2Pac on Vinyl: Where to Start and Where to Go Next

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in East Harlem in June 1971 and grew up between New York, Baltimore and the Bay Area. He studied acting, poetry and ballet at the Baltimore School for the Arts, moved to Marin City in 1988, and came into the record business sideways: as a roadie and backup dancer for Digital Underground, debuting under the name 2Pac on the group's 1991 single "Same Song."

The catalog that followed is short and unusually dense. He released four studio albums in his lifetime, between November 1991 and February 1996, and was shot in a drive-by on September 7, 1996, dying six days later at 25. A fifth album was already finished and sitting in the vault. What makes the run worth collecting is the distance it covers in five years: a pointed independent debut, a harder second record written partly in answer to the politicians attacking him, a reflective third made under the weight of criminal trials and a near-fatal shooting, and then the Death Row double album that changed how much music a rap release could carry.

GOOD TASTE Records carries six 2Pac titles, covering all five studio albums plus the posthumous hits set. Here is how they fit together, and which one to reach for first.

2Pac - 2pacalypse Now (1991)

2pacalypse Now arrived on November 12, 1991 through TNT and Interscope, with the Digital Underground production circle behind the boards: Big D the Impossible, Shock G, Pee-Wee and Live Squad among them. It is the most openly political record he made, built around police violence, poverty and teenage pregnancy, and it carries "Brenda's Got a Baby," still the song most listeners name first from this period. The production is rougher and more sample-driven than anything that came after.

Why it's worth purchasing

• The full thesis of his early conscious-rap writing, before the Death Row years reshaped his public image
• A Bay Area production team working in a sample style the West Coast largely moved on from within two years
• A 180 gram pressing of a debut that is easy to skip and hard to replace later

2Pac - Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... (1993)

Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... followed on February 16, 1993, after his breakout acting role in Juice, and it answers his critics directly rather than retreating from them. Several of its strongest tracks, including "Keep Ya Head Up" and "I Get Around," were carried over from a shelved album originally titled Troublesome 21 that his label declined to put out. Ice Cube and Ice-T trade verses with him on "Last Wordz," and Shock G and Money-B turn up on "I Get Around," keeping the Digital Underground thread alive.

Why it's worth purchasing

• The pivot record, where the political writing stays and the beats get considerably harder
• Rescued material from a scrapped album, which gives the tracklist an oddly generous, compilation-like feel
• Cross-generational West Coast guest verses from Ice Cube and Ice-T on a single song

2Pac - Me Against the World (1995)

Me Against the World was released on March 14, 1995 while he was serving time, and it is the album most critics point to as his most thematically consistent. Recorded between September 1993 and November 1994 across ten studios, with Easy Mo Bee, Soulshock and Karlin, Tony Pizarro and Shock G producing, it trades bravado for something closer to a blues record: fear, mortality, and the letter home that became "Dear Mama." If you only own one 2Pac album, most clerks will point you here.

Why it's worth purchasing

• The single best entry point, and the most cohesive front-to-back listen in the catalog
• "Dear Mama," "So Many Tears" and "Temptations" on one record
• East Coast and West Coast producers on one record, rarer in his catalog than you would expect

2Pac - All Eyez on Me (1996)

All Eyez on Me landed on February 13, 1996, recorded in roughly nine weeks at Can-Am Studios after he left prison and signed to Death Row. Johnny "J" and Daz Dillinger handled most of the production, with Dr. Dre on "California Love" and "Can't C Me," and DJ Quik working under his given name because of an earlier contract. Twenty-seven tracks across two books, it is a maximalist party record with menace underneath, and GOOD TASTE Records carries it as a limited four-LP 180 gram pressing.

Why it's worth purchasing

• A four-LP 180 gram set, which is the format a record this sprawling was always asking for
• The deepest guest list he ever assembled, from Snoop Doggy Dogg and Method Man to George Clinton and Roger Troutman
• The Death Row sound at full stretch, and the last album released in his lifetime

2Pac/Makaveli - The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996)

The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory came out on November 5, 1996 under the Makaveli alias, the first record issued after his death. It was cut fast between July and August of that year with an almost entirely new production team led by Hurt-M-Badd, and the Outlawz appear throughout. The result is darker and more claustrophobic than All Eyez on Me, and Riskie Brent's crucifixion cover art carries a printed note from the artist explaining that no disrespect to Jesus Christ was intended.

Why it's worth purchasing

• A genuinely different sonic palette, built by producers he had barely worked with before
• The last songs he recorded, made in a compressed burst rather than assembled over months
• One of the most argued-over sleeves in hip-hop, worth owning at twelve inches

2Pac - Greatest Hits (1998)

Greatest Hits appeared on November 24, 1998 through Amaru, Death Row, Interscope and Jive, sequenced by feel rather than chronology so the Interscope years and the Death Row years sit side by side. Alongside twenty-one catalog tracks it gathers four songs that had not been released before, including "Changes," "Unconditional Love," "God Bless the Dead" and "Troublesome '96," and it is where the original mix of "California Love" first appears on an album. GOOD TASTE Records carries it as a four-LP set.

Why it's worth purchasing

• The most efficient way to hear both halves of his career on one shelf
• Four songs that appear on no studio album, "Changes" chief among them
• A four-LP spread, which keeps the cuts loud and the sides short

If You Like 2Pac

• Digital Underground: the Oakland group that gave him his first stage, and the source of the loose funk running under his early records.
• The Notorious B.I.G.: the other pole of the era, and the writer whose storytelling makes the clearest contrast with Shakur's confessional mode.
• Dr. Dre: architect of the G-funk template that All Eyez on Me both used and pushed past.
• Ice Cube: political West Coast rap with the same blend of reportage and menace, and a guest on Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z...
• DJ Quik: the Compton producer and rapper who worked on All Eyez on Me, and a rewarding catalog in his own right.

Where to Go From Here

Plenty of his discography sits outside these six records: the Thug Life group album from 1994, and the posthumous run of R U Still Down?, Until the End of Time, Better Dayz, Loyal to the Game and Pac's Life. Those are worth knowing as you dig. One adjacent record we do keep on the shelf is the Above the Rim soundtrack, the 1994 film companion that first carried Thug Life's "Pour Out a Little Liquor."

For the wider context, our Essential 90s Hip-Hop guide maps the decade he defined, and our Snoop Dogg guide covers the Death Row story from the other side. You can also browse the full Hip-Hop and 1990's Vinyl Albums collections, or go straight to everything we carry by him in the 2Pac collection.