Here's How Many Albums Tupac Sold After His Death

Speaking with Reuters, Todd Boyd, one of the first U.S. professors to examine rap academically, said, "When you listen to Tupac, you feel something." And for some fans, those feelings have lingered for an incredibly long time. In the case of Jerry Foxhoven, a self-described "66-year-old white guy from the Midwest who likes rap music, who likes Tupac!" his California love of Tupac allegedly cost him his job. As NPR details, Foxhoven, who was not a California resident, headed Iowa's Department of Health, emailed Tupac quotes to 4,000 employees. He implemented "Tupac Fridays" during which he would blast the rapper's music.

Foxhoven celebrated Tupac's birthday with "Tupac-themed baked goods" and commemorated the anniversary of his death. Twenty-two years after the rapper's untimely demise happened at the peak of his fame, Foxhoven expressed sadness over the loss. It may have been Tu-much Tupac because shortly after his bajillionth email referencing the rap legend, Foxhoven lost his job in 2019. Maybe, though, he got canned because he was too busy quoting Tupac to do his actual job. Either way, that kind of die-hard devotion may help explain why decades after the musician's death, Tupac's album sales are alive and well.

In the immortal words of Dave "Tupac" Chapelle: "The girl in the miniskirt has bad taste because her shirt don't match. And there's a puddin' stain on the back. What the f*ck is that? It might be doo-doo." He wrote that song a long time ago, adding an apocryphal installment to a catalog of what some might call the dopest songs ever written. Chapelle's hilarious parody alludes to a longstanding belief that Tupac never died. But even if the late rapper could accurately proclaim, "I'm not alive!" as Chapelle does, his music has taken on a life of its own.

Biography writes that seven of Tupac's eleven Platinum albums were posthumously released. Per the Washington Post, the week after his 1996 murder saw 67,000 album sales. Rolling Stone reported in 2001 that his album Until the End of Time went triple Platinum, placing his total sales at the time at $33.5 million. Since then, that number has surpassed 75 million, meaning he's sold well over 40 million albums since his death.