DISGRACELAND - Tupac Shakur Pt. 1: 1960s Radicalism Gives Way to Socially Conscious Rap, a Charismatic Screen Star, and Deadly Violence (Rewind)

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

Tupac Shakur was many things. He was a supremely talented MC and was wildly charismatic in front of the camera. He was also violent, angry and completely unable to keep himself out of trouble. Part one of his story traces his rise through the radical influence of his Black Panther lineage, the deadly violence that seemed to follow him wherever he went, and the inevitability of both prison and superstardom. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com. This episode was originally published on January 26, 2021. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTER Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: Instagram YouTube X (formerly Twitter)  Facebook Fan Group TikTokSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Elvis. Red Bull, Dragonberry and Tropic Berry Energizers. Now at McDonald's. Made with freeze-dried fruit. And an electric burst of flavor. The all-new Red Bull Energizers. Now at McDonald's.

This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine. Details at McDonald's.com. And participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec. Hello. We have incredible news. The exactly right store is having an end of summer. sale. From September 3rd through September 7th, you can save up to 30% off storewide on my favorite murder and exactly right merch. The more you spend, the more you save. Now's the time to grab that

shirt, tote, hat, coozy, whatever else has been sitting in your cart for the last three months. Head to exactly right store.com and use code summer sale for up to 30% off storewide. Some exclusions apply. Goodbye. Hey there, everybody. Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes here from the Amy and T.J. podcast. A lot of times the story of the day is what we're all talking about and buzzing about. And yes, sometimes it's Love Island and sometimes it's Serena, Robs. Coming back to the U.S. Open, sometimes it's obsession. And Spider-Man making box office history. Hopefully, Rose, people get our point. Listen to Amy and T.J. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, guys, welcome into another rewind episode of Disgracing. We're switching it up again this week, just like we did last week. Dolly Parton passed away. And we ended up putting Dolly's episode in the rewind slot for you. We're going to do the same thing this week because of the news with the Tupac murder mystery finally being cracked, we think, this week as D. Davis was convicted of orchestrating the death of Tupac Shakur in Lange. Vegas back on that night in September 1996. So we're going to run for you our two episodes on

Tupac Shakur that we, parts one and part two, that we originally ran back in January and February of 2021. These episodes deal with the rise of Pock and of course his demise and his entire career, his beef with Biggie, his time behind bars. If you want a more up-to-date, nuanced detailed look at the current state of the case and the conviction of Kee-Feed-D and other theories involving the death of Tupac. You can listen to this week's After Party that we just released. It's the episode right before this rewind that you're listening to right now, released in September of 2006, that after-party September 3rd, 2006. So here is part one of our Tupac story. Stay tuned. Don't go anywhere afterwards. Part two will be right after this.

Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Tupac Shakur are insane. He shot two police officers and got away with it, settled out of court after a six-year-old boy died from a bullet shot from his gun. He himself survived two bullets to the head. He famously brawled with the notorious B.I.G and partnered with the notorious blood street gang record label boss, Shug Knight. Tupac Shakur repped a new hybrid style of rap that was at once socially conscious

and at the same time violent and representative of the streets he came up on, raised by his mother, the former Black Panther in 60s radical. As a boy, he showed natural talent as an actor, attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, and later went on to display his immense acting talent and charisma and two critically acclaimed performances in his first two films. And in addition to making great movies, Tupacamaru Shikour also made great music. That music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Mellow Street Charisma, MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to want ads by Honeycomb.

And why would I play you that specific slice of deliciously soulful lipstick on the collar cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on June 16th, 1971. And that was the day Tupac Shakur came into this life, a life he would spend the rest of his short years trying to survive. On this episode, Lipstick Cheese, Radical Street Charisma, Too Many Bullets, and Tupac Shakur. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. The thing about five-star hotels, this one anyway, was that it was a bitch to get your music to play.

She decided against the Bluetooth connection. It was taking too long. So she just let the music blast from her iPhone while she got ready. Her 80s hip-hop playlist was blaring NWA as Fuck the Police. She loved this song. How could she not? It reminded her of 92. People thought 2014 was fucked up.

