#2PAC CHANGES TRIAL#

Here are some of the ways 2Pac changed hip-hop – and, by extension, pop culture – forever.ġ. But no one can deny the way he transformed hip-hop into his singularly muscular, tattooed, bald-headed, bandana-clad image. His wayward, conflicting expressions of pride, militancy and gangster-ism resonates in a world when black men and women celebrate their heritage and collectively organize against a racist America, yet are also cautious to protect themselves from each other.įans – particularly East Coast rap listeners who, after all these years, still harbor a grudge against him – will continue to debate whether 2Pac’s albums can measure up to Nas’ Illmatic, the Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die, or Jay Z’s Reasonable Doubt. No other artist better illuminates hip-hop’s fault lines between regional pride and mainstream success, and the struggle to transcend and elevate beyond humble origins while honoring the streets that raised you.

#2PAC CHANGES TRIAL#

His life was a tapestry of often contradictory images: the concerned young father cradling his son in the video for “Keep Ya Head Up” the angry rapper spitting at cameras as they swirled around his 1994 trial for sexual assault the artist who animatedly, yet eloquently, pushed back at Ed Gordon’s questions during a memorable BET interview and the man who seemed to predict his own demise when the “I Ain’t Mad at Cha” video, released weeks after his death, depicted him as an angel in heaven.Īlthough he is no longer with us, the myth of 2Pac the thug angel remains. More than two decades after his death on September 13, 1996, Tupac Shakur endures as one of hip-hop’s most iconic figures and its most powerful enigma.

2pac changes