Me Against the World

In March 1995 Tupac was locked up in the Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in upstate New York, when Me Against the World hit the stores. A week later the album sat at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. No artist had ever topped the US album chart while serving a prison sentence. Musically, it is also his most introspective work.

Recorded in the most turbulent stretch of his life

Between fall 1993 and the end of 1994 Tupac was in and out of court and making films. On November 30, 1994, he was shot five times during a robbery at Quad Studios in New York. Shortly afterwards he was convicted of sexual abuse, and in February 1995 he began serving his sentence. These were the months in which the album took shape.

It shows in the lyrics. Many of them read like a conversation with his own death. If I Die 2Nite and Death Around the Corner toy with the sense that he won't grow old, while So Many Tears and Lord Knows sound exhausted. On the earlier albums anger drove him; here he questions himself.

A sound cut from one cloth

The production is more cohesive than on Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. Easy Mo Bee supplied If I Die 2Nite and Temptations while working on The Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die at the same time. Danish duo Soulshock & Karlin built the title track. It features Dramacydal, the group that later became the Outlawz. Shock G produced So Many Tears and Fuck the World. Johnny "J" made his first contribution to a Tupac solo album with Death Around the Corner.

A love song that doesn't hide the wounds

At the center stands Dear Mama, Tupac's tribute to his mother Afeni Shakur. The song is as honest about her failings as it is about her fight to raise him.

The Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry as the first hip-hop recording by a solo artist (selected for 2009, announced in 2010). The registry preserves sound recordings judged culturally, historically or artistically significant to the United States.

Springsteen has to make room

The album debuted at No. 1, knocking Bruce Springsteen's Greatest Hits off the top. Dear Mama reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified triple platinum in 2021. So Many Tears peaked at No. 44 and Temptations at No. 68. The RIAA certified the album double platinum in December 1995. In Germany it reached No. 23.

To many critics, his best

Many critics consider Me Against the World Tupac's best and most thematically consistent album. Rolling Stone singled out the pain, anger and desperation that bind it together. Entertainment Weekly was cooler, grading it B−.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame put it on its "Definitive 200" list in 2008, and it appears in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. A 30th-anniversary vinyl edition followed in 2025.

The last album before Death Row

The record closed a chapter. A few months after its release Suge Knight bailed him out of prison, and All Eyez on Me opened the Death Row era. Less than eleven months passed between his release and the shots in Las Vegas.