Ferguson, Tamir Rice, I can't breathe. 92, Los Angeles, Rodney King, the riots. It was a mess. The shower in the hotel suite blasted and so did Dre's beat. Her husband would be happy to hear it when he emerged to dry off. He was there back then, in L.A., right in the eye of the hurricane on April 29, 1992. It was before he really knew Dre, or should. He was recording an Atwater Village when the news hit.

He jumped in his Honda shipbox and raced to South Central. She knew this because her husband told this story every chance he got. She didn't fault him for. She would do the same if she witnessed that kind of history. She had her own jaw-dropping stories. It was in part why they worked so well as a team. She came from a totally different background than he, and they both appreciated that about the other,

though it hadn't always been that way. Back in 95, when they first hooked up, the difference in their backgrounds was what broke them up. He was black, she was white. He thought his fans wouldn't accept it. She was too proud to act like she cared. And so they went their separate ways, but both knew that one day they'd link back up.

And she was beyond thankful they had. And tonight, she was beyond proud of her husband. He'd earned this. But 92. 92 was an entirely different situation. Tupac Shakora looked around. Chaos. South Central Los Angeles on fire.

He was on the corner of Crenshaw in 28. and the looters were out in full force. He himself had just taken part in the looting of tempo records. He had filled his arms with CDs and was back at the car, about to dive back in and follow the action wherever it took him. But then he was recognized, that he would have been lying if he said he was upset when they started asking him for autographs.

He wasn't yet the star he'd become, but he could feel himself rising in stature in the music world, and this confirmed what he had already accepted as fact, that he was the most talented MC, working at the time. To be recognized out here, though, among his people, in the middle of what was clearly a monumental historic event, it felt special. It felt almost too perfect. Even though he wasn't from L.A., he's felt like his people. From that moment on, Tupac Shakur felt an even stronger obligation to complete the path he was on, to continue to rise up out of the situation he was

born into, to make something of himself, and to make damn sure that he survived and delivered on the promises made by his mother back in the more turbulent 1960s. But that was not an easy proposition. Not when he carried the baggage Tupac Amaro Shikor did. The baggage of growing fame and success. By the time of the riots, Tupac had completed and released his debut solo album, Tupacalypse Now, his first recording since coming up with the Digital Underground with a series of featured verses in 91. Tupaclapse Now was typical of any artist's first album,

it chronicled where Tupac Shakur came from. Tupac had written and rapped about his life as a teenager slash young adult in Marin City, California, a neighborhood that consisted largely of other African Americans living in public housing. His mother of Fini was back on the East Coast battling a serious crack addiction, and Tupac was living with an alcoholic ex-Black Panther friend of the family. Tupac survived Marin City by adapting to the ways of the street, and this meant standing his ground when challenged, physically and speaking out against injustices he saw threatening his community.

On Topocalypse Now, you can hear the paranoia induced by police brutality on Trapped and the trauma of teen pregnancy on Brenda's got a baby. Tupac knew his community and he was an accepted and protected member of that community, and they were his and he was theirs. When he turned 20, it was clear that Rappling was his main priority. It was a vehicle to not only survive the streets but to escape. them. When Tupac started giving interviews as an artist, he occasionally spouted off from what was fast becoming known as his legendary Big Maw. And in doing so, he betrayed the very place that made him,

Marin City. In an interview promoting his debut, Tupac referred to Marin City as a quote-unquote jungle. He then went on to gripe about how he wasn't given respect when he was coming up, because he didn't have any money or women, but that now that was changing with his growing success. Tupac went on to claim that he'd got love with the kind of love you would give a dog or a neighborhood crack feed, claiming that they only liked him because he was at the bottom. When word got back to the hood, Marin's City was not pleased. Tupac felt the sting and perhaps some fear. He had to make it right.

