All Eyez On Me Album Cover

It’s amazing to me that today, Tupac Shakur would’ve been 39 years old. I can’t fathom that for whatever reason. It seems like just yesterday, the rap star was gunned down in Las Vegas. But what it means is that it happened many years ago, and I’ve aged and he hasn’t. You can only remember him for what you saw of him, and that was a young 20s rebel and one of the biggest rap stars of the mid 90s, Bishop from Juice, or Lucky from Poetic Justice.

The love is still there, and more so than when he was alive. That’s the definition of a true legend.

On my Facebook page, I asked a simple question to all of my friends.

What is your favorite 2Pac song?

If figured that I would get a handful of responses, but I received responses from 25 different people, including my own dad. Yes, even my dad has a favorite Tupac Shakur song.

The favorites ranged from his two big early hits, Keep Ya Head Up and I Get Around, his get out of jail record, California Love, songs that came out after he already passed away like Changes, I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto, and Thugz Mansion, and songs that weren’t necessarily singles like Pain and Soon As I Get Home, which was released on the oft-forgotten posthumous release Pac’s Life.

So what is my favorite Tupac track of all time?

Well, I’d known about Pac since his first release, 2Pacalypse Now, because of Brenda’s Got A Baby. But I didn’t really latch on to the dude’s music until I Get Around, which was one of the most fun rap songs I’d ever heard. And then after that, Keep Your Head Up, which was his ode to women.

With both of those singles coming out back-to-back, you saw this immediate portrayal about what made him unique. He was a bi-polar rap star who could talk about groupie love on one song and then respecting women on another. It was near hypocritical, but honest at the same time. He could be down with living a “rock star” life, but at the same time understand where the ills in society are.

The reason I’m picking I Get Around as my favorite is because it’s the first song I identify with 2Pac. When I think of him, it’s this song and this video, with him running around in some white shorts with no shirt on, that comes to my mind first.



As my buddy Celmatic always says, “Rest in power.”

List of all the song choices from my Facebook friends:
I Get Around (4 times)
Keep Ya Head Up (3 times)
California Love (2 times)
Life Goes On (2 times)
Thugz Mansion (2 times)
Run Tha Streetz (2 times)
I Wonder If Heaven Got A Ghetto (2 times)
Hit ‘Em Up (2 times)
Dear Mama
Soon As I Get Home
If I Die 2nite
Changes
Unconditional Love
So Many Tears
How Do You Want It
Death Around The Corner
Bury Me A G
Still Ballin
What’z Ya Phone #
Ambitionz Az A Ridah
Pain