Trouble really began for Tupac after he was shot November 30th, 1994 at 12:20 a.m. It set the grounds for his beef with Biggie/Puffy and Badboy Records. He was shot 5 times in a recording studio in Times Square. 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'.
Here's an interview Tupac did about the shooting:
Can you take us back to that night at Quad Recording Studios in Times Square?
The night of the shooting? Sure. Ron G. is a DJ out here in New York. He's, like, "Pac, I want you to come to my house and lay this rap down for my tapes." I said, "All right, I'll come for free." So I went to his house-me, Stretch, and a couple other homeboys. After I laid the song, I got a page from this guy Booker, telling me he wanted me to rap on Little Shawn's record. Now, this guy I was going to charge, because I could see that they was just using me, so I said, "All right, you give me seven G's and I'll do the song." He said, "I've got the money. Come." I stopped off to get some weed, and he paged me again. "Where you at? Why you ain't coming?" I'm, like, "I'm coming, man, hold on."
Did you know this guy?
I met him through some rough characters I knew. He was trying to get legitimate and all that, so I thought I was doing him a favor. But when I called him back for directions, he was, like, "I don't have the money." I said, "If you don't have the money, I'm not coming." He hung up the phone, then called me back: "I'm going to call [Uptown Entertainment CEO] Andre Harrell and make sure you get the money, but I'm going to give you the money out of my pocket." So I said, "All right, I'm on my way." As we're walking up to the building, somebody screamed from up the top of the studio. It was Little Caesar, Biggie's [the Notorious B.I.G.] sideman. That's my homeboy. As soon as I saw him, all my concerns about the situation were relaxed.
So you're saying that going into it...
I felt nervous because this guy knew somebody I had major beef with. I didn't want to tell the police, but I can tell the world. Nigel had introduced me to Booker. Everybody knew I was short on money. All my shows were getting canceled. All my money from my records was going to lawyers; all the movie money was going to my family. So I was doing this type of stuff, rapping for guys and getting paid.
Who's this guy Nigel?
I was kicking it with him the whole time I was in New York doing Above the Rim. He came to me. He said, "I'm going to look after you. You don't need to get in no more trouble."
Doesn't Nigel also go by the name of Trevor?
Right. There's a real Trevor, but Nigel took on both aliases, you understand? So that's who I was kicking with-I got close to them. I used to dress in baggies and sneakers. They took me shopping; that's when I bought my Rolex and all my jewels. They made me mature. They introduced me to all these gangsters in Brooklyn. I met Nigel's family, went to his kid's birthday party-I trusted him, you know what I'm saying? I even tried to get Nigel in the movie, but he didn't want to be on film. That bothered me. I don't know any ni**a that didn't want to be in the movies.
Can we come back to the shooting? Who was with you that night?
I was with my homeboy Stretch, his man Fred, and my sister's boyfriend, Zayd. Not my bodyguard; I don't have a bodyguard. We get to the studio, and there's a dude outside in army fatigues with his hat low on his face. When we walked to the door, he didn't look up. I've never seen a black man not acknowledge me one way or the other, either with jealousy or respect. But this guy just looked to see who I was and turned his face down. It didn't click because I had just finished smoking chronic. I'm not thinking something will happen to me in the lobby. While we're waiting to get buzzed in, I saw a dude sitting at a table reading a newspaper. He didn't look up either.
These are both black men?
Black men in their thirties. So first I'm, like, These dudes must be security for Biggie, because I could tell they were from Brooklyn from their army fatigues. But then I said, Wait a minute. Even Biggie's homeboys love me, why don't they look up? I pressed the elevator button, turned around, and that's when the dudes came out with the guns-two identical 9 mms. "Don't nobody move. Everybody on the floor. You know what time it is. Run your sh*t." I was, like, What should I do? I'm thinking Stretch is going to fight; he was towering over those ni**as. From what I know about the criminal element, if ni**as come to rob you, they always hit the big ni**a first. But they didn't touch Stretch; they came straight to me. Everybody dropped to the floor like potatoes, but I just froze up. It wasn't like I was being brave or nothing; I just could not get on the floor. They started grabbing at me to see if I was strapped. They said, "Take off your jewels," and I wouldn't take them off. The light-skinned dude, the one that was standing outside, was on me. Stretch was on the floor, and the dude with the newspaper was holding the gun on him. He was telling the light-skin dude, "Shoot that motherf*cker! f*ck it!" Then I got scared, because the dude had the gun to my stomach. All I could think about was piss bags and sh*t bags. I drew my arm around him to move the gun to my side. He shot and the gun twisted and that's when I got hit the first time. I felt it in my leg; I didn't know I got shot in my balls. I dropped to the floor. Everything in my mind said, Pac, pretend you're dead. It didn't matter. They started kicking me, hitting me. I never said, "Don't shoot!" I was quiet as hell. They were snatching my sh*t off me while I was laying on the floor. I had my eyes closed, but I was shaking, because the situation had me shaking. And then I felt something on the back of my head, something real strong. I thought they stomped me or pistol-whipped me and they were stomping my head against the concrete. I saw white, just white. I didn't hear nothing, I didn't feel nothing, and I said, I'm unconscious. But I was conscious. And then I felt it again, and I could hear things now and I could see things and they were bringing me back to consciousness. Then they did it again, and I couldn't hear nothing. And I couldn't see nothing; it was just all white. And then they hit me again, and I could hear things and I could see things and I knew I was conscious again.