So it was decided that Tupac Shakur would perform at Marin City's annual street festival for free. A give back to the community. He had the best of intentions and then the whole point. plan went to shit. Get out from under the car with your hands up. Tupac heard the cop barking from three feet away. He lay there on the cement under the automobile and clinched his eyes closed, hoping the cop would just go away, hoping the sirens would stop screaming,

hoping the echo from the shot would fade from his ears. I said, get out from under the motherfucking car with your hands up. It was no use. The cop wasn't going anywhere and Tupac didn't want a chance getting shot. himself. He crawled out from under the car and onto the street with his hands up, a street that had quickly become a crime scene. He could hear the helicopters, but couldn't yet see them. Then, he tasted the blood in his mouth from the police officer's fist. It came out of nowhere, it was much harder than the punch he'd taken minutes before, the punch that set the whole

melee off. Tupac, like most everyone else in attendance at Marin City's 50th annual community festival on August 22nd, 1992, didn't have any clue what set the whole thing off. It all happened so fast. He and his crew showed up to perform, as was the plan, and some neighborhood roughnecks got in his grill, for what he didn't really know. And these days, it was all some version of the same thing.

Who the fuck did he think he was? Too good for the hood? A jungle? Fuck you, Tupac. We're still living here. And then someone hit him. Most likely some young blood trying to make a name in the neighborhood, Take a swing at the rap star, prove himself, and then there was the shot.

Tupac knew who fired the shot. It was his gun, after all. He brought it to the festival. It was registered in his name, a 380 colt automatic handgun. First, the punch, and then the gun fell out of his hand. Discharged. A bullet blasted off into the crowd. Someone then picked up Tupac's gun and allegedly started firing over the heads of Tupac's attackers.

100 yards away, 6-year-old Kaiyed walked up. or Teal was peddling by on his bicycle. The bullet from Tupac's gun blasted right through the boy's forehead, killing him instantly. Tupac, his half-brother and some of his crew were arrested in connection with the shooting but quickly let go, and Tupac was free to pursue his career. However, he was later sued by the boy's parents that eventually settled out of court, paying out an estimated $300,000 to avoid trial in quite possibly jail. A place Tupac Shakur had spent his earliest stays in and a place he would eventually become all too familiar with. Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropicberry Energizers, now at McDonald's.

Made with freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor. The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine, details of McDonald's.cai at participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec. Hello, we have incredible news, the exactly right. store is having an end of summer sale. From September 3rd through September 7th, you can save up to 30% off storewide on my favorite

murder and exactly right merch. The more you spend, the more you save. Now's the time to grab that shirt, tote, hat, coozy, whatever else has been sitting in your cart for the last three months. Head to exactly right store.com and use code summer sale for up to 30% off storewide. Some exclusions apply. Goodbye. Welcome aboard season six.

of the girlfriends, flight or fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. There's great food, comfortable chairs, and attentive stewardesses. The stewardesses were so beautiful. But in reality, the stewardess job is far less glamorous than it appears. It was the most sexist job I think you could have. In this era, the airlines told these stewardesses they have to be single. They had no good excuse for why they wouldn't let women be married. They have to be skinny. We were starving ourselves. And they have to be young.

You would retire at age 32. But one day, a group of stewardesses said, This has got to stop. They risked it all, turning a fight for fairness into a revolution. Listen to The Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, on the IHeart Radio, app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Afini Shakur sat in her jail cell awaiting trial. She was five months pregnant, and she knew in her heart that she would give birth to a

black prince. She was given one egg a day and a glass of milk for protein, an accommodation made only because she was pregnant. She could smell the grass wafting down the hall from another inmate's cell, and the smell turned her stomach, made it hard to eat, but it brought her back. Back to the Bronx, back to her days in the Disciples, one of the first female street gangs and one of the city's most fearsome. The pot used to soothe her, mellow her out.

Along with fellow members of the disciples, she would hang on the stoop, smoke joints, drop acid and freak out to sly in the family stone in Jimmy Hendrix records. But then Bobby Seal came calling, and her whole world changed. Bobby co-founded the Black Panthers, a revolutionary group inspired by Malpomexus by any means necessary edict and organized to loudly protest the injustices black Americans faced in the 1960s. The Black Panthers demanded total liberation from the impressive hand of white capitalist America through what they called ultra-democracy, which was basically just a clever way of saying that the Panthers weren't trucking with any Martin Luther King Jr. peaceful protest jive. They were in it

to take what was rightfully theirs, again, by any means necessary. The doctrine Bobby Cee's, Drafted with Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton entitled What We Want Now, laid it out simple. Number one, freedom, the power to determine the destiny of the black community. Two, full employment for their people. And three, the end to the robbery by the white men of the black community. Four, decent housing. Five, education that exposes the true nature of quote-unquote, this decadent American society. The sixth point called for the exemption of all by the public.

