At any point did you think you were going to die?

No. I swear to God. Not to sound creepy or nothing-I felt God cared for me from the first time the ni**as pulled the gun out. The only thing that hurt me was that Stretch and them all fell to the floor. The bullets didn't hurt. Nothing hurt until I was recovering. I couldn't walk, I couldn't get up, and my hand was f*cked up. I was looking on the news and it was lying about me.

Tell me about some of the coverage that bothered you.

The No. 1 thing that bothered me was that dude that wrote that sh*t that said I pretended to do it. That I had set it up, it was an act. When I read that, I just started crying like a baby, like a b*tch. I could not believe it. It just tore me apart. And then the news was trying to say I had a gun and I had weed on me. Instead of saying I was a victim, they were making it like I did it.

What about all the jokes saying you had lost one of your testicles?

That didn't really bother me, because I was, like, sh*t, I'm going to get the last laugh. Because I've got bigger nuts than all these ni**as. My doctors are, like, "You can have babies." They told me that the first night, after I got exploratory surgery: "Nothing's wrong. It went through the skin and out the skin." Same thing with my head. Through my skin and out the skin.

Have you had a lot of pain since then?

Yes, I have headaches. I wake up screaming. I've been having nightmares, thinking they're still shooting me. All I see is ni**as pulling guns, and I hear the dude saying, "Shoot that motherf*cker!" Then I'll wake up sweaty as hell and I'll be, like, Damn, I have a headache. The psychiatrist at Bellevue said that's post-traumatic stress.

Why did you leave Bellevue Hospital?

I left Bellevue the next night. They were helping me, but I felt like a science project. They kept coming in, looking at my dick and sh*t, and this was not a cool position to be in. I knew my life was in danger. The Fruit of Islam was there, but they didn't have guns. I knew what type of ni**as I was dealing with.

So I left Bellevue and went to Metropolitan. They gave me a phone and said, "You're safe here. Nobody knows you're here." But the phone would ring and someone would say, "You ain't dead yet?" I was, like, Damn! Those motherf*ckers don't have no mercy. So I checked myself out, and my family took me to a safe spot, somebody who really cared about me in New York City.

Interview was taken with Vibe Magazine.

Songs where Tupac made the most reference to this shooting are Ambitionz az a Ridah and Against All Odds. Listen to the songs carefully and try to figure out what each line means. Like Tupac said, "Study your Lessons". "I have a feeling what's down in the dark will come to light." I'd be surprised if Tupac didn't have more blatant unreleased songs that he wanted held until after his death.