Aug 5, 1997432 words · 2 min
A Vibe Book for the First Anniversary of His Death
Photos, essays, and the Rikers interview: how Vibe magazine compiled Tupac’s story into a memorial volume one year after his death.
Original: “Tupac Remembered In ‘Vibe’ Portraits” · MTV News · no byline · August 5, 1997
In August 1997, shortly before the first anniversary of Tupac Shakur’s death, MTV News reported on a book project: the editors of the music magazine Vibe were releasing a hardcover volume of essays and photo portraits. The book was to be published by Crown Publishers for $25.95. The schedule was set: it was due in stores by September 13, exactly one year after Shakur died in a Las Vegas hospital.
Photos, Rikers Island, and a Foreword by Quincy Jones
According to MTV, the volume included color and black-and-white photos as well as Vibe stories from past issues tracing Tupac’s life and death: pieces on his childhood, an interview conducted while incarcerated on Rikers Island, and his brief time at the top of the rap world at Death Row Records.
The foreword was written by Quincy Jones, producer and publisher of Vibe. Also included were tributes from Chuck D as well as directors John Singleton and Ernest Dickerson.
1997 in Hardcover, 1998 as a Paperback
The book appeared as announced in 1997, though under a longer title than in the MTV report: Tupac Amaru Shakur, 1971-1996, edited by the Editors of Vibe. In 1998, a paperback edition followed from Three Rivers Press, which is cataloged in the Internet Archive.
The publisher’s description confirms the contents outlined by MTV and offers more detail: included are in-depth interviews following Tupac’s arrests in New York and Atlanta in 1994, the Rikers Island interview from the April 1995 issue of Vibe, and another after his release and move to Death Row.
From the Rikers Interview to Shaping His Memory
Vibe had followed Tupac closely during his final years. The Rikers interview “Ready to Live” by Kevin Powell, published in April 1995, was Tupac’s first conversation with a journalist after the shooting at Quad Studios in New York on November 30, 1994. It sparked fierce reactions, extending all the way to a letter to the editor from the complainant in the criminal case against Tupac, who felt misrepresented in the interview. Several of these texts are preserved in this site’s archive.
The memorial volume thus brought together material that fans already knew from the magazine, making it tangible in book form one year after Tupac’s death. It is an early example of how media outlets that had covered him during his lifetime were now working to shape his memory.