Black men from military service, this during the time of the Vietnam War. Number seven, an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people. Eight, freedom for all black men held in federal, state, county, and city prison, and jails. Nine, the calling for blacks to be tried and judged only by blacks in court. And finally, the 10th point demanded land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace. all of which sounded better to Afini than sitting on the stoop smoking grass listening to Sly Stone and showing up at her job as one of the first female postal carriers in Manhattan.

So she turned to the revolutionaries, violent revolutionaries. The Black Panthers were not, by any stretch, part of the peaceful hippie-dippy counterculture of the 1960s. They had justifiable beef over real injustices perpetrated upon Black Americans. But the violence they perpetrated, justified. the FBI's categorization of them as a domestic terrorist organization. That said, the FBI went way beyond the long arm of the law in combating the Panthers, and there is a real case to be made with the FBI aided and abetted Chicago PD in the murder of Panther Fred Hampton. The FBI was not averse to exploiting, rat-fucking, and trumping up

any and all charges and accusations against the Black Panthers, and there were many. Multiple shootouts with police that ended with dead and moving. on both sides. The conviction of Panthers co-founder Huey Newton in 1967 for the shooting death of an Oakland police officer. The arrest of Bobby Seal is a member of the Chicago 7 for his part in organizing the violent anti-war protests at the 68 Democratic National Convention. The Black Panthers were tried for the murder of member Alex Rackley and suspected of torturing and murdering Black Panther accountant Betty Van Patter, both for being suspected FBI informants. In Los Angeles, Panthers were active participants during the violent Watts riots.

And as mentioned, in Chicago, police raided the home of Fred Hampton on trumped-up charges that he was stockpiling illegal weaponry. He was mysteriously drugged earlier in the evening before the raid and then eventually shot and killed by police. Hampton's death robbed the Panthers of one of its most charismatic speakers and further radicalized the party. In the late 60s, the Black Panthers' violent revolutionary acts, however justified they may have been,

We're so prominent in the eyes of the public that California's Republican governor, Ronald Reagan, was able to use the organization as a boogeman to drum up support to pass strict gun control laws in his state. A Republican passing gun control laws. Atheney heard Bobby Sia laying out his Panther rap on a Manhattan Street corner, and she quickly signed on with the group. Soon after, she hooked up with fellow Panther, Mumba Shakur. And they laid ex to each other in bed on the morning of April 2, 1969. The raid came quick and from out of nowhere.

Five NYPD officers barreled into the living space, guns, drawn, screaming for everyone to get on the floor with their hands up. The cops were pissed. A few months earlier, their station house was bombed, and then shots were fired on the exiting officers. The assailants fled but left one of their own behind to answer questions, a black panther by the name of Joan Byrd, a friend of Afini. She was dragged into the station house and beaten senseless by the cops. Jones Byrd sang, and the cops put a tail on her in her associates. And when they thought there was enough contraband for an arrest, they raided the Panthers' home where Afini and Lumumba slept.

And they turned up ten guns, some brass pipe, the supposed makings of a pipe bomb, and a book entitled Urban Guerrilla Warfare. Afini and Lumumba Shakur were arrested on charges connected not only to the bombing of the Bronx Police Station House, but also in a larger conspiracy, alleging the Black Panthers planned to bomb other police stations and department stores frequented by white, middle-class shoppers. Afini was looking at 312 years in prison if convicted.

Bail was said at 100 grand. 60 of it was raised by the labor movement who supported the Panthers' cause, and the rest was provided in real estate collateral put up by her local church. Afini Shakur was out on bail. And during that time, two things happened. One, she got pregnant. Two, the house of the judge hearing her case was bombed. Her bail was revoked.

