In 1993 alone Tupac was charged with assaulting a limousine driver, arrested for shooting two off-duty Atlanta police officers who were harassing an African-American motorist, and prosecuted for sexually assaulting a 19-year old woman in New York. Those years were two of the most turbulent in a tragically brief life that was already scarred by poverty, drug abuse, police harassment, imprisonment, and death. It truly felt like it was Tupac against the world when he cut this record in various California and New York recording studios in 19. So that is my truth,” he stated in a rare 1995 prison interview. Two decades on, this album remains one of the most beloved, important, and appropriately titled in Hip Hop’s catalogue of great works. Me Against the World is where Tupac became more than a rap star, taking his place alongside Kurt Cobain as their generation’s greatest spokesmen.

Tupac’s passionate delivery has lost none of its immediacy, his rhymes none of their relevancy. Listening to Me Against the World two decades after its release, it is hard to believe that rap music’s greatest icon has been gone for so long. Many new pages in Hip Hop’s history have been written as well: The collapse of Death Row Records, the rise of the “ Shiny Suit Era,” Jay Z versus Nas, Eminem, Kanye West, and, most pertinent to this reminiscence, the murder of Tupac himself. Over 7,000 suns have set since that winter day and much has happened in the interim: Y2K, 9/11 and the “War on Terror” that followed, Hurricane Katrina, and the election of Barack Obama, the United States’ first black President.

Twenty years ago today, Tupac Shakur’s third solo album, Me Against the World, hit stores in a time before streaming services, during an era when compact discs were still the music delivery medium of choice.

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