Tupac Shakur’s Fashion Legacy, by Janelle Okwodu (2016)
The Rose That Grew from Concrete, by Tupac Shakur (1999)Ī collection of poems that Tupac wrote in his younger years, this book showcases a passionate student of Shakespeare who had a real love for bending words and trying to find the right metaphor to fully contextualise what it felt like to be poor. This New Yorker article paints a vivid picture of 2Pac’s death, while the suggestion that he died without much money in his pocket, despite his status as US rap’s most important star, points to ongoing exploitation of black artists.
The Takedown of Tupac, by Connie Bruck (1997) The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996) US vice-president Dan Quayle called the record’s release “irresponsible”, but 2Pac was more than prepared to live out his words – in 1993, he was charged with shooting two off-duty police officers in Atlanta, though the charges were later dropped. The best moment is the urgent, mountain-shaking bass of Violent, where 2Pac channels the sound of Public Enemy with a twisted fable on what it’s like to be harassed by police officers just for existing, ending the song by shooting a “crooked cop” in cold blood. On the poignant Brenda’s Got a Baby, he empathises with a young black teenage mother whose body has been corrupted by an endless cycle of abusive men, while Words of Wisdom sees him boldly attempt to reclaim the n-word as a source of empowerment (“It means Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished”) as he fawns over the more aggressive political ideals of Malcolm X. The three albums to listen to nextĢPac’s debut remains underrated, with the artist using it to show outsiders just how dangerous America’s inner cities had become. Ideas that might have seemed neurotic 25 years ago, such as 2Pac’s suspicion on Fuck the World that America’s prison industrial complex might be the reason he keeps going to jail, also now sound a lot more indubitable, with the artist creating an enduring collection of cathartic anthems for anyone who has ever felt oppressed. Me Against the World, which was the first US No 1 album released by someone in prison (the rapper was still serving a sentence for sexual assault), was the most fully formed, relatable iteration of 2Pac.
The beautifully nostalgic Dear Mama, where he warmly pays tribute to the many hardships experienced by his Black Panther mother, Afeni Shakur (“And even as a crack fiend, mama / You always was a black queen, mama”), and the puppy dog romance of Can U Get Away remind us that gangster rappers can be just as soft as the rest of us. It also means that Me Against the World’s brighter, more optimistic shifts in tone feel well earned, as a paranoid 2Pac finally starts to let some light back into his life. Thankfully, these darker moments are delivered with so much heart that they stretch beyond mere self-pity. This morbid fatalism reaches a crescendo with the bluesy So Many Tears, a late-night confessional where 2Pac sounds like he’s quite literally being stalked by the spectral figure of death – arguably, these songs were precursors to the emo rap sound of the 2010s, with 2Pac one of the first major rap artists to show his peers that there was no shame in crying or making songs from a position of weakness. On the mournful Lord Knows, he’s on his knees reaching out in pure desperation, powerfully rapping: “I smoke a blunt to take the pain out / And if I wasn’t high, I’d probably try to blow my brains out / I’m hopeless, they should’ve killed me as a baby.” His throaty vocals show the wear and tear of chain-smoking Newports, true, but the delivery of his bars from the very back of his throat sounds gigantic like a God, clearing both his throat and his conscience. He switches between grappling with suicidal thoughts to leading black America on to a path of enlightenment on his third solo album, but its raw introspection makes the rapper sound less like a thug superhero and more like a fragile 23-year-old, struggling to hold it all together. He resonated not only with the gangsters, but also the people looking to escape from that lifestyle and find inner peace. There wasn’t a week that went by without the controversial rapper appearing in court or in the gossip pages with rumours about romances with Madonna and Whitney Houston, but he balanced this notoriety with being a fervent defender of black America’s most poor and vulnerable citizens. Less than four years into his solo career, 2Pac already felt like an icon by the time he dropped Me Against the World.