Tupac’s debut album 2Pacalypse Now came out on Interscope in November 1991. It was a political record: songs like Brenda’s Got a Baby, Trapped and Soulja’s Story told of poverty, police violence and powerlessness in Black neighbourhoods. Less than a year later a criminal case turned it into a campaign issue.
The Texas case
On April 11, 1992, Texas state trooper Bill Davidson pulled over a stolen vehicle with a broken headlight near Edna, Texas. The 19-year-old driver, Ronald Ray Howard, shot him in the neck; Davidson died three days later. Howard’s defence later argued that he had been listening to a cassette of 2Pacalypse Now at the time and that the album’s anti-police lyrics had influenced him. A jury convicted Howard of capital murder in June 1993; he was sentenced to death and executed in 2005.
“No place in our society”
On September 22, 1992, in the middle of the presidential campaign, Vice President Dan Quayle took up the case. He said the album had “no place in our society” and called on the record company to withdraw it. The Los Angeles Times reported on it the next day.
It is often said that Quayle “made sure the album was banned in the US.” That is not true: 2Pacalypse Now was neither banned nor withdrawn. If anything, the controversy made Tupac known nationwide. The date of the shooting is also often misstated: April 24, 1992 is sometimes given; it was April 11.
The aftermath
The slain trooper’s family sued Tupac, Interscope and Time Warner, arguing that the lyrics incited violence. The suit failed: in 1997 a federal judge in Texas ruled that the album, while “both disgusting and offensive,” was protected speech. Even so, the case became a reference point for the campaigns against gangsta rap that, soon after, were led by C. Delores Tucker among others.
For Tupac, Quayle was not a personal enemy but a symbol. He talked in interviews about the criticism and about a politician condemning his album without addressing the conditions it described. More on the collective that made the album under Underground Railroad.