“Trapped” is often cited as one of Pac’s first major works, and as being representative of an early, “political” phase, as opposed to the crass Death Row period. He makes threats like, “Did it before, ain’t scared to use my gat again,” and he does it in a bouncy cadence over danceable bass line and an organ that could have been ripped straight from an Oakland A’s game. The first single from 2Pacalypse Now was called “Trapped.” On it, Pac raps about racist policing techniques, the corrosive nature of prisons, and phone taps. But beyond all the mythmaking, there are important stylistic threads that began when he was waiting in the wings while Sex Packets played out on a stage in front of him. This has all been documented to exhausting degrees in books, documentaries, YouTube playlists, magazines, and now a feature film. Through a series of managerial connections, he landed a gig as a roadie and backup dancer for Digital Underground, with the understanding that if he kept his head down and his legs in Lycra, he’d get the shot he was looking for. Bay Area hip-hop’s aesthetics at the time suited him well - loose and propulsive, political but never humorless. He was awarded $43,000, the vast majority of which had to be earmarked for legal fees.Ī New Yorker by birth, Pac had moved with his family to Marin City when he was still a teenager.

Then he doubled down: “There is absolutely no reason for a record like this to be published … it has no place in our society.”ĢPacalypse Now was released in 1991, the same year that Tupac Shakur brought a $10 million lawsuit against the Oakland Police Department, alleging that officers brutally beat him after he’d been stopped for jaywalking. Quayle decried the “irresponsible corporate act” that Warner and Interscope committed by pressing 2Pacalypse Now. The trooper’s family sued Interscope and its parent company, Time Warner, along with the 21-year-old rapper, Tupac Shakur, whose work had supposedly animated the killing. The accused was said to have had 2Pacalypse Now in the tape deck of the stolen truck he was driving at the time of the shooting. There had been a murder in Texas a teenager was accused of fatally shooting a state trooper during a traffic stop. In September of 1992, Vice-President Dan Quayle called on Interscope to pull a record called 2Pacalypse Now off of retail shelves. Photo: Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Me against the world album art