On Venice Beach: Tupac with Tabitha Soren (MTV News, October 1995)

Original: TV interview · MTV News · Tabitha Soren · Venice Beach, California · October 27, 1995

When and where

This conversation is often filed under August 27, 1995, the month is wrong, since Tupac was still in prison in August. It was recorded on October 27, 1995, a little over two weeks after his release from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. MTV News correspondent Tabitha Soren, who had interviewed him before, walked the boardwalk at Venice Beach in Los Angeles with him. MTV aired excerpts at the time, billing it as his first extensive TV interview since prison. The full, roughly 20-minute version was not released until September 2019, on the 23rd anniversary of his death.

October 1995

On October 12, Death Row had posted his $1.4 million bond; Tupac was free while his appeal was pending. In December 1994 he had been convicted on two counts of sexual abuse and acquitted of sodomy and the weapons charges. The day before the verdict he had been shot at Quad Studios in New York. Now he was recording for Death Row day and night.

Childhood, mother, Thug Life

Soren asked about his childhood. As a kid, he said, he was the opposite of the man he had become: quiet, withdrawn, a reader who wrote poetry. He met “thug life” when he was homeless and hungry, in Baltimore, Marin City and Oakland the only people who looked out for him then were criminals. His mother, Afeni Shakur, was “lost” at the time; because she was his hero, it hurt all the more. In between he joked about one of his only two jobs, at a pizza place, and about the beachgoers on the boardwalk.

Prison, trial and the shooting

In prison, he said, the threat came from guards, not inmates. He denied the young woman’s accusations; his only mistake, in his account, was falling asleep in the hotel suite before everyone had left. He saw a double standard in how Black artists were judged. What got him off the wild path? His answer:

“Five hot bullets.” Tupac Shakur to Tabitha Soren, MTV News, October 1995

He said he did not know who shot him. He spoke openly about feeling suicidal during the trial. Prison had not “rehabilitated” him; he had grown up, but not because of jail.

Music, marriage and a new image

He announced a double album with the working title “Euphanasia,” featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg, it came out in February 1996 as All Eyez on Me. Irresponsible lyrics, he said, are the ones that talk about murder but not about the pain, the prison and the betrayal that come with it. He rejected the “gangsta rapper” label: Marlon Brando isn’t a “gangsta actor” either. His marriage to Keisha Morris, conducted in prison in April 1995, had not worked; he had married out of loneliness. He used to be known for his big mouth, he said, and now hopefully for something else:

“I’m known as a survivor now.” Tupac Shakur to Tabitha Soren, MTV News, October 1995

Why it matters

The Venice Beach interview catches Tupac flirting, joking and exposed all at once, few conversations show so many sides of him. He asked for the kind of second chance Hollywood had given stars like John Travolta. Less than a year later he was dead.

Read more: Los Angeles Times, October 1995 · The 1994 shooting