He returned to performing, and auditioned for Shock G of the group Digital Underground. He was hired for the road crew and eventually performed and recorded with Digital Underground, appearing on the group's ''This Is an EP Release'' (Tommy Boy) and ''Sons of the P'' (Tommy Boy), which was nominated for a Grammy Award. In 1991, he started a solo recording career with the album ''2Pacalypse Now'' (Interscope), which sold half a million copies. It included two modest hits, ''Trapped'' and ''Brenda's Got a Baby,'' a song about an unwed teen-age mother's plight. Before the album was released, he also started a career as a movie actor, playing the violent, unpredictable Bishop in the Ernest Dickerson film ''Juice.''
In October 1991, Mr. Shakur said, police officers in Oakland, Calif., assaulted him because he was jaywalking; he filed a $10 million lawsuit. In the spring of 1992, a Texas state trooper was killed by a teen-ager who was listening to ''2Pacalypse Now,'' which includes songs about killing policemen. Vice President Dan Quayle demanded that the album be withdrawn; Interscope refused.
In 1993, Mr. Shakur played the male lead in John Singleton's film ''Poetic Justice,'' opposite Janet Jackson, and released ''Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.,'' which sold a million copies, mixing tales of violence with positive messages about women and the responsibility of fatherhood. It was followed in 1994 by ''Thug Life, Vol. 1,'' made by a group of rappers featuring Mr. Shakur. The group's hit single, ''Pour a Little Liquor,'' was an elegy for victims of gangster life; it was used in the soundtrack of ''Above the Rim,'' a movie in which Mr. Shakur had a supporting role.
In November 1993, Mr. Shakur was indicted on charges that he and some associates sodomized a 20-year-old woman in a Manhattan hotel suite. During the trial, he was shot twice as he entered a Manhattan recording studio and robbed of $40,000 worth of jewelry. He was sentenced to 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 years in prison for sexual assault. While in prison, he married his longtime girlfriend, Keisha Morris, but the marriage was annulled. In October 1995, pending appeal, he was released on $1.4 million bail, which was put up by his new recording label, Death Row Records.
His 1995 album, ''Me Against the World'' (Out Da Gutta/Interscope), apparently recorded before his prison term, was a more somber reflection on ghetto violence; it entered the Billboard album chart at No. 1, and sold two million copies. Upon his release, Mr. Shakur immediately began recording songs for ''All Eyez on Me'' (Death Row/Interscope), which has sold 2.5 million copies since its release this year. It was the first double album in hip-hop, and it also reached No. 1. The cautionary tone was gone; on the album, Mr. Shakur flaunted his success, reveling in fame and wealth.
''His latest album was his best-selling album, and one expects that he would have built on it from there,'' said Mr. Mayfield of Billboard.