Off to jail she went, with a baby in her belly. Surviving the woman's house of detention would not be easy. The conditions were, as Afini Shakur argued in her own defense in court, inhuman. Female prisoners were denied toilet paper in hot water and provided with inedible food. But the baby in her belly would help her survive. If it weren't for him, there would be no real food, no one egg a day. No glass of milk, no survival. We'll be right back after this word, word, word.

The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropicberry Energizers, now at McDonald's, made with freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor. The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine, details at McDonald's.cai at participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec. Hello, we have incredible news. The Exactly Right store is having an end of summer sale. From September 3rd through September 7th, you can save up to 30% off storewide on my favorite murder and exactly right merch.

The more you spend, the more you save. Now's the time to grab that shirt, tote, hat, coozy, whatever else has been sitting in your car for the last three months. Head to Exactly Rightstore.com and use code summer sale for up to 30% off storewide. Some exclusions apply. Goodbye. Welcome aboard season six of The Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, which takes place 30,000 feet in the sky. There's great food, comfortable chairs, and attentive stewardesses. The stewardesses were so beautiful.

But in reality, the stewardess job is far less glamorous than it appears. It was the most sexist job I think you could have. In this era, the airlines told these stewardesses they have to be single. They had no good excuse for why they wouldn't let women be married. They have to be skinny. We were starving ourselves. And they have to be young. You would retire at age 32.

But one day, a group of stewardesses said, This has got to stop. They risked it all, turning a fight for fairness into a revolution. Listen to The Girlfriends, Flight or Fight, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Afini Shakur was eventually acquitted on all charges connected with the alleged Black Panther bombing of the Bronx Police Station House. After the birth of her son, Tupac Amoro Shikour, named after an 18th century Peruvian revolutionary, Afini's marriage to Lumumba Shakur quickly fell apart.

Lumumba learned he was not Tupac's biological father, fellow panther, Billy Garland was, but neither man would play a real role in Tupac's life. Shortly after his birth in June of 1971, he and his mother relocated to Baltimore alone. By the time the 1980s rolled around, Baltimore was still the same crime-ridden story of Fini had seen in ghettos elsewhere in the country throughout her early adulthood. Gun-saturated streets, collapsing neighborhoods, a sky-high murder rate. and now the inner city had the added element of the crack epidemic. It wasn't long before Phoenicia Kerr became addicted to the new drug herself.

Tupac made his way through middle school and then in his first couple of years of high school, and at that time, his mother was fully addicted to crack cocaine. While Tupac was accepted to the prestigious Baltimore School for the Arts, his mother could barely hold down a job. Addiction aside, that revolutionary fire still burned in her belly, and much of the family's extended network of support was made up of other former members of the Black Panthers or the Black Liberation Army.

Young Tupac was exposed to the harshness of the streets by day and the radical liberation ideology of the movement by night. But in between, he excelled at the arts in his new high school. Despite having to be up way too early to make it to school in time, Tupac was a night owl. More often than not, the electricity bill went unpaid, and there were no lights in the apartment. So when the weather wasn't too harsh,

Tupac would sit out on the street curve under the street lights, reading Malcolm X's autobiography. The book would go on to be as influential on Tupac as anything else in his formative years. You can hear that influence all over Pock's debut album, Tupac Lips Now, an album filled with social commentary from a different kind of street poet, a modern-day Gil Scott Heron with leading man good looks and charisma, and with none of the typical vapid frontman trappings.

Tupac was educated not only in the ways of the street, but also in the progressive and sometimes radical teachings of the prophets of rage who came before him. On Soldier's story, Tupac repts the Stand Your Ground Edict of the Black Panthers. The lyrics are a dare, a violent escalation of the Panthers in Malcolm X's famous line that it's criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he's the constant victim of brutal attacks.

On the fifth track, I just don't give a fuck. Tupac names his personal inspiration. His mother. His mother, Malcolm, Bobby Seal, Hughie Newton. They all diagnosed systems of oppression and called for an armed and potentially violent response to the plague of police brutality.

