Are you where you wanna be right now in your career?
I'm at a point where I'm in charge. I don't have to answer to anybody; I'm in total control. I've got another album droppin' next month under an alias name, under Makaveli. It's called Killuminati. I'm not the king, I'm not the teacher or nothin' like that, but I feel like I don't have no peers. I've been out less than a year, convicted of allegations that usually end nikkas' careers. Shot five times in the nuts and the head. I came out, and in less than a fukkin' year outsold Biggie almost three times. I sold more records than his whole fukkin' record label.
What's with this Machiavelli? Why name yourself after a 16th-century politician and philosopher?
That's what got me here, my reading. It's not like I idolize this one guy Machiavelli. I idolize that type of thinking where you do whatever's gonna make you achieve your goal.
So now I'm not on no bullshyt or anything, I'm gonna change the rules in this rap game. You know how, like, in politics, the Republicans are in now; well, I represent that style; I'm the new nikka. I'ma shake up the whole Congress. By puttin' out a double album-that nobody ever did-I had the most expensive album on the charts. My album cost more than any album you could buy on the charts, and I outsold every one of them muthafukkas. And I did it in two months!
I'm not dissin' nikkas blindly. I'm dissin' nikkas that opened up they mouth. I aspire not to be a reactionary muthafukka. I read. That's all I do is read. I read books, I read magazines, I read y'all's shyt. I listen to everything a muthafukka says, no matter how slight, no matter how long ago he said it. Like, when I was in jail, nikkas had a lot to say. When I came home, nikkas had a lot to say. I remembered all of it.
Are you motivated by revenge?
Now, it's for fun. This new Makaveli album I got comin' out, I'm takin' on nikkas. It's like, my dopest album ever. It's 12 tracks. I talk about my shooting [in New York]. I say the names of the nikkas that shot me, the names of the nikkas that set me up.... Everything I couldn't say, I said it in a rap. I also dis Dre, I dis Mobb Deep. All them nikkas: Jaÿ-Z, Puffy, Biggie. My album cover is me on the cross being crucified, and the cross is the map. It's got New York, Harlem, Brooklyn, everything. And I'm on the cross bein' crucified for keepin' it real.
So is it true you got Dre pushed off Death Row?
I did. Suge is the boss of Death Row, the don, you understand? But I'm the underboss, the capo. That's my job, to do what's best for all of Death Row. My decision wasn't based on comin' to Death Row and taking shyt over. My decision was based on Dre not being there for Snoop during his trial. Death Row can never be weak, no matter what. If we stop sellin' millions and all that, we will always have our honor. We will always have our respect, and that's all I'm back in this rap game for. I already have famous records; I'm in this shyt for the honor and respect. To be a family, to be known as something, to get this dark cloud off us as a race. We need some kind of sunshine, some kind of exceptional being so we can stop suckin' Malcolm X and Michael Jordan's dikk.
Do you and Suge both feel the same way about taking over, not turning back, and not being pawns?
Nobody respects a man who don't do for himself. I'm a soldier; so I'm here on Death Row to put my time into this army. It's not like they got me out of jail and now I gotta do for them. It's that they believed in me, so I believe in this company when no one else will. When people said this was played out. I'm breathin' into it. I don't give a fukk if I don't get along with anybody else on the label. This is for Death Row. When it comes to the point when I feel it can stand on its own, I will move on. But me and Suge will always do business together, forever.
Y'all are kindred spirits?
Everything I don't have, he's got, and everything he don't got, I got. Together, I think we can only be stopped by each other. We want, not oppression, but total domination.
I'm not no dumb-ass muthafukka. I don't bang for the color or the land. It's for the principles, for the honor. I'm banging for the Wesside. It's in my heart. When I be throwing up the W, it ain't for California, it's a W for war. When the West Coast and the middle and the East get together, we got power. You won't be seeing me throwing this when we're all together. But we ain't there, we still all separate tribes, and I know what tribe I'm in. I'm a soldier. I'll always be true to those who are true to me. New York shouldn't be trippin', they should be loving this, because they gave me the game to do this. What made me raw is that I got both. I'm the future of black America.
Why do you think people always supported you, even in the ugliest situations?
I don't know. All I can say is I always try to be a real nikka in my heart. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad; but it's still us. It's never to hurt nobody. I'm not gonna take advantage of you or bully you. I'm on some underdog shyt. And I truly believe I've been blessed by God, and God walks with me. Me and my nikkas are on some Black Jesus shyt. Not a new religion or anything, but the saint for thugs and gangstas-not killers and rapists, but thugs. When I say thugs, I mean nikkas who don't have anything.
I lived and almost died for Thug Life. And after that VIBE article, people said "Tupac, I thought Thug Life was dead." Yeah, but read the rest of the article. Puffy, in that letter in VIBE, gave me some advice that brought me back to the Thug Life shyt. He said you can't be a thug for a second or a minute and get in and out of it, you gotta be in it forever. He didn't mean it as advice at the time, he said it to dampen things. So now, when I'm whoopin' his muthafukkin ass, and it hurts, and all these people talkin' about "Stop, now," remember what he told me. These words came out of his mouth.
added the whole interview this nikka was real as shyt.
when Pac said "They don't even wanna buy are records".