This is the dichotomy that defines most of Me Against the World: you’re either with 2Pac, or you’re just one of the many who don’t understand him, who simply don’t want him to succeed because you want him locked up, or you want the police to get him, or any number of other threats that ‘Pac illustrates. To put it succinctly, 2Pac doesn’t just want to have his cake and eat it too he wants you to feel bad for him when the last slice is gone. The album presents 2Pac as a man with myriad conflicting personas, each one needed to create the mythos that surrounded the MC up until his death: the gangster, but with his heart on his sleeve the most hated man in the world - who can also go platinum and maybe most importantly, the outlaw who just can’t seem to escape the violence that constantly surrounds him. Me Against the World was recorded before ‘Pac was shot five times outside of Quad Recording Studios, and before his prison sentence related to his sexual assault case. But consider this: much of the posthumous commendation that 2Pac’s received comes less from the general public’s inclination to praise - sorry - a relatively substandard lyricist, and instead is the result of the way the artist has characterized himself as a misunderstood victim. You could say, even, that classifying 2Pac as ‘just a rapper’ would be condescending, what with him being one of the few hip-hop acts to ever be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In fact, ‘Pac’s legacy stretches beyond just hip-hop, with words like “poet” and “revolutionary” often ascribed to the rapper in a bid that lends him artistic legitimacy as more than that. True, these hypotheticals are largely irrelevant: 2Pac is dead, and his legacy as one of the greatest rappers to ever live has mostly gone unchallenged. He would also, very possibly, be ‘canceled’ from hip-hop culture, or from the culture in general, for a rape conviction stemming from an altercation back in 1993. Had he not been murdered more than two decades ago, Tupac Shakur would have turned 48 this month he would be in the third decade of his career, and probably still releasing an album every two years or so.
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