Line #4 YMMV/TupacShakur


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2	* ArchivePanic: ''And how.'' Just look at the sheer number of his posthumous albums. And it isn't even the entire thing.
3	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Most of his songs.
4	** "Dear Mama" is in a league of its own. Tupac's usual lyrical mastery is used to show a deep appreciation for the sacrifices and struggles of his mother and mothers everywhere. Music/{{Eminem}} and Music/KendrickLamar have each stated that the raw emotion in the song influenced their own work considerably.
5	** "Picture Me Rollin'" deserves special mention. No hook. Two solid guest spots. One of the best verses Pac ever dropped.
6	** The guitar riffs in "Me and My Girlfriend" are simply beautiful, not to mention the dexterity with which its prime conceit (depicting guns as women) is carried in the lyrics.
7	** And let's not forget "Hit 'Em Up", the diss track towards Music/TheNotoriousBIG and the entire East Coast Rap as a whole, which is widely considered the greatest diss song of all time.
8	* BrokenBase: Fans often argue over what album showcases the ''[[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation real]]'' Tupac. The albums in question are ''Music/MeAgainstTheWorld'' VS ''Music/AllEyezOnMe''. Proponents of the former claim that the album is better than AEOM because of its depth and dark, introspective approach, while claiming that AEOM is just a typical mainstream rap album people jumped on the bandwagon for. Conversely, fans of the latter argue that Tupac works with a much wider range of topics in AEOM than in MATW, living it up on a few songs while exploring more serious topics in others.
9	* ConfirmationBias: For better or for worse, this was a HUGE part of his appeal to his core audience.
10	* EpilepticTrees:
11	** "Tupac is still alive". helped by the sheer amount of music recorded before his death.
12	** His officially unsolved murder. The standard suspects are Suge Knight and Diddy.
13	* FandomRivalry: Tupac fans VS. Music/TheNotoriousBIG fans. Their murders less than a year apart from one another is about as far as this trope has ever gone in popular music.
14	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: His duet with Music/IceT singing "You Don't Bring Me Flowers". Pac's embarrassed attempts at trying not to crack up laughing were the icing on the cake.
15	* HarsherInHindsight: A ''lot'' of his songs are about him dying. Case in point: [[http://ohhla.com/anonymous/2_pac/greatest/troubl96.2pc.txt Troublesome '96]].
16	** It wasn't impossible to see coming; he grew up surrounded by death, and he made a good deal of enemies. Another good example is "Life Goes On", where he memorializes friends of his that were murdered and talks about how he'll see them again after death. Tupac himself was killed just seven months after the song was released.
17	** "Hit 'Em Up" contained diss to Mobb Deep (who took part in taking shots on the West Coast on Capone N Noreaga's "L.A, L.A" remix, which Pac felt dissed him), mocking Prodigy for having sickle-cell anemia. Many thought that this was way below the belt, but it's even harsher as of June 20th, 2017, when Prodigy finally lost his battle with sickle-cell.
18	** Creator/MarlonWayans mentions in one interview that he and Tupac laughed at the part where the former's character killed the latter's character in ''Above the Rim'' after the scene was finally finished. This wouldn't become a laughing matter in the next eight months where Pac actually did get shot in New York and ended up attacking most of the East Coast rappers, who he felt were all out to get him after his release from prison and his affiliation to Deathrow Records. Come his trip in Vegas in 1996, he gets shot again, and subsequently passes away just six days later.
19	** One of the lines from "Guess Who's Back" by ''Music/Strictly4MyNiggaz'' goes like this: "Now I'm sure to be rich for ninety-six". His fourth studio album ''Music/AllEyezOnMe'' dropped in 1996; he was killed a few months later.
20	* HeartwarmingInHindsight: "And though it seems heaven sent, we ain't ready to see a [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama black president]]." Can also count as LifeImitatesArt.
21	** Music/{{Nas}} sampled this line in the chorus of his song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Z5AKVwCNk Black President]]".
22	** Can't forget about this line in ''No More Pain'': "When I die, I wanna be a living legend".
23	* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: "Dear Mama". While Tupac didn't grow up in the best of backgrounds, his undying love for his mother bleeds through in the lyrics. Whether it's her supporting him through the best (and worst) of times, or vice versa, the mother-son bond never broke.
24	* HilariousInHindsight:
25	** "And though it seems heaven sent, we ain't ready to see a [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama black president]]." Can also count as LifeImitatesArt.
26	*** Music/{{Nas}} sampled this line in the chorus of his song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69Z5AKVwCNk Black President]]".
