All Eyez on Me is released

Why it matters

All Eyez on Me came out on Death Row on February 13, 1996. It is the first rap double album. It is one of the fastest-selling rap albums in history (566,000 units in the first week). Tupac at this point was 24 years old, four months out of prison, and at his commercial peak. He recorded the album in two weeks. The label needed product. The album is, on a track-by-track level, uneven; you would not call it Tupac's most consistent record. What it is is Tupac running at full throttle across 27 tracks, with the entire Death Row roster behind him (Dre, Snoop, Daz, Kurupt, Method Man, Redman, K-Ci & JoJo, Roger Troutman, the entire Outlawz crew). The album sold five million copies inside a year and another five over the next twenty. "California Love." "How Do U Want It." "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted" (with Snoop). "Picture Me Rollin'." "I Ain't Mad at Cha" (released as a single after he died, with an eerily prescient video). Seven months after the album dropped, Tupac was dead in Las Vegas. The album is the loudest thing he made. You should hear it as he meant it: at full volume, two CDs deep.