Music for Ten Years: Afeni Shakur on 'R U Still Down?'

Original: “Tupac Back With New Album, Video” · MTV News · no byline · November 28, 1997

A Tupac picking up deceased celebrities as a bus driver and steering them toward heaven while nuns help out as a rescue team: in late November 1997, MTV reacted with an audible raised eyebrow to the video for I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto (“We were a little puzzled, too.”). The video for the first single from R U Still Down? (Remember Me) went directly back to Afeni Shakur. She had compiled the double album, released on November 25, 1997, from previously unreleased older recordings of her son.

The Myth Lives On

Director Lionel Martin explained the concept: Tupac was so powerful as an artist that he wasn’t really dead. They had left open a small possibility that he is still alive. The video also shows how consciously the family played with the “Tupac lives” myth-just a year after MTV itself had pushed back against the rumors (see Despite the rumors, Tupac is dead).

Music for a Decade

In the MTV weekly roundup, Afeni Shakur spoke about the musical legacy. Tupac knew his time was limited and “worked like a demon” to leave behind music for about ten years. For her, the work of putting that out now remained. At the end of the broadcast, MTV mentioned that Afeni had told People magazine she had scattered part of her son’s ashes in her vegetable garden.

Platinum and Divided Reviews

Afeni’s comment about the ten years proved too cautious. Posthumous albums continued to appear well into the 2000s, including Until the End of Time (2001) and Loyal to the Game (2004). R U Still Down? itself later earned quadruple platinum in the US. Critics were divided: the Los Angeles Times called much of it filler, but praised I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto as the song that did justice to Tupac’s legacy.

Note: In the archived text, the album title is given as “Are You Still Down”; the correct title is R U Still Down? (Remember Me).