OPINION: When Tupac’s third album was released, I was 15. Thirty years later I’m a 45-year-old man and the album means so much more to me now.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that it’s not 1995 anymore. Back then I was 15 years old, turning 16 that June, and the possibilities of the world seemed endless. I was a sophomore in high school in Madison, Ala., and music was my life. I was fully engulfed in hip-hop, in particular, hip-hop from the West Coast. While New York-based group De La Soul’s sophomore album, “De La Soul is Dead,” was my favorite album, my favorite rappers all seemed to come from Los Angeles—Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg (who at the time was Snoop Doggy Dogg), DJ Quik. Or Atlanta, because in 1995, Outkast was my everything.
And then there was Tupac Shakur. Coming off of two albums that everybody seemed to know but nobody (in my circle, anyway) seemed to hold in high regard, I can’t say that I was waiting for his third album, “Me Against the World.” I was, however, caught up in all of the news happenings of Shakur, who always seemed to pop up during an MTV! Newsbreak for this or that, usually a run-in with the law or somebody in the industry he had a problem with. At least that’s how 15-year-old me felt. This was before the Internet, so all of my rap news came from MTV, or “The Source” magazine. In 2025, Tupac Shakur is one of my favorite pop culture figures, as significant for who he was and how he represented that life as the musical output he gave the world, but in 1995, I wasn’t there yet.
And then came “Dear Mama,” the first single from “Me Against the World.” I don’t think it’s an overstatement to imply that every single human being who heard “Dear Mama” loved “Dear Mama.” It was, and still is, one of the greatest songs in hip-hop history and is the song created by Shakur that will outlive us all. It was one of those records that put on display just how vulnerable a soul Shakur could be.
We’d heard his songs like “Keep Ya Head Up” and “I Get Around,” which felt like two sides of the same coin, but “Dear Mama” was different. It was an ode to his mother—his imperfectly perfect mother—told from the perspective of a young man. In writing it, I realized that his mama, Afeni Shakur, had been through hell and back and managed to provide and give soul to her kids. Parents loved this record. Even his delivery was done so perfectly, owing to his background in being a stage performer; by the time of the release of “Me Against the World” on March 14, 1995, Tupac had already been in “Juice,” “Poetic Justice,” and “Above The Rim,” all films in which he delivered a standout performance.
On the strength of “Dear Mama,” I used my allowance to purchase the CD for “Me Against the World,” from whatever music store we had in Huntsville, Alabama’s Madison Square Mall, which no longer exists.
From the moment I listened to this album, and its opening number “If I Die 2Nite,” I had a feeling it would be with me forever. Now, at 15, we think of everything in romantic terms; I loved this album that didn’t fit geographically anywhere. It had a sound that resonated with me, but I didn’t quite know why. I started to understand why people cared so much about Tupac, the rapper, with the titular song, “Me Against the World,” but honestly it was songs like “Lord Knows” and “Death Around the Corner” that stuck to my ribs for all of these years.
The album has come to represent the potential of Tupac Shakur, the rapper. It was thoughtful, reflective, considerate, appreciative, pensive, and exhibited a sagacity beyond his years. Over time, as we’ve seen more interviews and learned more about Tupac, the man, we’ve come to see how “Me Against the World,” is the ‘Pac unencumbered by the gangster world he’d join at Death Row. When the album was released, he was in jail, serving time on a sexual assault charge, becoming the first rapper to release an album from prison that would debut at the top of the Billboard 200. By October 1995, he would be released and sign with Death Row Records. By September 1996 he’d be dead.
At 45, “Me Against the World” takes me back to that time when I truly discovered Tupac the person, where I viewed him as an artist who had so much to give to the world. It’s hard to believe that this album has managed to travel with me and be a part of my own growth as a man. While I can’t pretend to be obsessed with death like Tupac so presciently was, the themes of Black manhood and survival and concern present have taken on new meanings as I’ve experienced more, and become a father and Black man raising Black boys.
Mostly, though, it’s amazing that an album, a piece of music that I bought because of “Dear Mama” would become an album that still has resonance thirty years later. The power of hip-hop has never been in question, but its ability to be as impactful in my journey to manhood as the worlds and lessons I learned from the men around me is astounding, in a good way. Tupac’s magnum opus matters as much to me now, if not more, than it did when I was a teen finding my way. As a man who understands the world from a position of experience, I miss who Tupac could have become and what voice he could have given to so many who needed it.
It’s the kind of album that in my life reminds me of the albums that my parents viewed as essential to their worldviews like Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You,” or Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill,” for younger generations.
In Tupac’s “Me Against the World,” I found an album to follow me forever, one of the highest compliments I could give to any artist.
Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).
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