Cyrus Langhorne
Grammy-winning rapper Eminem has penned a tribute essay in the memory of late hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur this week.
Within his PAPER Mag write-up, Slim Shady recalls his first encounter with Pac’s music.
“The first time I ever heard Tupac was his verse on “I Get Around” with Digital Underground. I was 18 or 19 years old and I remember thinking, “Who is this?” He stood out so much. Once I heard that, I got his first album, 2Pacalypse Now. I saw the video for “Brenda’s Got a Baby” and I remember thinking, “Holy sh*t.” By the time he got to Me Against the World, it was him at his pinnacle. He’s off and running. He knows what he wants, and he’s figured out how he wants to be and how he wants to sound — everything. I would probably put that up against anything as far as a classic hip-hop album goes.” (PAPER Mag)
Em also reflected back to working on Pac’s 2004 posthumous album, Loyal to the Game.
“When his mother, Afeni (Shakur), let me produce one of Tupac’s albums — the Loyal to the Game album — I wrote her a letter thanking her for letting me do it. You wouldn’t be able to tell the 18/19-year-old Marshall that he would ever be able to get his hands on some Tupac vocals and have that opportunity. It was such a significant piece of history for me and so much fun. I’m like a kid in a candy store; going nuts with the fact that I’m putting beats under his rhymes.” (PAPER Mag)
Top Dawg Entertainment’s Kendrick Lamar remembered the 19th anniversary of Pac’s untimely passing last month.
In honor of Pac’s birthday last June, R&B star Chris Brown tossed up multiple images of the hip-hop icon.