But filtered through the lens of Tupac's own street experience, seeing his mother fall from radical activists to crack addict. These lessons went from rallying cries to visceral, from the gut lyrical declarations not about political principle but about inner rage boiling over. And that rage was widespread and Tupac's music connected. One Tupac fan

shot a Texas State Trooper to death and cited the lyrics to Soldier's story as an inspiration. And on the single Trapped, Tupac lays it out bluntly. Released on September 25th, 1991, Trapped was the first single from Tupacalypse Now.

One month later, Oakland, California, Trapped is a hit. Tupac Chouar is a hit. hit. He was feeling himself as he crossed 17th in Broadway. He had ignored the do not walk sign and was jaywalking. Two white cops caught the move and quickly rolled up on him. The fuck you think it is you're doing. Tupac told me he wasn't doing anything. He was crossing the street. The cops got into it with him. He was jaywalking. Who did he think he was? That sort of thing. Tupac was shocked, angry.

The cops wanted to see his ID. When they got their hands on it, they ridiculed his name. Black Prince My Ass more like a clown. cartoon character that fell off some off-brand cereal box. Tupac grew more agitated. He couldn't let the police lights go. He shouted back. Give me my citation and let me on my way. This is jaywalking, not murder.

This is Oakland, not South Africa. Ain't no need for this type of harassment. And that sealed it. Tupac never saw it coming. A hard fist from one of the officers to his face. It knocked him down. And the two cops pounced and rained down punches, burying Tupac's face into the pavement.

He woke up in cuffs on route to the police station, and he was arrested for resisting arrest. The bust and Tupac's subsequent suit against the Oakland PD for harassment made national news. Tupac was gunning for 10 million in damages. He went on television and did an interview on live from L.A. with Tanya Hart. He played the part he had now been cast in by the media and by authorities. He stated that, in my album,

the number one enemy is the police, the crooked police officer. His case against the Oakland PD dragged on, and the headlines continue. United States Vice President Dan Quayle claimed that Tupac's records should be pulled from stores for inciting violence. Civil rights activists see Dolores Tucker called out Tupac and other rappers for their lyrics that she claimed were misogynistic pornographic film, and the heat was on, both on Tupac Shakur and on the Oakland PD. So eventually, a settlement was reached for 42 grand. Nearly all of it went to pay Tupac's lawyer.

Tupac, in an effort to express the horrific reality young black men were trying to survive, became a casualty of that reality. Trapped, detailed police harassment that he himself had never actually experienced. He later said that the details in that song were relayed to him by friends who had gone through those traumatic experiences with crooked cops. The wicked irony was that now, after having shown a light on those injustices, Tupac himself was now experiencing those injustices. And the shit storm had swirled up,

Mark Tupac with authorities and with the rest of mainstream America, as a bad man, a menace, a thug. But the hard truth was he had had no criminal record until he had made and released an actual record. The experience changed Tupac. He would never be the same. Janet Jackson wasn't going to do the love scene unless Tupac got the AIDS test. It was that simple.

Tupac was offended, but nonetheless, he was ever the opportunist. I'll get the AIDS test, he said. But Janet and I are going to have to fuck for real if I do. John Singleton, director of 1993's Poetic Justice, starring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur, did not find the comment humorous. Neither did Janet Jackson. She'd done a scene earlier with a tribe called Quest's Q-tip and caught a cold from making out with him in front of the cameras.

By the time they started filming in 1992, Tupac Shakur's bad boy reputation preceded him. Janet wasn't down to catch the bug from some street thug, Thespians, starring opposite her. It didn't matter how important the film was or how good-looking or talented he was. And by 92, Tupac Shakur's talent, both behind the mic and in front of the camera, was as obvious as his good looks. That year, the film, Juice, put Tupac on Hollywood's radar with Entertainment Weekly describing his striking performance in the film and variety describing him as a real find. So when NWA's Ice Cube turned down the role of Lucky and poetic justice, John Singleton could have done worse than his second choice, Tupac Choucac Choucichoub. Corp. Opposite Janet Jackson, he dazzled on the screen. The role was the exact opposite of the role of Bishop that he played in Juice, the hard, psychotic street character. With Poetic Justice is

