Since before the day he was born, Tupac Shakur has battled "the system"-but never so dramatically as in the last 48 hours of November. On the 29th, a Manhattan jury had convened to deliberate charges of sodomy, sexual abuse, and weapons possession against Tupac, 23, and his codefendant, Charles Fuller, 24. They stood accused of molesting a 19-year-old woman in Tupac's $750-a-night, 38th-floor Parker Meridien Hotel suite on November 18, 1993. After the first day of deliberations, Tupac left for a publicity stop in Harlem, then went on to Times Square's Quad Recording Studio to record a track with Uptown Records' Little Shawn. Facing a maximum 25-year sentence, Tupac knew it might be his last recording session for some time.
Trouble really began for Tupac after he was shot November 30th, 1994. At 12:20 a.m., Tupac was running more than an hour late when he and his three-man entourage swept past a black man sitting on a desk in the entranceway of the office building where Quad is located. The man got up from the desk as two confederates (also black) came in the door, and the three followed Tupac and his crew to the elevator, pulled out guns, and hollered, "Give up the jewelry, and get on the floor!" While his friends lay on the gray stone floor, Tupac cursed at the holdup men and lunged for one of the guns. The rapper was shot at least four times. His manager Freddie Moore was hit once. The robbers nabbed $5,000 worth of Moore's jewelry, as well as Tupac's $30,000 diamond ring and $10,000 in gold chains. They left Tupac's diamond-encrusted gold Rolex.
Moore gave chase, collapsing in front of a strip club next door. His friends dragged the severely wounded Tupac into the elevator and up to the eighth-floor studio to administer first aid. Tupac's first call was reportedly to his mom, Afeni Shakur, in Atlanta; then he called 911. William Kelly and Joseph Kelly (no relation), and "seconds later, Officer Craig McKernan arrived. McKernan had supervised the two Kellys in Tupac's arrest at the Parker Meridien and had just testified at the rape trial. "Hi, Officer McKernan," Shakur sputtered, lying naked in a pool of his own blood. "Hey, Tupac, you hang in there," McKernan responded, as an EMS team secured a brace around Tupac's neck and strapped him to a board. The stretcher didn't fit into the elevator, so he had to be propped upright, blood streaming down from his wounds. McKernan helped carry him out past a waiting photographer. "I can't believe you're taking my picture on a stretcher," Tupac groaned, flipping off the photog.
Tupac was rushed to Bellevue Hospital. "He was hit by a low-caliber missile," says Dr. Leon Pachter, chief of Bellevue's trauma department. "Had it been a high-caliber missile, he'd have been dead." Tupac continued to bleed heavily all day, so at 1:30 p.m., Pachter and a 12-doctor team operated on the damaged blood vessel high in his right leg. At 4 p.m., he was out of surgery. At 6:45 p.m., against the vociferous complaints of his doctors, he checked himself out. "I haven't seen anybody in my 25-year professional career leave the hospital like this," says Dr. Pachter. Afeni, who had flown up from Atlanta, wheeled the heavily bandaged Tupac out the back door, fighting through a crowd of reporters.
There were many theories on this shooting. The media largely portrayed the shooting as a standard robbery, in which Tupac went for his gun, and was shot. According to Tupac however, the story runs a lot deeper.
According to Tupac the trouble began on the set of Above the Rim, where he met a guy named Nigel. Nigel introduced him to Trevor. Both were alleged Black Mafia members and were rumored to fund BadBoy Records. They took Tupac out, and according to Tupac made him 'mature'. They wanted Tupac to join the BadBoy records label, however Tupac refused. This is rumored to be the a reason he was shot. Also, Tupac apparently dissed one of their friends, Jacques Agnant in an interview. This according to Tupac, may have been a reason why he was setup. It's possible, however, that the setup was planned before the point in which Tupac had even met Nigel.
The song 'Against All Odds', in which Tupac states "Hoping my true motherf*ckers know, this be the truest sh*t I ever wrote" he makes several references to this setup. In reference to King Tut Tupac states, "Gun shots to Tut, now you stuck." Whether related or not, King Tut was murdered after the shooting occurred. Tupac's friend Stretch was later found murdered exactly 1 year to the day of this shooting. Tupac blamed Stretch for being involved in the setup. In ambitionz az a ridah he says, "Had b*tch a** ni**as on my team, so indeed they wet me up". In Against All Odds he says "and to that n*gga that was down for me, rest his head, switched sides guess his new friends wanted him dead." Tupac believed not only the shooting, but also the rape case was part of a setup.
The setup in the shooting seemed to run hand in hand with the rape case Tupac was going through at the time of the shooting. Click here for info on that case. The same cops who arrested Tupac in connection with the alleged rape, were the same cops who arrived on the scene when he was shot. Jacques Agnant aka Haitian Jack, who Tupac claimed was part of the situation in the alleged rape, got off extremely light while Tupac was sentenced to nearly 4 years in a maximum security prison. Tupac retaliated in "Against all Odds" on the Makaveli CD claiming that Jacques Agnant was a government informant "Same Crime, different trials n*gga picture what I said". Agnant is suing Tupacs estate for in excess of $200 million because he says there's been numerous attempts on his life and he can't find work now.
This is where the beef between Tupac and Badboy originally began. The media as they apparently distorted the facts in this shooting, also mistrued the facts in this beef as they played into an Eastcoast/Westcoast war. Tupac never directly blamed Biggie or Puffy in the shooting, but they were his friends, and they never warned him. After he went to prison they never visited him. As Tupac said they 'abandoned' him and 'tried to take his position'. While Tupac was in prison he said he thought about giving up rap all together. He said the reason he didn't was the fact that they were trying to 'dirty up his name and take away everything he'd worked for'.
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