“Me Against the World” by 2Pac

Revisiting a legacy-defining moment for Tupac Shakur for its 30th anniversary.

This album review revisits a legacy-defining moment for Tupac Shakur, one that’s as preoccupied with his own mortality as it is with his pop culture status.

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Genre: Hip-Hop, Gangsta Rap, G-Funk

Label: Interscope

Release Date: March 14, 1995

Vibe: 💪💪💪💪

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👉 Click the GIF to stream the album on your favorite platform

If you had to reference one document that legitimizes Tupac Shakur’s place among hip-hop’s greatest, most artistically respected voices, it would be his 1995 album Me Against the World. Part poet, part philosopher, part cold-blooded narcissist (as the title suggests), he was good out of the gate, impressing with early tracks like “Brenda’s Got a Baby.” You could tell he had the talent and charisma to climb the ranks quickly. But it took him a few years to consistently put all the pieces together. His sophomore album, Strictly 4 My …, is full of fire and contempt for oppressive power structures but doesn’t dig deep enough to establish a discernable point of view on many of the topics he covers. It’s the basic cable version of Ice Cube’s nightmarish AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, which constructs a rap album like a twisted version of a CNN primetime special.

That all changed with Me Against the World. His lyrics are intentionally more introspective, putting himself at the center of a complex, paranoid narrative instead of relegating him to the sidelines in the role of cultural observer. By writing songs that were specific to his recent run-ins with the American legal system, it became a story about something much more significant than him alone. His lyrics morph into a cautionary tale about what it means to be a Black man in America, trapped in a vicious cycle of violence and persecution, not to mention an unrelenting sense of dread lurking around every corner. Shakur released this LP when he was 23 years old and one of the most bankable pop culture personalities in the Western hemisphere. By then, he’d starred in films like Juice and Poetic Justice and dated Madonna. He’d made it. He also nearly didn’t live long enough to see what his future had in store.

Content warning: The following paragraph contains references to sexual assault. Skip ahead if needed.

The story behind this record truly begins in October 1993, when ‘Pac was arrested in Atlanta after shooting two off-duty police officers. There are conflicting reports as to the officers’ conduct before the shooting, including some that allege racial slurs were uttered and other shots fired at the car Shakur was riding in. Prosecutors ultimately dropped all charges in the case. A month later, the rapper and two accomplices were charged with gang-raping a woman in his New York hotel room. He was also charged with illegally possessing a firearm. ‘Pac vehemently maintained his innocence for the better part of a year in the run-up to his trial. Then, on November 30, 1994, right before he was scheduled to go before the judge to hear his verdict, he was shot at Quad Studios after three men robbed and beat him in the building’s lobby. Against the doctor’s orders, he checked out of the hospital hours after surgery and defiantly appeared in court the next day. He was convicted on two counts of first-degree sexual abuse and his bail was set at $3 million.

In his 1995 Vibe interview, ‘Pac details what the tail-end of that ordeal was like:

“I sat there in a wheelchair, and the judge was not looking me in my eyes. He never looked me in my eyes the whole trial. So the jury came in, and the way everybody was acting, it was like a regular everyday thing. And I was feeling so miracle-ish that I’m living. And then I start feeling they’re going to do what they’re going to do […]When I left, the cameras were all rushing me and bumping into my leg and shit. I was, like, ‘You motherf***** are like vultures.’ That made me see just the nastiest in the hearts of men. That’s why I was looking like that in the chair when they were wheeling me away. I was trying to promise myself to keep my head up for all my people there. But when I saw all that, it made me put my head down; it just took my spirit.”

That cover story, conducted by Kevin Powell on Rikers Island, is fascinating on several fronts. Crucially, it was done weeks before the rapper was sentenced to 18 months minimum in prison, but his sense that this interview may be his last shot at setting the record straight is palpable. To that end, he brings a matter-of-fact vulnerability to the table that’s downright striking at times. Most of his bravado had been stripped away by the American penal system. In its place was an unwavering sense of nihilism that made it easy to cast himself as a pariah acting with unobjectionable intentions. He accuses his alleged victim of exploiting him, Diddy and Biggie of orchestrating the shooting, and, to a degree, his friends and fans for abandoning him at his lowest. Whatever you think of his actions—and I encourage you to read the full interview and related reporting on those incidents and judge for yourself—it’s clear that period of his life fundamentally changed him, personally and musically.

Here’s how he described Me Against the World to Powell during that interview a couple of months before it dropped:

“That is my truth. That’s my best album yet […] When you do rap albums, you got to train yourself. You got to constantly be in character. You used to see rappers talking all that hard s**, and then you see them in suits and s*** at the American Music Awards. I didn’t want to be that type of n****. I wanted to keep it real, and that’s what I thought I was doing. But now that s*** is dead. That Thug Life s*** … I did it, I put in my work, I laid it down. But now that s*** is dead.”

You can hear that exasperation in this album’s every syllable, every breath, every sigh. It’s a portrait of a man trying and failing to heal massive mental and emotional wounds. On the powerful “So Many Tears,” he talks openly about suicidal ideation that stemmed from dealing with a “mind full of demons tryin’ to break free.” He tiptoes around potential causes, including childhood trauma and addiction, but he kept returning to his central thesis—that he was doomed to live an abbreviated life. Beneath his brazenness, a sense of remorse frequently peeks out. On “If I Die 2Nite,” he jokingly hopes he’s “forgiven for thug livin’” when he enters the afterlife before asking his audience not to shed a tear for him. “I ain’t happy here,” he adds, which makes you wonder if he ever was. It’s been written that these songs were recorded when ‘Pac was on the brink of madness, and I believe it. A man dealing with so much internal tumult amid a skyrocketing career, all at such a young age, isn’t a recipe for fair and balanced reactions, regardless of the stakes.

Much of the album continues along these same lines. Injustice, loneliness, mistrust—everything that fuels the eponymous mindset. Even on “Temptations,” maybe the only out-and-out party record on this entire LP, there are darker undercurrents. He describes trying not to give in to his carnal urges, no matter how overpowering they seem. “Gotta keep myself from falling, but it’s hard,” he notes of his place on rap’s pedestal. The slick production from Easy Mo Bee is emblematic of the album’s clean, crisp instrumental approach. None of these beats will call attention to themselves like a Dr. Dre G-funk joint, but there’s a different kind of beauty in how straightforward they sound. The boom-bap bass on the title track and the stuttering snare on “Lord Knows” are still two of my favorite hip-hop drum snippets of all time. Big, booming, and incredibly memorable.

But the most impactful moment on Me Against the World is undeniably “Dear Mama,” Shakur’s ode to his mother, Afeni. A former Black Panther member, she excised plenty of her own demons before her son’s death. His touching lyrics are a mea culpa for their relationship, admitting how difficult it was for her as a single mother on welfare to raise him, mainly because of all the stress he caused her. He also describes how it felt good making money selling drugs and, eventually, making it big in the rap game because he wanted to repay her patience, kindness, and steadfast support in moments when he hadn’t earned it. This song is one of those that I frequently cite as an example of how hip-hop contains more multitudes than some people may give it credit for. ‘Pac made his name on “thug life” mythmaking, but deep down, he was a man searching for acceptance and forgiveness from those closest to him and, more pressingly, the voices in his head that wouldn’t give him a moment’s peace.

“And even as a crack fiend, Mama/You always was a black queen, Mama,” he states in the opening verse of “Dear Mama.” Whenever I hear it, I think it’s one of the most unfiltered proclamations of love ever recorded. On such a bleak record, it stands out as a golden ray of hope that, one day, he would be able to set everything right again.