A color photograph of Tupac dominates the square frame. The cover art of All Eyez On Me tells a very different story. The subdued color scheme captures the monochromatic mood of the album inside. He is dressed conservatively and the watch on his wrist is the only piece of jewelry visible on his body. Tupac stands slanted against a wall, a look of serious thought on his face. Me Against the World’s cover artwork matches the album’s solemnity. “Old School,” Tupac’s tribute to Hip Hop’s roots, in particular reveals his love and respect for the New York-based artists who paved the way for his career. Dre’s much imitated style, Me Against the World features what might fairly be characterized as Tupac’s most East Coast-sounding production. In 19 (when Tupac cut the songs on Me Against the World), the hottest sound on the streets was the G-Funk pumped out by Death Row Records, the label he refused to join in the years before his imprisonment.
Me Against the World’s solitary and contemplative nature is sonic, too. The relative absence of guest appearances makes listening to it feel like you are taking Tupac’s confession.
As suggested by the title, Tupac finds himself alone for the majority of the album. Loneliness, guilt, resignation, and even suicide are some of the depressing themes that make Me Against the World Tupac’s bleakest personal statement. That dark space Tupac found himself in is clearly reflected in the music he recorded during that period. He was “catchin’ cases all across the nation,” legal fees were piling up, and his grasp on both his life and freedom was tenuous. Me Against the World was written and recorded during an especially stressful period of Tupac’s life. A good way to begin doing that is to compare it to Tupac’s previous album, his melancholy masterpiece, Me Against the World. For that reason, it is important to get some background in order to understand All Eyez On Me. The music Tupac Shakur recorded is among the most personal in Hip Hop history. This article written in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of that historic album attempts to place it within the context of Tupac’s catalogue, relate the story of its creation, and highlight some of the more important facets of this, Tupac’s best-selling and arguably most important album. He started recording almost immediately and four months later, on February 13, 1996, Death Row unleashed Tupac’s fourth solo album, All Eyez On Me. He climbed into a white limousine parked outside the prison’s walls and got on a cross-country flight to Los Angeles, anxious to connect with the members of his new musical family, Death Row Records. On October 11, 1995, Tupac Shakur, rap music’s preeminent provocateur, was sprung from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York after eleven months in bondage on a sex abuse charge.
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