Me Against the World is the fourth studio album by American hip hop artist Tupac Shakur. It was released March 14, 1995 on the Interscope Records label recorded from September 1993 to November 1994. It was his impending prison sentence, troubles with the police and Shakur being poor, which many believe might have contributed to Shakur's artistic reemergence on record, as his material is believed by Steve Huey of Allmusic to have become markedly more "confessional", "reflective", and "soul-baring". Me Against the World, released while Shakur was imprisoned, made an immediate impact on the charts, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200. This made Shakur the first artist to have an album debut at number one on Billboard 200 while serving time in prison. The album served as one of Shakur's most positively reviewed albums, with many calling it the magnum opus of his career, and is considered one of the greatest and most influential hip hop albums of all-time. Me Against the World won best rap album at the 1996 Soul Train Music Awards. In 1993, Tupac Shakur was already a success in the hip hop industry, with two gold-certified singles that reached the top twenty on the pop charts ("I Get Around", "Keep Ya Head Up"), and a platinum-selling sophomore album that would peak just inside the top twenty-five of the Billboard 200 (Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.). However, the 22-year-old artist had a series of incidents and charges of breaking the law. In the summer of 1993, Shakur was