, Shakur released three albums under the label, with his fifth album, the first double album in hip-hop history All Eyez on Me, counting as two albums. On September 7, 1996, Tupac was shot four times during a shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada.
On September 13, 1996, six days after the shooting, Tupac died of respiratory failure and cardiac arrest at the University Medical Center in Las Vegas. In October 1995, Shakur`s case was appealed, but due to all of Shakur`s legal fees, he was unable to pay the $1.4 million bond. After eleven months of his one-and-a-half- to four-and-a-half-year sentence, Shakur was released from prison, largely with the help and influence of Marion “Suge” Knight, CEO of Death Row Records. Knight posted a $1.4 million bail pending the appeal of the conviction, in exchange for hiring Shakur to release three albums for the Death Row label. But two events would come to the first stunt and end up igniting his starting career and catapulting him into the superstar`s stratosphere. The first of these events began in 1994 during a trip to New York, while Tupac was awaiting trial for his involvement in a sexual assault case. The trial had been a big stain in an otherwise financially successful year. The increased legal defense fee meant that Tupac was accepting contracts for guest appearances on other artists` albums.
Although Interscope advanced Tupac six hundred thousand dollars during the nine months he spent in prison, he was broke and frustrated. For Tyehimba, there seemed to be an unmistakable synchronicity at work. Interscope was unwilling or unable to provide sufficient funds to Tupac. And as Knight became an increasingly vocal admirer, “Interscope pushed us to go to death row,” Tyehimba says. Knight — accompanied by David Kenner, the death row attorney who had played an important role in the firm and went far beyond specific legal responsibilities — traveled to Dannemora several times to visit Tupac. Knight promised to fix Tupac`s most persistent problems. According to several people close to Tupac, Knight said Kenner could clear the legal backlog and get permission to post bail. Knight further promised that he would increase some of the bail and, more importantly, make Death Row the company`s guarantor for the whole.
Knight vowed that he would make Tupac a superstar, much bigger than he had been with Interscope. And it would solve Tupac`s financial worries. He would even buy a house in Afeni. Moreover, it was the first case of rivalry between the East Coast and the West Coast that would dominate the hip-hop world in the mid-1990s. “I know I`m selling my soul to the devil,” Tupac later told a friend after signing with death row. From the beginning of Tupac`s tutelage under Suge Knight, his time on death row was fraught with pitfalls. The contract was not written in jail and would not stand up to legal scrutiny or a comprehensive trade deal. Interscope is, in a way, a model of corporate responsibility. In fact, from a strictly entrepreneurial point of view, he has done more than necessary. After all, Tupac wasn`t officially the Interscope artist.
But Interscope executives may feel responsible for pushing Tupac into Suge`s arms. And there`s also a compelling business case for Interscope to do whatever it takes to ease the skirmish between Tupac`s estate and death row. As one lawyer close to the situation points out, if Afeni didn`t get what she wanted from death row, she would certainly pursue not only death row, but also Interscope, with the theory that the companies were so closely tied that they had joint exposure. Being the subject of a judicial inquiry into this matter could hardly have been an attractive prospect for Interscope, especially given the ongoing criminal investigation on death row. In December 1993, Shakur was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in his hotel room. According to the complaint, Shakur sodomized the woman and then encouraged his friends to sexually abuse him. Shakur vehemently denied the allegations. He had had sex a few days earlier with the woman who had made the accusations against him. She performed oral sex on him on a club dance floor and the two then had sex in his hotel room. The allegations came after she visited her hotel room for the second time, where she had sexual activity with her friends, claiming Tupac`s entourage raped her by telling her as she was leaving, “How could you do this to me?” Tupac says he fell asleep shortly after arriving and later woke up to his accusations and legal threats.
He later said that he felt guilty for leaving her alone and that he didn`t want anyone else to go to jail, but at the same time, he didn`t want to go to jail for a crime he didn`t commit. Shakur was convicted of “sexual abuse (forcibly touching the buttocks).” When Shakur was sentenced to a year and a half in prison, the judge described the crime as “a brutal act of violence against a defenseless woman.” These stories are all consistent with Suge`s actual criminal record, with a long list of serious assaults, illegal gun ownership, and extortion.