Moving further outside the Underground’s orbit (but not completely out of it), 2Pac hooked up with a variety of collaborators on Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z…, assembling a riotous bustle of sound in which vocals and samples collide like fans at a Green Day show. Submerging political commentary (“Trapped,” “Words of Wisdom,” “Soulja’s Story”) and empathy for young mothers and their effect on the community (“Brenda’s Got a Baby”) in wanton gun-happy tales of violence, the album is cocky rather than confident - the least personal of 2Pac’s missives.
The Underground’s greasyfinger grooves don’t really suit 2Pac’s lean delivery, and the songs are too derivative to stand completely on their own. Produced and featuring appearances by the Digital Underground crew, 2Pacalypse Now is a strong but scattered debut, an overzealous, musically unfocused first step by a young star who can’t quite find his feet after leaving the nest. Denying the need for a dividing line between life and art (or, for that matter, life and death), 2Pac’s tumultuous existence and death-obsessed raps had a frightening synchronicity it’s impossible to hear his music without considering the crucible from which it spilled.
A hardass attitude, inflamed political anger, articulate intelligence, malignant charisma and calmly commanding vocals give 2Pac’s records their undeniable power contradictory pronouncements and numerous violent confrontations with legal (and otherwise) authorities turned him into an enigmatic lightning rod for the nation’s anti-rap anxiety. Stepping out of a minor role in the whimsical Digital Underground, 2Pac (Tupac Shakur), the native son of a Black Panther who carried him while incarcerated in a New York prison, went deadly serious on solo albums that made him a notorious and controversial bicoastal leader of the ’90s gangsta school (and led him to a major second career as a compelling film actor).