Anyone that wants to imagine ’Pac at his best only had to play this album.Ĭontradictory, poignant and compelling, All Eyez on Me is ’Pac at his best. On “Picture Me Rollin’,” he taunts the judge and anyone else who doubted him as he paints a picture of himself in 4-D. Meanwhile, on his more sentimental side, ’Pac delivered an ode to old homies with “I Ain’t Mad At Cha” and a song dedicated to friends he lost in the streets on “Life Goes On.” Sometimes, he just focused on flossing, basking in the moment he’d been waiting for as he sat behind prison walls in upstate New York. With slick bars and a hard beat, the two created an indelible anthem. On “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted,” he posits himself as one of America’s most-wanted criminals, teaming up with Snoop Dogg, who was facing a murder charge at the time, in the process. Songs like “When We Ride,” “Ambitionz Az a Ridah” and “Ain’t Hard 2 Find” see him provoking his would-be killers from the year before. On All Eyez on Me, he shoots first, and there’s no mercy. Rated 131 in the best albums of 1996, and 5386 of all-time album.
Genres: West Coast Hip Hop, Gangsta Rap, G-Funk. He grips an AK-47, but only in response to danger. Released 13 February 1996 on Death Row (catalog no. Before, he’d been ambivalent about a thuggish lifestyle. Though the stylistic DNA of All Eyez on Me existed before he actually dropped the album, the then 24-year-old rapper was harsher and more unapologetic than he was on his 1995 album, Me Against the World. He could be vengeful one moment, as demonstrated on “Ambitions Az a Ridah” and “When We Ride,” and touching the next, displayed on “I Ain’t Mad At Cha.” The contradictions weren’t new he’d been flipping the switch since his 1993 LP, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z…. The LP showcases ’Pac in all of his Gemini multitudes, bigger, bolder and better. The result was All Eyez on Me, an album that helped define both a genre and his own career.Īs brazen as it was ambitious-it was hip-hop’s first double album, his fourth LP overall-the project is coated with winding West Coast synths, shameless boasts, death threats and “thug life” aphorisms. All Eyez on Me was released after Death Row label CEO Suge Knight bailed Tupac out of jail as a. The album was certified 9x platinum by the RIAA. The album has become one of the most influential albums in hip hop history and is often considered The Best Album Of Rap Ever Released. After being shot five times and sitting in prison for a crime he believed he didn’t commit, Tupac Shakur hit the studio with a vengeance when he touched down in California in October of 1996. All Eyez on Me is an album by The Great rapper Tupac Shakur, released on Febru(see 1996 in music).