"Ready to Live": Tupac on Rikers Island in Vibe (April 1995)

Original: “Ready to Live” · Vibe, April 1995 issue (cover story) · Kevin Powell · interviewed in early January 1995 on Rikers Island, New York

When and where

This is often filed as Vibe, May 1995. It actually ran as the cover story of the April 1995 issue under the headline “Ready to Live.” The interviewer was Kevin Powell, who had already profiled Tupac for Vibe in February 1994. According to Powell, Tupac wanted to tell his story to him and nobody else. They met early one January morning in 1995 in a conference room on Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail complex.

Where Tupac stood in the winter of 1994-95

Tupac was 23 and at his lowest point. On November 30, 1994, he had been ambushed in the lobby of Quad Recording Studios in Times Square and shot five times. The next day, the jury in his ongoing trial found him guilty on two counts of sexual abuse and acquitted him on the other charges. He could not raise the $3 million bail. He had been held on Rikers since January, and sentencing was still pending; it came on February 7, 1995. His album Me Against the World was finished but not yet out.

What they talked about

Tupac opens with withdrawal. He describes his first days without marijuana as a fight with himself. After that, he says, he did push-ups every day, read whole books in a single day and wrote. He maintains he is innocent of the crime he was convicted of, but not of the way he had been living. He takes back his earlier claim that prison would kill his spirit:

“The addict in Tupac is dead. The excuse maker in Tupac is dead.” Tupac Shakur, Vibe, April 1995

The Quad Studios shooting takes up the most space. Tupac describes at length how he was lured to the studio with the promise of a paid guest verse, how two armed men went straight for him, and how upstairs he found Andre Harrell, Sean “Puffy” Combs, Biggie and many others. He reads it as suspicious that hardly anyone would look at him. He names no shooters. No involvement by Combs or Biggie has ever been proven (see Shooting 1994). He goes on to talk about Bellevue Hospital, threatening phone calls, checking himself out and appearing in court in a wheelchair.

On the trial, Tupac gives his version of the night at the hotel. He admits he felt ashamed for not stepping in. That remains his account; the jury had reached a different verdict. After the charges, he says, he felt anger toward Black women, but in jail it was the female guards who treated him with respect.

Plans and confessions

He calls Me Against the World his best album and declares “Thug Life” dead. After prison, he says, he wants to start a youth organization called “Us First” with Mike Tyson and Sanyika Shakur. He thanks supporters including Jada Pinkett, Jasmine Guy, Treach, Mickey Rourke and Madonna, and apologizes to Quincy Jones and the Hughes Brothers, but pointedly not to John Singleton. He compares himself to Marvin Gaye and Vincent van Gogh, artists whose work was only valued after their deaths:

“I’m in jail now, but I’m free. My mind is free.” Tupac Shakur, Vibe, April 1995

Why it matters

According to Kevin Powell, “Ready to Live” became one of Vibe’s best-selling issues. It is the key first-person account of Tupac’s time behind bars. Its hints about the night at Quad Studios deepened the tension with Bad Boy that turned into an open feud in 1996. Tupac later took back his farewell to “Thug Life,” and he refers to it directly in his last major Vibe interview from late summer 1996 (Last Testament).