Naturally, this album was a blockbuster, eventually selling over four million copies. By the time this album was released in November 1996, he had been dead for two months, the victim of a drive-by shooting and quickly deified as the patron saint of gangsta rap and the most mythologized and idolized figure in rap history. One cannot help but think that he was asking for it. His paranoia is at an all-time high, and his verbal attacks have never been sharper, more direct or more outrageous. Well, regardless of the validity of these theories – and it does add to the appeal of the album – The Don Killuminati: The 7-Day Theory reveals a guy who just seems to get worse. But until someone can prove otherwise, I still will not believe that 2Pac is somewhere in hiding, or on vacation in some Caribbean island sipping daquiris, as some bone-headed fans want to believe. That sounds pretty clever – even though it is claimed that Machiavelli died on the 21st of June, 1527 at the age of fifty-eight, his final resting place is unknown.
In fact, it was believed that Machiavelli faked his own death, and Tupac is believed to have followed his example. Then there’s his new alias, Makaveli, obviously inspired by Italian Renaissance writer Niccolo Machiavelli and his book, The Art of War (1521), which advocates the art of deception to fool one’s enemies (“No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution”). No wonder some delusional fans to this day could swear he utters the words “Suge shot me” in the first few minutes of his last album. Perhaps all was not rosy with him and Suge Knight. Or was he constantly reminded of his 1994 shooting that he was not guaranteed a long life, thus resorting to churning out song after song and gaining the reputation of being the most prolific rapper ever? Perhaps he really did not like the thug image, but was pressured to do so out of obligation to his label’s – and Suge’s – expectations, and to clear his debt. He might have sold his soul to the devil, but deep in his heart, did he do it because he wanted to? The fact that he completed an album only seven months after All Eyez On Me suggests so – he must have been that eager to get out of there.
Moreover, he was bound to a three-album contract with Suge Knight’s Death Row Records. The colossal All Eyez On Me revealed the life of a rapper spiraling out of control. His last year on earth – 1996 – was his most turbulent, and it showed in his records. After the comparatively serene brilliance of Me Against the World, 2Pac would never be the same again.