Tupac has released a total of 11 platinum albums: four during his career, with seven more released posthumously. To date, Tupac has sold more than 75 million records worldwide. As of September 2017, the Recording Industry Association of America listed Tupac as the 44th top-selling artist of all time by album sales and streaming figures.

    Unlike many copycat rappers, Tupac lived the thug life that his music portrayed. The rapper then successfully auditioned to become a dancer and roadie for the rap group Digital Underground and simultaneously worked relentlessly on his own material. He appeared on that group’s This Is an E.P. Release EP (1990) and Sons of the P (1991). In 1991 he signed with Interscope and released the album 2pacalypse, a musical mixture of inner-city portraiture and messages of racial strength. An underground hit, the album spawned the single “Brenda’s Got a Baby”. Shakur also became a successful actor in the early 1990s, appearing in Ernest Dickerson’s Juice (1992) and Above the Rim (1994), and giving a critically acclaimed performance opposite Janet Jackson in John Singleton’s Poetic Justice (1993). Despite a promising start and wide praise for his performances, the rest of his film work was far less acclaimed; he ended his acting career as James Belushi’s sidekick in the mostly ignored Gang Related. Shakur’s second album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., yielded the hits “I Get Around” and “Keep Ya Head Up”. He also released an album as part of the short-lived Thug Life group in 1994.

    Tupac’s first album as a solo artist was 2Pacalypse Now. Although it did not yield any hits, it sold a respectable 500,000 copies and established Tupac as an uncompromising social commentator on songs such as “Brenda’s Got a Baby” — which narrates an underaged mother’s fall into destitution — and “Soulja’s Story,” which controversially spoke of “blasting” a police officer and “droppin’ the cop.” The song was cited as a motivation for a real-life cop killing by a teenage car thief called Ronald Ray Howard, and was condemned by the then-U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle. “There is absolutely no reason for a record like this to be published,” Quayle said. “It has no place in our society.” With those words, Shakur’s notoriety was guaranteed.

       Tupac’s second album, Strictly 4 My Niggaz, dropped in February 1993. It continued in the same socially conscious vein as his debut. On the gold-certified single “Keep Ya Head Up,” he empathized with “my sisters on the welfare,” encouraging them to “please don’t cry, dry your eyes, never let up.” The video featured a cameo from his good friend, actress Jada Pinkett-Smith , whom Tupac had met in high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts in Maryland.

    When Tupac’s third solo album came out on March 14, 1995, he was in jail. Its title, Me Against the World, could not have been more apt. It reached No. 1 in the Billboard 200 chart and is considered by many to be his magnum opus — “by and large a work of pain, anger and burning desperation” wrote Cheo H. Coker at Rolling Stone. But there was vulnerability, too — lead single, “Dear Mama,” was a tear-jerking tribute to his mother, Afeni, that hit number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1995.

    Tupac’s debut for Death Row, the double-length album All Eyez on Me, came out in February 1996. With his new hip-hop group Outlawz debuting on the album, All Eyez on Me was an unapologetic celebration of the thug lifestyle, eschewing socially conscious lyrics in favour of gangsta-funk hedonism and menace. Dr. Dre, who had pioneered g-funk with NWA, produced the album’s first single, “California Love” — which went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and remains Tupac’s best-known song. The third single from the album, “How Do You Want It,” also reached No. 1. Within two months of its release, All Eyez on Me had been certified five-times double-platinum. It would eventually become diamond certified.

    Released as a single in June 1996, “How Do You Want It” was more famous for its B track, “Hit ‘Em Up,” which aired Tupac’s West Coast feud with East Coast Bad Boy rivals. On the inflammatory song, Tupac spat venom at artists including Biggie Smalls, Lil Kim, Junior M.A.F.I.A. and Prodigy of Mobb Deep. The track seemed to chillingly presage Tupac’s death and the ensuing conspiracy theories: “Grab ya glocks, when you see Tupac; Call the cops, when you see Tupac, uh; Who shot me, but ya punks didn’t finish; Now ya bout to feel the wrath of a menace,” he rapped.

    Tupac’s fifth album, Don Killuminati: The Seven Day Theory, was released in November 1996, just eight weeks after his death. It also reached No. 1 on the charts. Tupac recorded a total of six studio albums released posthumously, up to and including Pac’s Life in 2006. 

    Despite the incident with director Allen Hughes, Tupac continued his acting career — starring alongside Janet Jackson in 1993’s Poetic Justice and Mickey Rourke in 1996’s Bullet.