Pac was huge before he died. Polarizing, but huge nonetheless. The only thing comparable to him signing with death row was 50 signing to aftermath. And Hiphop hadn't seen anything like the release of aeom. California Love started the million Dollar budget rap videos. Hit em up was the most shocking diss record that ever dropped at the time. The media, and especially Vibe magazine blew up his beef with biggie and turned him into this iconic persona. And him getting shot send shockwaves through the hiphop community and beyond. Pac didn't get bigger after he died, just less controversial, because people focused less on the beef and more on his political views.Mainly because most of his fans came after he died, which is when his popularity surged. I myself was just a little kid when Pac was alive and poppin so i didn't listen to his music until way after he died. So Pac fans, who didn't start listening to him after his death, need to prop him up as this larger than life icon that was that huge through his whole career. They'll even claim they listened to him back in his Digital Underground days. Anything to take the smear off being a bandwagon fan who only became a fan after he died. I mean the East coast West coast beef was huge in the hiphop world. But it wasn't until Pac got killed that it became a real mainstream thing and all the national news and media would talk about his death. Add to that his Makaveli persona switch and all the 7 day theory stuff and his most popular album being released right after he died and there you go.
So yea that's really it, a lot of Pac fans need for him to be as big as he was in life as he became after death so they don't look like the late joiner fans they are. Knowing damn well they didn't start listening to him until after other rappers starting treating him like a God in the game, and his Makaveli legend grew, and a bunch of documentaries came out about him. Plus when Eminem made that movie doc about him back in 03' you know it brought A LOT of new young white fans who also needed to pretend like they always listened to Pac. So the bigger you make Pac look as a fan, the more believable it is that u always listened to him.
This is all just my theory of course, i could be wrong.
And I'm not saying this to stan, there were probably just as many disliking tupac as there were fans. But that doesn't change the fact that he was the biggest rapper alive in 95/96.
