All Eyez on Me — 1996

Background

All Eyez on Me was released in 1996 as a double album, Tupac Shakur's fourth solo album and his first release after signing with Death Row Records, recorded remarkably quickly given the album's substantial length, reflecting an extraordinarily prolific period following his release from prison.

Sound

'California Love', featuring Dr. Dre, opens the album with one of the most commercially successful and enduringly popular singles in West Coast hip-hop history, built around a Roger Troutman talk-box hook and a celebratory, funk-driven G-funk production. 'Ambitionz Az a Ridah' and 'All Eyez on Me' both showcase Shakur's aggressive, defiant delivery over classic Death Row-era G-funk production, characterised by heavy synthesizer basslines and funk samples.

Scope and duality

The album moves between celebratory, party-oriented tracks and more reflective, socially conscious material, reflecting the same duality that ran through much of Shakur's broader catalogue — capable of both defiant bravado and genuine vulnerability, sometimes within the same song, a tension that became central to his broader artistic identity and posthumous legacy.

Legacy

All Eyez on Me is widely regarded as one of the most significant and commercially successful hip-hop albums of the 1990s, capturing Tupac Shakur and the Death Row Records G-funk sound at a commercial and creative peak shortly before his murder later the same year. It remains one of the best-selling hip-hop albums of all time and a defining document of mid-1990s West Coast rap.