News of July 14, 2015
Eminem's Letter to Afeni Shakur Resurfaces
Before Dr. Dre and before fame: In July 2015, Eminem's letter to Afeni Shakur, along with a Tupac drawing, circulated online once again.
A hand-drawn sketch of Tupac and a letter to his mother Afeni Shakur: in July 2015, the document from Eminem circulated across the web. According to Rolling Stone, the letter is undated and was written after his breakthrough.
Courage from the Cassette
The magazine quoted a passage: when he was feeling “at my worst”, before fame and before Dr. Dre, he was able to put in the “Tupac” cassette, and suddenly it was no longer so bad. Tupac gave him the courage to stand up and say who he was. Vibe quoted another line in which Eminem refers to Afeni as a “true queen”.
Already Printed in a Book in 2008
However, the letter was not new. Rolling Stone pointed out that both text and drawing had already appeared in 2008 in the book Tupac Remembered. The interest had been reignited by a Reddit post, which the magazine Fader also picked up.
According to the book’s citation, the letter was located in the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts in Stone Mountain, Georgia. What circulated anew online in 2015 had therefore long been in the archives (more on the center under TASF and Stone Mountain).