During his 25 years of life, late hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur was building a legacy highlighted by a multiplatinum music career, meteoric rise in Hollywood, poetry that spoke for the streets he came from and a loving relationship that was steadily budding up until the day he died on September 13, 1996.
While most of the world came to know him simply as 2Pac, he also was entering a new creative era under the moniker Makaveli the Don. Within the first seven days of August 1996, The Don Killuminati: The 7-Day Theory was recorded, completed and planned to drop as an underground release. Pac was already riding high on the success of All Eyez on Me, released months earlier in February, which garnered him a “Best Rap Video” nomination at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards happening the following month for the album’s chart-topping lead single, “California Love.” The ceremony on September 4, 1996 would be his last when three days later he was shot and eventually succumbed to his injuries another six days later.
On this day 30 years ago (November 5), The Don Killuminati: The 7-Day Theory was promoted from a simple street drop and released as the official final studio album with 2Pac’s creative input.
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Like its predecessor, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory topped the Billboard 200 chart upon its release. The album sold an impressive 664,000 copies in it first week, and was eventually certified Quadruple Platinum by June 1999. Albeit littered with controversial lyrics that further flamed the infamous East Coast–West Coast beef at the time, it’s ultimately a project that proves he had so much more to give, so many creative ideas to present to the world and so much potential in whatever future ventures he decided to pursue.
As many fans of the late emcee celebrate the album today, it got us thinking about where 2Pac would be creatively if that fateful night in 1996 never occurred. Would he have taken a political turn? Was there an Oscar in his future? Could he and B.I.G. have made amends and reclaimed the game as friends rather than enemies?
While we’ll never know for sure, the thought of it all got us thinking about the many ‘What If’s.’
Keep scrolling to see how we think hip-hop culture could’ve turned out if the world never lost 2Pac:
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Mixtapes and unauthorized projects aside, 2Pac managed to always land at number one or within the top five on the Billboard 200 following his breakout 1995 album, Me Against The World. If still here to promote and craft up innovative music with the times, there’s no denying he’d be racking up a string of chart-toppers throughout his career in the vain of Jay-Z, DMX and others who he inspired.