lucky, Tupac played the lovable romantic lead. He showed range in a deep well of acting talent, perhaps even more talent in front of the cameras than behind the mic, and the result was undeniable. Poetic Justice debuted at number one at the box office, and even critics mixed on the movie praised Tupac's performance. And with his on-screen success and burgeoning recording career, Tupac Shakur was afforded two things, a bigger platform from which to spout off whatever fresh outrage he'd experienced, and the burning hot spotlight of celebrity. Tupac Shakur either didn't realize or didn't care that being a celebrity is like being in a secret club. You don't bite the hand that feeds. You don't criticize fellow celebrities, and you

certainly don't tear down those who came before you and help pave the way, no matter what your beef is. And Tupac had beef. On a press tour for Juice, a film directed by Ernest R. Dickerson, Spike Lee's longtime cinematographer, Tupac claimed Spike Lee for not showing up on set as a failure of solidarity. Okay. He then roped in Eddie Murphy in Arsenio Hall, claiming they didn't give enough back to the streets. And then, prior to dating Kadada Jones, Tupac publicly ship talks. Tupac publicly ship talked her dad, the unfuck-with-a-bull icon Quincy Jones, saying that all he does is stick his dick and white bitches and make fucked up kids. This prompted his other daughter, 17-year-old Rashida Jones, to write an open letter to The Source magazine, calling Tupac ignorant and disrespectful

of his own people. She wasn't wrong. Word got around. Tupac had no respect. He was nothing more than a thug, a thug with a big fucking mouth. To Tupac, he was just speaking his mind. He didn't understand the backlash, the rebuke from the Jones family, stung, and the sting, the spotlight. The feeling of no matter what he said or did, he'd catch shit from someone, his co-stars, his role models, his former neighbors, cops, whoever. It all came to a head on Halloween in 1993. Tupac rolled into the Atlanta hotel parking lot after the show in his BMW 750. The party was about to start. The show he just played, crushed, time to celebrate, weed, girls, chants.

Campaign, lots of sex, the kind of sex Tupac increasingly got off on. Group sex. But there in the parking lot, two white dudes tooling up a black guy, beating on him viciously. Tupac, after wheeling his beamer to a full stop and with a caravan of his crew and touring entourage pulling up behind him, jumped out of his car and immediately came to the defense of the defenseless black man getting pummeled. The fuck you doing? Knocked that shit off. He's one man. One of the white guys immediately pulled a pistol and pointed it straight at Tupac's sternum and barked out a series of racist directives informing Tupac to get the fuck out of there and to mind his own business.

Tupac kept his cool. He lifted up his shirt exposing his abdomen with his new tattoo. It read Thug Life, in old English letters. Black, bold, just like he was. Staring down the white dude's gun, he shouted back at them. Thug Life, motherfuckers, go ahead and shoot. The white dude with the gun didn't know what to do. Tupac turned and walked back to his car, and the beating continued behind him.

Tupac reached below the driver's seat and pulled his own gun. He calmly walked to the other side of the car, faced the two dudes beating on the black guy, got down on one knee, took aim, and fired off three shots. One shot ripped through one dude's abdomen. The other dude caught the second bullet in the ass, and the third shot missed. The black dude took his beating and split.

Tupac had stood up, fought back against the racism and violence, and he had survived the moment by any means necessary. He didn't know it at the time, but those two white dudes were off-duty cops. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at Disgracelampod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership.

Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad-free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod.com slash membership for detail. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at Disgraceland Pod, and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at Disgraceland Pod. Rock a roll. All right, guys, thanks for checking out this rewind episode of Disgraceland, part one of the Tupac's story.

Part two's coming up right now. We're going to get further into Tupac's time in prison for sexual assault. We, of course, detail the murder of Tupac. And we also take what I think is a pretty interesting look at what could have been had Tupac not been murdered. What his career would have looked like, possible roles, collaborations with other artists, musical and otherwise, directors. We look at that in this part two episode of Tupac. Don't go anywhere. Here it is. Hello, we have incredible news.

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