Makaveli and Machiavelli: A Name From a Prison Cell

Two weeks before his death, Tupac sat in a trailer on the set of Gang Related and told a Vibe reporter where his new name came from. He did not idolize the man, he said, but a way of thinking. The man was Niccolò Machiavelli, a Florentine civil servant of the sixteenth century. Under the name Makaveli, Tupac had recorded an album in the summer of 1996. He did not live to see it released.

The one-paragraph explanation of the name is in the FAQ and on Names and Aliases. This page tells the longer story: the Florentine, the reading in a prison cell, the album and the myths that grew out of it.

A fallen official who wrote about power

Niccolò Machiavelli was born in Florence on May 3, 1469, and served the Republic as Second Chancellor from 1498. When the Medici returned in 1512, he lost his post. He was wrongly suspected of conspiracy, and in early 1513 he was imprisoned for several weeks and tortured.

Afterward he withdrew to his country estate, where at the end of 1513 he wrote Il Principe, The Prince. The book was not printed until 1532, five years after his death on June 21, 1527.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes it as an analysis of power. Older “mirrors for princes,” handbooks of advice for rulers, demanded virtuous conduct above all. Machiavelli asks instead how power is gained and held, whether that is morally pretty or not. That is where “Machiavellian” comes from, as a word for calculating ruthlessness. Even so, the book is not a manual for killing, though it is no uplifting text either.

In Dannemora, a book became a name

Tupac had been behind bars since late 1994, most recently at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. He read a lot there. Back on Rikers Island he had already told Kevin Powell that he finished whole books in a day (see Ready to Live). One of them was The Prince.

The reading turned into the name Makaveli. Tupac deliberately spelled it differently from the original, which made it a brand of its own.

His reasoning is on record. In his last big Vibe interview he said he idolized not the man but “that type of thinking where you do whatever’s gonna make you achieve your goal.” In the English Wikipedia’s version he adds that Machiavelli “gave” him that name and that he feels no guilt about it; it is “what got me here,” his reading. Wikipedia, however, does not source that longer wording to the Vibe interview but to a much later publication. That is why it appears here only as a pointer.

The reading fit his self-image in the summer of 1996. At Death Row, Tupac called himself the “capo” under the “boss” Suge Knight. In the Mafia, that is the leader of a crew who answers directly to the boss. His own crew, the Outlawz, took names from the same world: according to Complex, the members adopted aliases after enemies of the United States, among them Kadafi, Napoleon and Mussolini.

A mixtape that became an album

The plan was a mixtape, a collection meant to go out to the streets for free. Young Noble of the Outlawz recalled, per Complex, that Tupac only wanted to drop something “to set the streets on fire.” Suge Knight talked him into making it an official album instead of giving it away.

It was recorded mostly at Can-Am Studios in Tarzana, California. According to Complex, about 20 tracks were done there in three days of recording and four days of mixing. The English Wikipedia gives June 7 to August 12, 1996 for the sessions as a whole. Both can be true: a large part was made in one week, with work before and after. Hence the name The 7 Day Theory.

The title was a makeshift

E.D.I. Mean of the Outlawz said in 2014 that Tupac had wanted to call the album Killuminati: The 7-Day Theory, with “Makaveli the Don” as the artist name. In the rush after his death, the name was altered. George “Papa G” Pryce, then head of Death Row publicity, regarded “Makaveli” as a somewhat tongue-in-cheek thing that was not yet meant to come out.

The album was released on November 5, 1996. It entered the Billboard 200, the main US album chart, at No. 1, with 664,000 copies sold in the first week.

A cross that doubles as a map

The cover art is by illustrator Ronald “Riskie” Brent. Tupac hangs on a cross, and the only light comes from the moon and from rays falling through cracks in the wood. City names are written on the cross. According to Complex, Tupac called it a map marking New York, Harlem, Brooklyn and the places of his enemies.

A note on the artwork reads: “In no way is this portrait an expression of disrespect for Jesus Christ., Makaveli”. How religious studies reads the image is covered on Tupac and Religion.

Strategist, dead man, driven man: three readings

The strategist reading. In the Vibe conversation Tupac announced that on the album he would name the people who had set him up and shot him in 1994. He went after Dr. Dre, Mobb Deep, Jay-Z, Puffy and Biggie. He offered no proof for the accusations.

The faked-death myth. After 1996, fans claimed that Machiavelli had faked his own death or advised doing so, and that Tupac followed the plan. There is no evidence for either. The Prince contains nothing of the kind, Machiavelli died on June 21, 1527 according to the established biographies, and the Baylor Lariat notes that there are no documents for the claim. The album title The 7 Day Theory was reinterpreted too, as a “return after seven years.” In 2003 nobody came back (see Theories and Makaveli, The 7 Day Theory).

The reviews. By 1999 the album had gone four times platinum, meaning four million units shipped. Critics were divided. Entertainment Weekly gave it just a D in November 1996. Quincy Jones III, who produced on it, saw Tupac differently: he was “manic,” “on fire with this manic push.” The two impressions do not cancel each other out. An album made in a few days can sound hasty and driven at the same time.

A name that outlived the album

Makaveli remained the name of one body of work. Just under two weeks after Tupac’s death, Toss It Up had come out as the first single; Hail Mary followed in February 1997, and more songs came after. Later, a fashion label carried the name on.

That leaves the author himself. The Stanford Encyclopedia points out that Machiavelli wrote The Prince in haste to win back a post in Florence. The book was, among other things, a job application. Tupac read it as a guide to getting your way. Whether he understood the Florentine correctly is a question for philosophers. For the name, what Tupac himself saw in it was enough: not a role model, but an attitude.

Further reading: Names and Aliases · Last Testament (Vibe, 1996) · The Outlawz · THUG LIFE