Here’s a rare 2Pac interview in the Death Row office from 1995 where the west coast rapper discussed life after being released from Clinton Correctional Facility, signing to Death Row, C. Delores Tucker’s crusade against Hip-Hop and his Grammy nominations.

“It’s okay for us to live in the dirt, in the gutter, in less the human conditions but it’s not okay for us to tell people that we’re living in these conditions. Everything was cool, the ghetto was okay, it was habitable until we started talking about exactly what were the repercussions of living this type of lifestyle,” he says. “What happens when you live in this kind of environment? What type of person it changes you into?  Now all of sudden it’s like you can’t talk about that but this is what we live in. We don’t have a choice, you know what I mean. It’s either we really kill people, do dope, sell dope and have murders and do all this crazy stuff or we talk about the fact that we got so close man, if it wasn’t for this rap thing we would have to do A, B, and C, you know what I mean. That’s not good, that’s not nothing to look up too, but that’s the truth.”

Although 2Pac is remembered for his glorification of thug culture much more emphasis must be placed on the socially conscious lens he placed on it.

-Joe-Louis Mccray