Tupac Shakur has influenced a generation of people. The sheer impact that he has outside of hip hop is probably unrivaled by any rapper. Eminem wrote a letter to Afeni Shakur, Tupac’s mother, as a part of the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts in Georgia. His letter personally details the impact that Tupac had on his life and career. As well as telling Afeni how much she has meant to him. He even drew a picture of Pac, a skill most fans of Eminem probably did not even know.
When I was feeling at my worst, I knew I could put that Tupac tape in, and suddenly things weren’t so bad. He gave me the courage to stand up and say ‘F**k the world!’ ‘This is who I am! And if you don’t like it, go f**k yourself!’ Thank you for giving us his spirit and yours.
The letter is also signed at the bottom as Marshall. A gesture sure to be purposefully as he expresses what Tupac meant to him before the Eminem moniker. Eminem has been a known Pac fan from his work on the Tupac: Resurrection soundtrack and film to his scathing diss to Ja Rule over Tupac’s ‘Hail Mary’.
There is not a soul in the hip hop community that Tupac did not touch in some form. It was a big move on Eminem’s part to do this, especially since he is pretty reserved and private person. Stories like this add to Tupac’s legacy and keep his spirit living forever.
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