Did you ever hear them say their names?
No. No. But they knew me, or else they would never check for my gun. It was like they were mad at me. I felt them kicking me and stomping me; they didn't hit nobody else. It was, like, "Ooh, motherf*cker, ooh, aah"-they were kicking hard. So I'm going unconscious, and I'm not feeling no blood on my head or nothing. The only thing I felt was my stomach hurting real bad. My sister's boyfriend turned me over and said, "Yo, are you all right?" I was, like, "Yes, I'm hit, I'm hit." And Fred is saying he's hit, but that was the bullet that went through my leg. So I stood up and I went to the door and-the sh*t that f*cked me up-as soon as I got to the door, I saw a police car sitting there. I was, like, "Uh-oh, the police are coming, and I didn't even go upstairs yet." So we jumped in the elevator and went upstairs. I'm limping and everything, but I don't feel nothing. It's numb. When we got upstairs, I looked around, and it scared the sh*t out of me.
Why?
Because Andre Harrell was there, Puffy [Bad Boy Entertainment CEO Sean "Puffy" Combs] was there, Biggie... there was about 40 ni**as there. All of them had jewels on. More jewels than me. I saw Booker, and he had this look on his face like he was surprised to see me. Why? I had just beeped the buzzer and said I was coming upstairs. Little Shawn bust out crying. I went, Why is Little Shawn crying, and I got shot? He was crying uncontrollably, like, "Oh my God, Pac, you've got to sit down!" I was feeling weird, like, Why do they want to make me sit down?
Because five bullets had passed through your body.
I didn't know I was shot in the head yet. I didn't feel nothing. I opened my pants, and I could see the gunpowder and the hole in my Karl Kani drawers. I didn't want to pull them down to see if my dick was still there. I just saw a hole and went, "Oh sh*t. Roll me some weed." I called my girlfriend and I was, like, "Yo, I just got shot. Call my mother and tell her." Nobody approached me. I noticed that nobody would look at me. Andre Harrell wouldn't look at me. I had been going to dinner with him the last few days. He had invited me to the set of New York Undercover, telling me he was going to get me a job. Puffy was standing back too. I knew Puffy. He knew how much stuff I had done for Biggie before he came out.
People did see blood on you?
They started telling me, "Your head! Your head is bleeding." But I thought it was just a pistol-whip. Then the ambulance came, and the police. First cop I looked up to see was the cop that took the stand against me in the rape charge. He had a half smile on his face, and he could see them looking at my balls. He said, "What's up, Tupac? How's it hanging?"
When I got to Bellevue Hospital, the doctor was going, "Oh my God!" I was, like, "What? What?" And I was hearing him tell other doctors, "Look at this. This is gunpowder right here." He was talking about my head: "This is the entry wound. This is the exit wound." And when he did that, I could actually feel the holes. I said, "Oh my God. I could feel that." It was the spots that I was blacking out on. And that's when I said, "Oh sh*t. They shot me in my head." They said, "You don't know how lucky you are. You got shot five times." It was, like, weird. I did not want to believe it. I could only remember that first shot, then everything went blank.
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.
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This is about the shooting which occurred in 1994 at a Times Square recording studio. This was never fully explained, even by Tupac, but police ruled it a robbery attempt of Tupac's thousands of dollars in gold. There are still many questions which need to be answered especially concerning the beef between Tupac and Bad Boy records since Tupac claimed they set the 1994 shooting up. The following story reports everything which I have learned about the shooting. My sources are very credible but keep in mind that I have no hard evidence to back up my claims. Please feel free to judge for yourself whether what I say makes sense or not.
