Oct 28, 1997497 words · 2 min
A Double Album from the Estate
Right on time for the 1997 holiday season, Jive announces “R U Still Down?” for Afeni Shakur's Amaru label, but MTV reports the wrong origin of the songs.
Original: “Tupac Double Album On The Way” · MTV News · no byline · October 28, 1997
A Double Album for the Holiday Season
The news was brief, but it arrived right in time for the holiday season: Jive Records announced a new double album by Tupac Shakur for November 25, 1997. MTV still called the project “Are You Still Down, Remember Me.” Jive was set to distribute the record for Amaru, the label founded by Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur. The first single, I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto, was reportedly already on its way to radio stations.
MTV also reported that the songs came from the archives of Death Row Records, Tupac’s last label. Afeni Shakur had reportedly sued Death Row to gain control of these recordings. The article closed by noting that a steady stream of finished music and film projects had appeared since Tupac’s death in Las Vegas.
From the Interscope Years, Not Death Row
The core of the announcement was accurate: the album was released on November 25, 1997, as R U Still Down? (Remember Me). Billboard lists it under the label Amaru/Jive. It was the first release from Afeni Shakur’s own label-the beginning of a period in which the family itself decided on Tupac’s legacy.
What was incorrect, however, was the origin of the songs. MTV corrected itself the very next day: the material had been recorded between 1991 and 1994, when Tupac was under contract with Interscope. Death Row had only brought him over from Interscope in 1995. The double CD was thus a look back at the years prior to All Eyez on Me, not at the Death Row era. According to MTV, the new agreement also included Jive exclusively distributing Tupac’s four Interscope albums going forward.
Dispute Over $17 Million in Royalties
The explanation regarding the lawsuit also oversimplified the situation. In April 1997, Afeni Shakur had sued Death Row and its incarcerated label head Suge Knight for $17 million, according to the AP news agency. The lawsuit concerned royalties that the label allegedly owed her son, primarily for All Eyez on Me—not the tapes that became R U Still Down?. The disputes between the estate and the label dragged on for years and fill separate reports in this archive.
Four Posthumous Projects in Twelve Months
The report’s closing sentence was no exaggeration. Within a year of Tupac’s death came the Makaveli album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (November 1996), the film Gridlock’d along with its soundtrack, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard album chart in February 1997, as well as the film Gang Related in October 1997, whose soundtrack debuted at No. 2. R U Still Down? continued this run-for the first time under his mother’s direction.
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Afeni Shakur: Panther, Mother, Keeper of the EstateDeath Row Records