Nov 25, 1997530 words · 2 min
“R U Still Down?” Released
November 25, 1997: “R U Still Down?” is released, with archival recordings, a bus to heaven full of the dead, and a grieving mother in People magazine.
Original: “Tupac’s Posthumous Album Released” · MTV News · no byline · November 25, 1997
On November 25, 1997, MTV News reported that Tupac Shakur’s “earthly career” was carrying on: the new album, still referred to by the network at the time as “Are You Still Down”, was in stores. The double CD brought together unreleased recordings from 1991 to 1994 and was released on Jive in collaboration with Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur.
The rest of the report revolved around the surrounding details. The first video, for I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto, was intended to recall Tupac’s clip for I Ain’t Mad at Cha: a Tupac look-alike steers a bus into heaven, picking up other deceased stars along the way. That same week, People magazine featured a photo of the seven-year-old Tupac. Afeni Shakur shared there that she still cried every time at Dear Mama, and that part of her son’s ashes had fertilized her vegetable garden.
No. 2 Behind Garth Brooks: 549,000 Albums in Week One
The launch was a success, even if it narrowly missed the top spot. In the Billboard issue dated December 13, 1997, R U Still Down? (Remember Me) debuted at No. 2 on the album charts. Ahead of it stood only Garth Brooks with Sevens, which had been released in the same week. According to Variety, Tupac’s album sold 549,000 copies in its first week, at the time the fifth-best debut for a rap album. Today, Billboard lists the album with 4x Platinum certification from the RIAA.
For Afeni Shakur’s young Amaru label, that was an exclamation mark. The estate’s first release under her own banner was beaten only by the biggest album debut of the entire year, according to Variety.
A Bus Full of the Dead and the Question of Whether He Is Still Alive
The video was directed by Lionel C. Martin, who according to MTV had already directed Tupac’s Dear Mama clip. The bus concept raised eyebrows, including at MTV itself. Martin explained that Tupac was such a powerful personality that, for many people, he was not really dead at all. For that reason, they deliberately left a door open after the shooting scene: they “left a possibility, however small it might be, that he’s still alive.”
With that, the video played into rumors that Tupac had only faked his death. MTV had already reported on this in January 1997, and the steady stream of new music only further fueled them.
More Than the Mother: Afeni Shakur Takes Charge of the Work
The details in People show how publicly Afeni Shakur lived both her grief and her new role at the same time. She was no longer solely the mother of the deceased, but the publisher of his work. Her confidence that enough material existed for many years to come would be confirmed: as late as 2001, Until the End of Time debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, followed in 2002 by Better Dayz at No. 5.
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