Tupac is officially a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as of Friday (April 7) after he was posthumously inducted during the ceremony held at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
Snoop Dogg handled the honor and reflected on his friendship with the West Coast icon as he delivered his speech. From their first meeting to the day Tupac died, The Doggfather expressed the importance of remembering his humane side.
“While many remember him now as some kind of thugged out superhero, Tupac really was only good and he represented through his music like no one before,” he said, according to a transcript from Rolling Stone. “It’s the fact that he never shied away from it. He wore it like a badge of honor. With an unapologetic voice, Pac embraced those contradictions that proved we ain’t just a character out of someone else’s story book. To be human is to be many things at once. Strong and bold. Hard headed and intellectual. Courageous and afraid. Loving and vengeful. Revolutionary and – oh, yeah I’m getting fucked up.”
Snoop shared what it was like to make music with Tupac. The two were labelmates on Suge Knight’s Death Row Records with Dr. Dre. Although the label’s legacy will forever be synonymous with controversy, the Long Beach legend explains what the team dynamics were like, even revealing Suge sent them parasailing in South America “to get away from all the drama.”
“I told Suge Knight, I said, ‘Suge get Pac out of prison and have him come join our team at Death Row Records,'” Snoop recalls. “He never had a team before. It was always just him. Now, with us it was like he joined the Lakers. Dre was the coach and me and Pac were the stars on the court making history every which side. We were young, rich, and rock stars but we were also young men black men with targets on our back. We were catching cases simultaneously. That’s why when we got together we really were two of America’s most wanted. He had just gotten out of jail. I had just beat my case. I get a white Rolls Royce with that creamy white interior and Pac, he went out and bought a black one with the same thing.”
He also paid tribute to Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, who comforted him after Tupac’s death in 1996 at the age of 25. Ms. Shakur passed away in May of last year, but her son forever immortalized her in his song “Dear Mama.”
“Memories of Ms. Shakur are embedded in my mind,” Snoop said. “Right after I heard Tupac got shot I immediately flew to Vegas. I was so weak I damn near fell over and his mom came over to me and she grabbed me and she held up and she said, ‘Baby, you to to be strong.’ I went and sat next to him and I whispered to him telling him I love him and to hold on and he was going to be OK and even in that moment his mom was thinking more about me than herself and showed me how to love strongly. I mean it was amazing that his momma was so strong and loved so hard.”
The event then turned into an honorary performance where Alicia Keys performed “Changes,” “I Ain’t Mad at Cha,” “Dear Mama” and “Ambitionz As a Ridah” then YG joined Snoop for a rendition of “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted.” Treach performed “Hail Mary” and T.I. paid his dues with “Keep Ya Head Up” while dressed in a bandana and leather vest.
See some of the performances below and read Snoop Dogg’s entire speech at Rolling Stone.
fuck tupac, it should’ve been drake.
Fuck u lil bitch ass mother fucker !!! Give respect to a legend drake aint shit compared to Pac !! New generation pussy kid
Fo real, these house ni**as stay saying some ignorant sh*t. Drake ain’t a rapper, he ain’t no 6 god, in my book he a pop diva.
you should sit down and go ride Drake’s dick in another news thread. The grown ups are talking here.
Lol im 27 and keeping old school whats real :)) drake aint shit just a fake bitch !!! Rather listen to whats real,life,streets,etc instead of money,hoes or houses lol :))
2pac,bone thugs specialy krayzie bone will forever be my favorite rappes and the realest u better go listen and see whats real rapper and lyrics dude u need to grow up and accept whats real not fake
U know people are afraid of whats real dude !!! They cant accept it :)) 2pac and bone thugs all day long
Why do trolls even exist? Like, have you nothing better to do and is it even worth rhe 2 minutes it takes to write some dumb shit like it should have been Drake instead? In the immortal words of our genius of a president…”sad”.
That’s great that 2Pac was inducted, well deserved. But why couldn’t have someone who was truly close to to 2pac? Like the Outlaws? Mike Tyson? Or better yet Jada Pinkett? I remember at that time 2Pac was pissed at Snoop for not joining in the beef against Bad Boy/East coast rappers. As a matter of fact he was also disgusted with Dr Dre. Oh well, it’s over and done now, just should’ve been more authentic with the people that were really close to him.
Fuck Yea! There will never be anyone like 2Pac.
There’s way too much hating on this defining moment for hip hop music. Why y’all are bitter about Snoop, I don’t know. No one and there mother knows who the fuckin Outlawz are. If their old careerless asses inducted him, it’d be ridiculous. The team was Pac, Dre and Snoop back in the day. So what Pac had drama with Dre or Snoop in the end, doesn’t mean they weren’t fam. Take a message from Wu, brothers fight. The only thing I would argue is that Dre shoulda been up there with Snoop. Props though to one of the greatest MCs the world will ever see getting such an honor.
