TUPAC AMARU SHAKUR DISCOGRAPHY/ ALBUM LYRICS

ME AGAINST THE WORLD ALBUM INFO:
Me Against the World is Tupac Shakur's 3rd solo album, and 4th studio album including the group effort "ThugLife vol: 1". The album was released on March 14, 1995 through 2Pac's label Out Da Gutta, although, Amaru Entertainment, the label owned by Tupac's mother, Afeni Shakur, has since gained the rights to it after Tupac's death. The album was recorded before and whilst Tupac was recovering from his shooting which took place on November 1994, and was then released while he was incarcerated. As a result of these circumstances, Me Against the World has become known to many hip hop fans as the most personal of Shakur's releases, an album in which 2pac expresses a personal mix of emotions aswell as reactions to the events of his life. The album digresses through many different topics from the dangers of paranoia, organized crime, and the moral repercussions of violence.

This album, has been credited as setting the "nothing to lose" persona adopted by many rappers since Shakur's death. Mainly due to the fact that this album was the first thorough glimpse of the man Tupac Amaru Shakur, not the artist 2Pac, probably due to his earlier near fatal shooting. Tupac displays his lyrical ability on the track "If I Die 2nite", which is arguably Shakur's most acrobatic turn at the mic upto this point in his career. Producer extraordinaire Easy Mo Bee lays the beat low and thick while 2Pac drops his alliterative rhymes: "They say pussy and paper is poetry, power and pistols/Plottin' on murderin' muthafuckas 'fore they get you/Picturing pitiful punk niggas coppin' pleas/Puffin' weed as I position myself to clock Gs.... Been seeking psychotics/Society/Somebody save me/Addicted to drama so even Mama couldn't raise me." Showing his doubters he can cut it with the best of the raw MC's, like his cohort The Notorious B.I.G.

He then switches his style and theme through each track on the album displaying a new confessional side to him, and consistent emotional depth. This isn't the sort of material that made him a gangsta icon; instead this is 2Pac the soul-baring artist, and is the foundation of the immense respect he commanded in the hip-hop community. It's his most consistent, least-self-contradicting work, full of genuine reflection about how he's arrived where he is -- and the dread of the consequences. This is best shown on the album title track, Me Against The World, in which Tupac raps: "With all this extra stressin; the question I wonder is after death / after my last breath, when will I finally get to rest? / Through this suppression, they punish the people that's askin questions / And those that posess, steal from the ones without posessions / The message I stress, to make you stop study your lessons / Don't settle for less - even the genius askses questions / Be grateful for blessings, don't ever change keep your essence / The power is in the people and politics we address".

Some of you may be suprised to read those lyrics as the do not reflect the image that the media cultivated for Tupac Shakur, which was as a thoughtless violent thug. Well thats becuase he never was. The irony is that even though 2Pac may be known best for the gangsta talking he did in the spotlight and on commercial rap records, but his roots as a scholar poet and intellectual gave him far more to offer the rap world than "Thug Life" did.

The somber and haunting track "So Many Tears" features a slow groove created by the D-Flizno Production Squad including samples of "That Girl" by Stevie Wonder. 2Pac's lyrics are brilliant throughout: "Lord knows I.. tried, been a witness to homicide / Seen drivebys takin lives, little kids die / Wonder why as I walk by / Broken-hearted as I glance at the chalk line, gettin high / This ain't the life for me, I wanna change / But ain't no future right for me, I'm stuck in the game..."

You can't help but feel the raw emotional energy that Tupac delivers through his words and his voice on this whole song. Shakur captures a lot of different emotions on this album though. He lyrically sends a perfect dose of hip-hop nostalgia on the SoulShock produced "Old School", paying repects to the artists that paved the way for hip hop to become a true force. Tupac then shows the eeriley dark paranoia that made him prophetic about his own future on Johnny J's "Death Around the Corner." Tupac ahows versatility throughout and swithces themes again as he pours his heart out to express his undying affection for his mother, Afeni, on the track "Dear Mama", still one of the most treasured hip-hop songs of all time. Easy Mo Bee lets 'Pac express his freaky sexual side on the bouncy "Temptations." There literally isnt a human emotion left untouched by Tupac on this release, or if there is, I can't think of it.

It should be no suprise then, that Me Against the World topped the Billboard 200, making Tupac the first artist to have an album debut at #1 while incarcerated. The album debuted at number-one and stayed there for four weeks and first week sales of 440,000 copies which was the record for longest time at the top of the charts for a solo male rap artist at the time. Days after its release the album was certified Gold for its sales, and on April 26th 1995, only a month or so after its release it was certified Platinum, and inthe same year was certified as 2x Platinum.

In a late-1995 interview with MTV, Shakur expressed amazement over the fact that Me Against the World held the top spot on the Billboard charts, over artists as mainstream as Bruce Springsteen. In a different interview with MTV's Tabitha Soren, taped after Shakur was bailed out of the Clinton Correctional Facility, he described Me Against the World as his personal favorite album up to that point in his career. Many fans consider Me Against the World to be Shakur's best album, the album has also rightfully earned significant critical acclaim, earning a perfect 5 Mic rating from The Source and a full 5 Satr award from All Music Guide and RapCentral.co.uk.

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