Legends of Music: The Life and Legacy of Tupac Shakur

At the renowned Coachella music festival in 2012, crowds looked on with awe and stunned silence as the world’s most famous rapper took the stage to deliver a fiery performance of two of his well known hits alongside friend and former collaborator Snoop Dogg. The legendary Tupac Shakur had just overshadowed every other performer at the festival, despite the fact he’d been dead for over 15 years.

The “2Pac Hologram” was only the latest buzzworthy headline that Tupac has generated long after he was infamously gunned down just off the strip in Las Vegas back in September 1996. Since his death, Shakur’s estate has released far more music posthumously than Pac released in his all-too-brief career, amazing fans and music critics alike. In addition to the music that still keeps finding the light of day, the hologram performance was another fitting example that music fans continue to refuse to let him go, with some even going so far as to speculate that he faked his death.

Why does Pac continue to hold such a high place in pop culture among anyone who grew up in the last 40 years? The answers can be found in his turbulent life, unsolved murder, and the fact that most of the topics of his music continue to be relevant today. Born to a single mother who later developed an addiction to crack, Pac’s childhood was marred by constant moving, living in squalor, and eventually being homeless as a teenager in “The Jungle”, Marin City. Always a fan of performing, Pac channeled his rage, energy, and charisma into a rap career, fueled by his inability to forget how he grew up and the social ills he witnessed.

Rising from roadie for Digital Underground to his own spectacular single career, Pac rode his controversy and classic music to the national forefront, becoming front page news for both his arrests and hit records. Becoming the first man to have a #1 album while in jail, Pac was eventually bailed out by Suge Knight, CEO of Death Row Records, and from 1995-1996 became rap music’s biggest name. He would release the first original double CD in rap history with All Eyez on Me in February 1996 and the classic Makaveli album, recorded and produced in just a week, in November 1996. Both went #1, but Pac wasn’t around to see Makaveli’s success, having been infamously gunned down after a Mike Tyson fight on September 7, 1996 in Las Vegas. His murder remains unsolved.

Having become a rap icon cut down in the prime of his life and career, with the music to match the story of his life, Pac’s name and legacy are sure to endure. Legends of Music: The Life and Legacy of Tupac Shakur details the life, career, and legacy of the world’s most famous rapper, detailing how his upbringing shaped his philosophy and music, the theories surrounding his death, the conspiracy theories that he faked his death, and descriptions of Pac in the studio.

© 2025 Charles River Editors (E-bog): 9781475330724

Release date

E-bog: 5. maj 2025