THUGISM

Johnny J: I don’t know. Like, he saw it coming. I mean out of the songs that we- you know, out of a lot of the songs that we did, you know, for him to talk about death, death, death, death. I mean, he would talk about it all the time. 

It’s like you’re happy about having successful records with Tupac, producing him and all that, but at the same time, it’s like, he’s not here to enjoy what you’re enjoying while you know, while I’m alive.

Ray Luv: He always thought he was going to die prematurely. He said, you know, “when I’m dead, and when I’m gone, you know what I’m saying.. hold these and then let everybody know this side of me as well as whatever I’ve already exposed. ” And that’s prophetic typic shit, man. God let him know that he only has so much time to make an impact. 

Shock G: He was a pre-thinker. You wonder how could he make a song, ” God bless the dead” praising Biggie after Biggie died and Pac died first. Because he was a thinker like that. He was always plotting. “If I die this way, put this out. If I die this way, I want you to put this out.” He was thinking, and he wanted to cover all those bases. That’s game, ain’t it? He was playing to win. He has a plan E much less a plan B. 

Quincy Jones: Kidada could’ve been sitting there right next to him, you know. He called her and told her that he would see her later on, cause after the fight they had a fight with a crip and he didn’t want to jeopardize her, so he must have felt something too.

Mopreme Shakur: I walked in the room to visit him, and he was trying to tell me something. That will always be one of the mysteries in my life. I don’t know what he was trying to tell me, but he was trying to tell me something, and he was shaking the whole bed. He was a warrior, you know, to the end.

Snoop Dogg: He wrote his death before his death happened. He shot the video “I Ain’t Mad At Cha” a week before he got killed. Like, why would you do a video about you gettin killed? And then a week later you get killed…why would you write songs about, you know, “‘Dear mama, and being a loving son to your mama’.” And all these things kick into a play now. He knew it. He worked like a fucking race horse. The way I work now, I ain’t half as what he was like. To me, it was like, why the fuck was he working so fast, and so hard, and trying to finish all these records up? He had to know.

Money B: My first thought was like, “when he come out of this one, he really going to think he is invincible.”

Treach: However it went down with them taking him away, he’s still not gone and still is going to be here for a loong time to come and even if music still wasn’t coming from all the albums that’s out now, we got enough to hold us over for centuries.

LeilaSteinberg: You know, could we have done something different? Could we have said more? Could we have stood up to the forces? And all of us shoulder some of the responsibility. 

Quincy Jones: It just appalls me that nobody has been arrested for those two deaths. You know, and it’s just been a, like- it’s like a big cloud with a question mark on it. You know that somebody in Las Vegas and Los Angeles or both know exactly what happened.