First we must go back to November 30th, 1994. At 12:20 a.m., Tupac and his entourage of three men, including "Stretch" Walker of the Live Squad who was a close friend and his manager Freddie Moore, enter the building. One black male sits on a desk in the entranceway of the office building where the Quad is located. The man gets up from the desk as two other men walk through the door. Little Caeser had yelled down to Tupac's crew from the top of the recording studio so Tupac knew Biggie was there and felt safe thinking that these men were his security. The three men start to follow Tupac's entourage until they get to the elevators. It is at this point that they draw their guns and yell, "Give up the jewelry, and get on the floor!" Tupac's entourage quickly get on the floor but Tupac curses the gunmen and goes for one of the guns. In the struggle, Tupac is shot five times while his manager is hit once. The robbers then get off with $40,000 in jewelry.
Moore gives chase to the robbers but collapses next door. Tupac is dragged into the elevator and taken upstairs where there are several well known individuals including Biggie Smalls and Sean "Puffy" Combs. Tupac would later describe the scene as very strange. He said that nobody even got up to help him but only stared at him as if they were surprised he was alive. Tupac said that the only person showing any emotion was Little Shawn who was crying. Later Tupac would mimic this scene in a rare video in which he walks from the elevator covered with blood as Biggie begs for his life blaming Puffy for the set up. This was perhaps Tupac's way of getting the truth to his fans.
As he lay riddled with bullets, Tupac reportedly had someone roll him a joint and then he made a call to his girlfriend who called his mother and then he called 911.
Officers arrived on the scene soon after the call was placed. When officers arrived, Tupac was greeted by the same officers which had arrested and testified against him in the sexual assault trial. This would lead many to believe that the police may have had something to do with it or the rape victim was seeking revenge but these would apparently turn out to be false accusations. Tupac had been shot five times throughout his body including two shots to the head. Miraculously he survived and was loaded into the ambulance where one of the greatest pictures of him ever was taken. Covered in blood and bandages, he flips the photographer off. He is rushed to the Bellevue trauma department where he is rushed into surgery. To everyone's surprise, Tupac later checks out less than three hours after his surgery claiming that he fears for his life. The next day, Tupac makes a surprise appearance in a Manhattan courtroom in anticipation of the verdict in his sexual assault trial. He is surrounded by Nation of Islam bodyguards and is in a wheelchair (as pictured). Although the verdict comes back guilty of a lesser offense, Tupac is rallied around by friends Jasmine Guy and Mickey Rourke. He remained free on $25,000 bail.
Soon after he was sentenced to serve time on Riker's Island. Very little happened while he was in prison although he would reveal later that people in prison were telling him that it was Biggie's boy who shot him. Tupac's cousin even witnessed the shooters bragging that they had just shot him. These details were revealed by Tupac in one of his last interviews with KMEL. Almost one year later, Tupac was freed on bail pending appeal by Marion "Suge" Knight of Death Row records in exchange for a three album deal with Death Row.
As soon as Tupac got to California, Tabitha Soren of MTV met with him for an interview. In that interview, Tupac looked deeply troubled when asked about the shooting as if he were scared to give too many details to the public out of fear for another attempt on his life. His confidence seemed to build up after that interview as he went on to point the finger at Bad Boy records as being responsible for the shooting. Puffy would later say that they had nothing to do with the shooting and that Tupac knew who shot him. It seems obvious that it was an inside job based on the fact that the robbers knew where he would be. Also, the robbers went right after Tupac rather than deal with Stretch who was much bigger. Tupac would later have a falling out with Stretch as Stretch became close with Bad Boy and had possibly known of the setup. Stretch was later found murdered execution style in Jamaica, Queens (NYC) exactly one year to the day after Tupac was shot in New York. Is that just another coincidence? I have heard that Stretch had been warned that his life was in danger, but he disregarded these warnings. Tupac tells a lot of things in the song "Against All Odds" on the Makaveli album. When he says:
"And that nigga that was down with me/ Restin' dead/ Switched sides, guess his new friends wanted him dead/ Probably was murdered for the shit that I said"
...he is talking about Stretch. When he says:
"Puffy's gettin' robbed like a bitch/ To hide that fact, he did some shit he shouldn't did/ So now he's ridin' for that"
...he is talking about Puffy being involved in the set up and being robbed by the financers of Bad Boy. Perhaps he wasn't robbed as much if he helped set Tupac up. That would explain Puffy being more involved while Biggie just knew about the set up. There is another part of the song which possibly relates to the set up. When he says:
"And did I mention/ Promised a payback, Jimmy Henchman/ In due time/ I knew you bitch niggas was listening/ The world is mine/ Set me up/ Wet me up/ Niggas stuck me up/ Heard the guns bust/ But you tricks never shut me up"
.... he could either be implicating Henchmen Management/Entertainment in the shooting or the verse is split and he is just talking about another beef he had with them. Interpret how you want, but Tupac was telling the truth when he said "This be the realest shit I ever wrote."