The tranny wasn’t ever Tupac snoop and dre lol…. Tupac was ALWAYS talking bad about dre. Dre didn’t want o give Tupac California love, but was forced by death row records. They were never homies. And if Tupac openly said before his death joe much he disliked snoop and dre, it’s quite disgraceful to have them represent him, when he has a living brother who helped to protect him while he was alive.
I love how everyone talks about Pac and everything he did and his feelings toward everyone like they knew him. The mid 90s was a turbulent time for rappers, especially successful ones who came up from nothing and suddenly had anything and everything in their grasp. Pac was wildly successful and rich as fuck, he was only in his mid 20s… he was on top of the world and at the end of the day the money and loyalty to Suge may have made him lose perspective. Say what you will about Snoop, Dre and Pac’s relationship but I don’t believe that if the 3 of them didn’t have a bond, Snoop and Dre wouldn’t talk about Pac like they were brothers back in the day.
Having snoop do this for Tupac would be like having Ja Rule induct 50 cent….
And yours a dummy. Tupac wasn’t rich a single fuck. Even schoolboy q has made more money with wayyyy less successs. look up what pacs net worth topped out at while alive. There’s a reason everyone left death row. They all got fucked.
Anyone who supports snoop doing this obviously isn’t a die hard Tupac fan.
Don’t hate on new generation’s comment. He spoke the truth. It should be Drake, he’s the all-time GOAT. #DrakeIsLoveDrakeIsLife #MoreLife
Drizzaveli the GOAT, that’ll really get y’all mad on here.
more life was trash and its falling off the charts quick. 1m to 500k is a 50% drop in sales in 1 year. thats what happens when you make disposable pop music.
TI & Alicia Keys are irrelevant to 2Pac. They are just two mainstream puppets trying to attach themselves to his career but came way after mainstream hip hop fell way the F! off. They are just two leaches that have done nothing but ruin popular hip hop music. Mainstream hip hop truly is literally more dead than 2Pac. Why is Snoop dressed up like a witch? Mainstream hip hop isn’t even hip hop anymore. It’s exactly like rock music became in the 80s the people eating it alive dress like females now just like snoop is in his witch costume.
Rock & Roll hall of fame! Blackman Stand up! and create our own Hip Hop Hall of Fame. Get off their dick.
In the words of the late great Heavy D. We Got are own thang.
Its time to build institutions of our own.
Some real clowns here commenting on Pac’s relationship with Snoop and Dre, dude was a hot head that argued with everybody, you think he never fell out with any of the Outlawz or his family? How many real friends you think Pac had at the time of his death? He was confrontational with damn near everybody that was around him. Would you rather Suge Knight be up there instead of Snoop? Dumb fucks. Credit to Snoop for doing this, one of Pac’s only real homies.
No. But I’d rather have tupacs ken brother up there. Not phony studio gangsters.
Well Pac was a studio gangster too so it was appropriate
Yeah, Tupac the studio gangster, who never claimed a gang, got shot up two separate times, had no father, and kicked the shit out of a gang member in Vegas the night he died. Studio gangster my ass. PAC name claimed to be a gangster. He said he was a thug, and thugs are not gangsters. Snoop and dre? Studio gangsters.
You serious?? Snoop’s been shot at, Snoop’s a crip (not a fake blood like Pac and Chris Brown), Snoop’s been in fights and was on trial for murder – what’s the difference?? Oh yeah – Tupac did ballet, wore leotards and wrote poetry. Now, who’s the real thug?
Why? Pac is more quantity than quality. He was a very contradicting rapper and made 800 the same songs about thug in heaven, thug in jail, smoking weed, thug 4 life etc. Very overrated rapper. Rappers like Rakim, G Rap, Pharoah Monch, Scarface should be inducte4d and NOT some wannabe gangsta who rocked one day a blue bandana and the other day a red bandana. SMH
Are you dumb some people shouldn’t even be allowed to talk that man may have been controversial but dude was the voice for poor inner city people for years
I think someone else should have inducted him not snoop treach was his real homie he should have been asked
Snoop’s such a hypocrite rat.
LOL why shit genre like rap is even inducted into Rock N’ Roll hall of fame. Rap is not a music…
Lol ur an idiot for real !!! Probably u hate rap cuz its better than the music u listen or u have problems with black rappers
If you were not rocking in this era…then your speaking on something you don’t understand.