27	** Combined with HarsherInHindsight, the song "Guess Who's Back" from ''Music/Strictly4MyNiggaz'' contains the line "Now I'm sure to be rich for ninety-six". Tupac would later drop his fourth studio album ''Music/AllEyezOnMe'' in 1996, which was his most successful record to date. He would later get killed in UsefulNotes/LasVegas just months later.
28	* MagnificentBastard: In the late rapper's ''[[https://genius.com/2pac-runnin-from-tha-police-lyrics Runnin' from tha Police)]]'', featured artist [[Music/TheNotoriousBIG Biggie Smalls]] started out as [[FromNobodyToNightmare a mere "screw-up", before becoming a successful drug dealer]]. Upon gaining enough money, he and his friend Stretch decided that they no longer needed to deal, just to engage other dealers to do the job for them and have a share of the ensuing profits. When the police attempted to stop them, [[CopKiller Biggie & Stretch killed two cops]], hid their corpses and grew dreads to avoid matching the physical description police would be given. When another officer found Biggie anyway, Biggie kills him with Teflon-coated bullets, before escaping. Stealing the officer's gun, Biggie celebrated his escape by selling the gun and using the money to buy even more cocaine. [[SelfDeprecation Self-deprecating and ruthless]], Biggie achieved his dream of becoming "the black Frank White", [[KarmaHoudini with no consequences whatsoever for his deeds]].
29	* MemeticMutation
30	** "[[ElvisLives Pac ain't dead]]. He'll be back in" (insert date)
31	** "I didn't choose thug life. Thug life chose me."
32	** '''"TUPAC ALIVE IN SERBIA, TUPAC MAKING ALBUM OF SERBIA!"''' [[labelnote:Explanation]]A line from the infamous "Remove Kebab" copypasta.[[/labelnote]]
33	* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: His posthumous hologram duet with Music/SnoopDogg at Coachella.
34	** Ladies and gentlemen, meet a 2017 UsefulNotes/RockAndRollHallOfFame inductee. He's being inducted in his first year of eligibility, and he's the first solo rapper to be inducted.
35	** [[spoiler: His zig-zag appearance on ''[[Music/KendrickLamar To Pimp a Butterfly]]]]''. Even if it was just [[spoiler: impressive editing]], it still fits so well for Tupac, as it'd be something he would do.
36	** The song "Changes" was [[https://web.archive.org/web/20220804074422/https://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/12/04/tupac.vatican.playlist/ selected]] by [[UsefulNotes/VaticanCity the Vatican]] as part of their 2009 [=MySpace=] playlist due to its civil rights message (though, as indicated by the CNN article, its use of the n-word as well as references to drugs, petty theft and murder might come across as an odd choice for a religious organisation to include in their musical library).
37	* NightmareFuel: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCEmTaWSPTk "Trapped."]] Tupac really doesn't gloss over how horrifying American prisons are known to be.
38	** ''Hail Mary''. The song is spooky enough on its own, but the video is pretty much a supernatural slasher flick.
39	** "Brenda's Got a Baby". In addition to being [[TearJerker heartwrenching]], the situations faced by Brenda are ''terrifying'', especially for a 12 year old girl.
40	* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: His controversy was a major contributing factor to his fame.
41	* OlderThanTheyThink: His "appearance" at Coachella in 2012 was cited as the first time a dead artist was able to perform with currently living musicians via holographic projection. [[Music/HidetoMatsumoto hide]] from Music/XJapan had him beat by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT1KeAd_bqU four years]] (check the 2:20 mark onward), unless you count Natalie Cole playing along to a video of [[Music/NatKingCole her late father]], in which case, Tupac and hide were both beaten out from this claim by twenty and sixteen years, respectively.
42	* PosthumousPopularityPotential: In a rather blatant example, ''Magazine/RollingStone'' revisited ''All Eyez on Me'' in 2004 and gave it five stars, as opposed to the three it received in 1996.
43	* TearJerker: "Dear Mama", "Life Goes On", and especially "Brenda's Got A Baby" which is both soul crushing AND heartbreaking.
44	** Speaking of "Brenda's Got A Baby", [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gekWAHKf0Z4 this reaction]]. As one comment put it, "Never thought a rapper would make a old white man cry."
45	* UnintentionalUncannyValley: Music/DrDre & Music/SnoopDogg brought a Pac hologram with them when they headlined Coachella in 2012. It just ''barely'' looked like a projection, and that was if you were sober and watching on a computer. Naturally, something so unnerving had to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGbrFmPBV0Y open with Pac's creepiest song]].
46	* ValuesResonance: One of the main reasons why Tupac is considered one of the greatest in hip-hop is that many of the issues he addresses in his songs are still quite prevalent to this day.

Context YMMV / TupacShakur