All signs pointed to Bad Boy at least knowing before hand of the shooting. Tupac never said Bad Boy was directly responsible, only that they "set him up." He would later say that he had met the shooter because he was a friend of Biggie's and Biggie had warned Tupac not to mess with him. When Tupac said that Bad Boy "set him up", he meant that they didn't warn him of the coming attack and possibly provided info about his location that night. Tupac had also said that he kept getting calls asking why he wasn't at the studio yet because he was delayed an hour trying to get some weed. Why would Bad Boy have been so concerned about getting him to the studio that late? It seems very obvious they were in on it.
Now, that all the details are laid out, the new question becomes what was the motive if it wasn't just a routine robbery? This question must be asked because why would Bad Boy set Tupac up for a $40,000 robbery by common thieves. That wouldn't make sense at all since they were all friends at the time. There was a more powerful party at work here, not just common thieves, who were powerful enough to force Puffy and Biggie to cooperate out of fear. This is where things get really interesting.
The story is that Tupac was shot because of some dealings with some shady people in New York known as the "Black Mafia." These people, it is rumored, financed Bad Boy records. Tupac met some of these people in New York, including the mysterious Trevor aka King Tut who later admitted to some undercover cops that he had been involved in the shooting and it was because Tupac "needed to be disciplined." Who paid for Tut's legal bills? None other than Puffy who still denies it. It is said that these "Black Mafia" characters demanded that Tupac sign on to Bad Boy records since Bad Boy still really wasn't on the scene and needed an artist like Tupac but Tupac refused the demands. Tupac was supposed to die that night. This was punishment for saying no. If you remember Tupac, in his first interview after being shot, said in Vibe that people were trying to kill him. These were those people. That is another reason why Tupac went to Death Row, because Suge could provide the protection he needed. Puffy played the real role in this shooting, although Biggie knew about it. Puffy didn't order the shooting, he however, helped set up Tupac. Also, if you recall, Tupac never said Puffy did it, he said he was set up by Puffy.
There is also another possibility behind the motive of the shooting which is different from punishing Tupac for not signing with Bad Boy. After the rape case started, Tupac blamed Jacques Agnant a.k.a. Haitain Jack for setting him up in the trial. This was suspicious because Tupac got the absolute maximum penalty for the charges he was found guilty of while Agnant received like 3 months suspended sentence and he was rumored to be a federal informant which is why Pac called him a snitch. In the N.Y. Daily News, in an article by a reporter who was talking about the rape case, the reporter, Pac and Mickey Rourke were in a restaurant and Pac dissed Jack in the article. In Vibe, Pac said that Nigel (Haitain Jack) introduced him to Booker(Jimmy Henchmen) and that Jimmy knew somebody that Pac had major beef with meaning Jack and Trevor aka Walter (King Tut) Johnson. King Tut was the one that Tupac said, in the interview with Tech and Sway on KMEL, that a week before he was shot Tut walked in with Biggie and Biggie told Pac not to fuck with him. So right there, you can see that Biggie knew the shooter quite well. Also, in that jail interview, Pac was asked if the shooters were both black men and Pac said that they were black men in their thirties. Both King Tut and Jack were both in their thirties. They both shot him up and it was Jimmy Henchman that called him up. So this other motive is that King Tut shot Pac because he "needed to be disciplined" for dissing Jack in that article because he was Tut's homeboy.
There were still a few issues which didn't seem to fit. Originally, Pac thought that the police had set him up. He kind of abandoned that accusation but here is a quote about the scene after the shooting:
"Officers arrived on the scene soon after the call was placed. When officers arrived, Tupac was greeted by the same officers which had arrested and testified against him in the sexual assault trial. This would lead many to believe that the police may have had something to do with it or the rape victim was seeking revenge but these wouldapparently turn out to be false accusations."
This seems more than coincedence because New York City has a special case squad located in the 13th precent. The detectives in this squal handle all high profile cases within NYC. They would have been called to the scene immediately after confirmation that this was a Tupac related incident. But who shows up, the same officers that arrested Pac. Coincedence or conspiracy?
This is the story of the 1994 shooting in New York City. Think of it what you will but realize that there is more to the music business than the ordinary media will show. With all the details emerging from this shooting nearly 2 and a half years later, we must ask ourselves if the shooting in Las Vegas was just another jewelry robbery or if it was the complex situation like that which surrounded the 1994 shooting. Keep in mind that Tupac was shot in 1994 because he didn't sign a contract therefore not making money for Bad Boy and it was covered up with the front of a robbery. Now we must ask, was Tupac shot in Las Vegas in 1996 because his contract was over with Death Row and it was covered up with the medallion robbery story. Did history repeat itself? You be the judge.
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ill find the king tut interview before he was killed later i think it was in feds mag