Tupac Shakur (1971 – 1996)
American rapper and actor.
The only thing that can kill me is death, that's the only thing that can ever stop me, is death, and even then my music will live forever.
Watch people, because you can fake for a long time, but one day you're gonna show your self to be a phony.
Measure a man by his actions fully, through his whole life, from the beginning to the end.
When I was a little baby, I remember that one moment of calm peace, and three minutes after that, it was on.
I have no patience for anybody that doubts me, none at all.
Remember, this country had a man named J. Edgar Hoover, whose job it was to destroy the credibility of any black man coming up.
But in my homeboys' high school, it's not like that. They don't have trips to go see this Broadway play, they don't read things we read. They didn't know when I was like: "Yo, Shakespeare's dope."
Prison kills your spirit, straight up, it kills your spirit, there is no creativity, there's none of that.
It's like a battle tryin to find the right words to say at the right time.
The same crime element that white people are scared of black people are scared of. While they waiting for legislation to pass, we next door to the killer. All them killers they let out, they're in that building. Just because we black, we get along with the killers? What is that? We need protection too.
America is the biggest gang in the world.
If your not cheering for me, for what I'm doing, don't cheer for me. Don't cheer cause you think I'm cute, you know what I'm saying, screw that. Cheer for me for what I'm doing, for what I stand for, and when I go to jail you should cheer louder.
Measure a man by his actions fully, from the beginning to the end. Don't take a piece out of my life or a song out of my music and say this is what I'm about, because you know better than that.
Fear is stronger than love, remember that. Fear is stronger than love, all that love I gave didn't mean nothing when it came to fear.
This new Makaveli album I got comin' out, I'm takin' on niggas. It's like, my dopest album ever.
If you thought about it I'm hardly the villian, I'm hardly the one you should be scared of. It's the guy who can't talk, it's the guy without a job, it's the one with scares in his face, not the one clean cut, you know what I mean you should worry about a lot of other things, but not me.
Coming to grips with my past, it was hard. I don't feel like what I did was so evil, I just feel like the way I was living, and my mentality, was part of my progression to be a man.
The guns are turning away from Europe and Russia and Iran and Iraq and there turning to us.
You grew up, we grew up B.C. Before crack. That's just saying it all. You understand? You don't have parents... You have young kids, fourteen, coming home and their mama is smoking out, going to their best friend to get the product.
The reason I sell 6 million records, the reason I could go to jail and come out without a scratch, the reason I can walk around, the reason I am who I am today is because I can look directly in to my face and find my soul, it's there, it's not sold, i didn't sell it, it's still within me, I still feel it, my heart is still connected to my body.