Dear Mama

In February 1995 a son named his mother's crack addiction in a song and still thanked her for everything. Dear Mama is a love letter to Afeni Shakur, but not a sugarcoated one. Few songs shaped Tupac's public image more.

Honesty instead of a halo

The song tells of a childhood in poverty without a father, of fights between mother and son, of her addiction and his own anger. It ends in gratitude and reconciliation.

Musically it borrows from Sadie by interpolation: the Spinners melody is replayed, not sampled.

A video from the family album

Tupac was in prison during the shoot, so director Lionel C. Martin worked with family photographs and re-enacted scenes from his childhood.

First single, many editions

Dear Mama was the first single from Me Against the World and reached the Hot 100 top 10. Rappers such as Eminem and Kendrick Lamar later cited it as formative.

In Europe it was reissued several times, above all in 1999 around Greatest Hits. There are six editions in all: this one plus the remix, 2-track, 4-track, CD 1 and CD 2.

A place in the archive

The Library of Congress added Dear Mama to the National Recording Registry, its list of recordings worth preserving, as the first hip-hop recording by a solo artist (selected for 2009, announced in 2010).

It called the song a moving homage to mothers raising children under hard conditions. A son's letter had become a song for many mothers.

This edition: the US maxi-single

This edition is the US maxi-single (CD 95774-2, also on 12"), a single with several extra tracks. The date of March 21, 1995 sometimes given for it is a month too late.