20th Anniversary of His Death: How Collaborators and Magazines Looked Back

Four solo albums by age 25, a fifth six weeks after his death, two of them number one on the Billboard 200: as the 20th anniversary of Tupac’s death arrived on September 13, 2016, Billboard recalled this record. U.S. music magazines dedicated special features to the rapper.

The Issues Are Loud Again

For this, Billboard gathered memories from his closest collaborators. The issues Tupac spoke about were loud again 20 years later, the magazine wrote, citing Kendrick Lamar’s album To Pimp a Butterfly as an example. In another piece, those involved told the story of the unfinished project One Nation, with which Tupac wanted to bring rappers from both coasts together.

Influence at Rolling Stone, Contradictions at Vibe

Rolling Stone published “8 Ways Tupac Shakur Changed the World”. Vibe ran a digital cover with a piece by Kevin Powell, who by his own account had covered Tupac for the magazine during the last three years of his life. He describes him as “fearless, free, vulnerable, contradictory”.

More on the anniversary of his death and remembrance: Tributes and The Last Week.