Tupac's legacy

The online, rap magazine AllHipHop held a 2007 roundtable where, among fellow New York rappers, Cormega, citing tour experience with New York rap duo Mobb Deep, imparted a broad assessment: "Biggie ran New York. 'Pac ran America."[159] In 2010, writing Rolling Stone magazine's entry on Tupac Shakur at No. 86 among the "100 greatest artists," New York rapper 50 Cent appraised, "Every rapper who grew up in the Nineties owes something to Tupac. He didn't sound like anyone who came before him."[160] Dotdash, formerly About.com, while ranking him fifth among the greatest rappers, nonetheless notes, "Tupac Shakur is the most influential hip-hop artist of all time. Even in death, 2Pac remains a transcendental rap figure."[161] Yet to some, he was a "father figure" who, said rapper YG, "makes you want to be better—at every level."[162]

According to music journalist Chuck Philips, 2Pac "had helped elevate rap from a crude street fad to a complex art form, setting the stage for the current global hip-hop phenomenon."[163] Philips writes, "The slaying silenced one of modern music's most eloquent voices—a ghetto poet whose tales of urban alienation captivated young people of all races and backgrounds."[163] Via numerous fans perceiving him, despite the questionable of his conduct, as a martyr, "the downsizing of martyrdom cheapens its use," Michael Eric Dyson concedes.[164] But Dyson adds, "Some, or even most, of that criticism can be conceded without doing damage to Tupac's martyrdom in the eyes of those disappointed by more traditional martyrs."[164] More simply, his writings, published after his death, inspired rapper YG to return to school and get his GED.[162] In 2020, California Senator and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris called Shakur the "best rapper alive", a mistake that she explained because "West Coast girls think 2Pac lives on".[165][166]

In 2006, Shakur's close friend and classmate Jada Pinkett Smith donated $1 million to their high school alma mater, the Baltimore School for the Arts, and named the new theater in his honor.[167][168]

Afeni Shakur

In 1997, Shakur's mother founded the Shakur Family Foundation. Later renamed the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, or TASF, it launched with a stated mission to "provide training and support for students who aspire to enhance their creative talents." The TASF sponsors essay contests, charity events, a performing arts day camp for teenagers, and undergraduate scholarships. In June 2005, the TASF opened the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts, or TASCA, in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Afeni also narrates the documentary Tupac: Resurrection, released in November 2003, and nominated for Best Documentary at the 2005 Academy Awards. Meanwhile, with Forbes ranking Tupac Shakur at 10th among top-earning dead celebrities in 2002,[169] Afeni Shakur launched Makaveli Branded Clothing in 2003.

Academic appraisal

In 1997, the University of California, Berkeley, offered a course led by a student titled "History 98: Poetry and History of Tupac Shakur".[170] On April 2003, Harvard University cosponsored the symposium "All Eyez on Me: Tupac Shakur and the Search for the Modern Folk Hero."[171] The papers presented cover his ranging influence from entertainment to sociology.[171] Calling him a "Thug Nigga Intellectual," an "organic intellectual,"[172] English scholar Mark Anthony Neal assessed his death as leaving a "leadership void amongst hip-hop artists,"[173] as this "walking contradiction" helps, Neal explained, "make being an intellectual accessible to ordinary people."[174] Tracing Tupac's mythical status, Murray Forman discussed him as "O.G.," or "Ostensibly Gone," with fans, using digital mediums, "resurrecting Tupac as an ethereal life force."[175] Music scholar Emmett Price, calling him a "Black folk hero," traced his persona to Black American folklore's tricksters, which, after abolition, evolved into the urban "bad-man." Yet in Tupac's "terrible sense of urgency," Price identified instead a quest to "unify mind, body, and spirit."[176]

Graffiti of Tupac Shakur East Harlem, New York City Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro Carmagnola (TO), Italy

Multimedia releases

In 2005, Death Row released on DVD, Tupac: Live at the House of Blues, his final recorded live performance, an event on July 4, 1996. In August 2006, Tupac Shakur Legacy, an "interactive biography" by Jamal Joseph, arrived with previously unpublished family photographs, intimate stories, and over 20 detachable copies of his handwritten song lyrics, contracts, scripts, poetry, and other papers. In 2006, the 2Pac album Pac's Life was released and, like the previous, was among the recording industry's most popular releases.[177] In 2008, his estate made about $15 million.[178]

In 2014, BET explains that "his confounding mixture of ladies' man, thug, revolutionary and poet has forever altered our perception of what a rapper should look like, sound like and act like. In 50 Cent, Ja Rule, Lil Wayne, newcomers like Freddie Gibbs and even his friend-turned-rival Biggie, it's easy to see that Pac is the most copied MC of all time. There are murals bearing his likeness in New York, Brazil, Sierra Leone, Bulgaria and countless other places; he even has statues in Atlanta and Germany. Quite simply, no other rapper has captured the world's attention the way Tupac did and still does."[179]

On April 15, 2012, at the Coachella Music Festival, rappers Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre joined a 2Pac hologram,[180] and, as a partly virtual trio, performed the 2Pac songs "Hail Mary" and "2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted."[181][182] There were talks of a tour,[183] but Dre refused.[184] Meanwhile, the Greatest Hits album, released in 1998, and which in 2000 had left the pop albums chart, the Billboard 200, returned to the chart and reached No. 129, while also other 2Pac albums and singles drew sales gains.[185] And in early 2015, the Grammy Museum opened an exhibition dedicated to Tupac Shakur.[186]

Film and stage

In 2014, the play Holler If Ya Hear Me, based on Tupac’s lyrics, played on Broadway, but, among Broadway's worst-selling musicals in recent years, ran only six weeks.[187] In development since 2013, a Tupac biopic, All Eyez on Me, began filming in Atlanta in December 2015,[188] and was released on June 16, 2017, in concept Tupac Shakur's 46th birthday,[189] albeit to generally negative reviews. In August 2019, a docuseries directed by Allen Hughes, Outlaw: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur, was announced.[190]

Awards and honors

In 2003, MTV's viewers voted 2Pac the greatest MC.[191] In 2005, on Vibe magazine's online message boards, a user asked others for the "Top 10 Best of All Time."[192] Vibe staff, then, "sorting out, averaging and spending a lot of energy," found, "Tupac coming in at first".[192] In 2006, MTV staff placed him second.[90] In 2012, The Source magazine ranked him fifth among all-time lyricists.[193] In 2010, Rolling Stone placed him at No. 86 among the "100 Greatest Artists."[160]

In 2007, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "Definitive 200" albums—choices irking some otherwise[194]—placed All Eyez on Me at No. 90 and Me Against the World at No. 170.[195] In 2009, drawing praise, the Vatican added "Changes," a 1998 posthumous track, to its online playlist.[196] On June 23, 2010, the Library of Congress sent "Dear Mama" to the National Recording Registry,[197] the third rap song, after a Grandmaster Flash and a Public Enemy, ever to arrive there.[198]

In 2002, Tupac Shakur was inducted into the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame. Two years later, cable television's music network VH1 held its first ever Hip Hop Honors, where the honorees were "2Pac, Run-DMC, DJ Hollywood, Kool Herc, KRS-One, Public Enemy, Rock Steady Crew, Sugarhill Gang."[199] On December 30, 2016, in his first year of eligibility, Tupac was nominated,[200] and on the following April 7 was among five inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[11][201]