Tupac’s peculiarly beloved first-half of an album by Counting Crows
Just over a decade after his murder in 1996, All Hip Hop organised a roundtable discussion to take stock of the life and legacy of Tupac Shakur.
During this meeting, New York City rapper Cormega made a point about the legacy of the great man that stands as one of the ultimate compliments you can give to a rapper. Having seen Tupac at his peak, Cormega said that while his chief rival Biggie Smalls ran New York, the man born Lesane Parish Crooks ran America.
For someone so caught up in the power struggle between the East and West coasts, we’d all do well to remember that Tupac was a hell of a lot more than a hip-hop star. He was a cultural juggernaut the likes of which we may have not seen since. Lil Wayne had the hits. Nas had the critical hosannas. Jay-Z had the cultural clout, and 50 Cent had the look. Pac had all those traits together and had them all beat individually, too.
Only Eminem in his prime, and more recently Kendrick Lamar, can claim to anything resembling the kind of across-the-board devotion that Tupac had. Except 2Pac had all of that and a thriving film career to boot. The point is that the appeal of Shakur went far beyond mere hip-hop. He was a genuine, bona fide celebrity that everyone was aware of, and the vast majority of them (perhaps outside of the five boroughs) loved him.
This was absolutely the idea from the very beginning. The story of Tupac is not a Kurt Cobain-style elevation of an outsider to a megastardom that he didn’t want; the guy was all-in on being a pop star. One can see this in his music taste, too. This was no hip-hop purist; the man appreciated music of all kinds and of all different levels of popularity, from Culture Club and Kate Bush to Don McLean, whose song ‘Vincent’ was his favourite of all time. Not for nothing was his hero Prince.
What was the favourite band of Tupac Shakur?
So far, so achingly cool. Tupac isn’t even alone in hip-hop in loving Kate Bush, as Outkast’s Big Boi adorably shows time and time again. However, a handwritten note seemingly taken directly from Pac’s diaries shows what he listened to when no one else was around. This was, after all, his “list of tapes 2 get and listen 2 when U R alone”. This list is even more endearing to me since the music detailed here is (with one major exception) still the kind of music that gets you booted off Spotify at your average house party to this day.
His beloved Prince makes the list at number five, and I think there are laws against not playing Prince at parties. However, everything else is absolutely the kind of music played during long, dark nights of the soul, Sarah Mclaughlin in particular. However, there’s one addition to the list that goes against Tupac’s outrageously cool reputation. On a list where he recommends individual songs by each other artist, this is the one time where he recommends a whole first half of an album instead.
That album? Counting Crows‘ megahit August and Everything After. Seriously. Shakur was reportedly a die-hard fan of Adam Duritz and co, so much so that, according to photographer Dan Winters, he once put the album on for a photoshoot the two of them worked on, and listened to the album three times in a row. A reminder, if one was needed, that we can always look beyond our formative tastes and find other music that speaks to us in ways we could never assume before we hear it.
