So we decided to remake our greatest albums list from scratch. But no list is definitive - tastes change, new genres emerge, the history of music keeps being rewritten. Over the years, it’s been the most widely read - and argued over - feature in the history of the magazine (last year, the RS 500 got over 63 million views on the site). When it comes to introspection, hip-hop has a reputation for morbidity, and 2Pac certainly furthered that, but his refusal to sugarcoat the harsh realities of urban life was part of his appeal.Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time was originally published in 2003, with a slight update in 2012.
Amid all this chaos and his looming prison sentence, 2Pac started laying the groundwork for the album.Ī morbid preoccupation with his own demise is expressed most explicitly on two tracks that more or less bookend the album, “If I Die 2Nite” and “Death Around the Corner.” Both songs present Pac’s fear of death as a persistent, gripping force that looms over every lyric, a fatalistic reality that can only be dealt with an ambivalent approach to mortality. Me Against The World’s introduction sets the stage for this worldview, featuring a string of news broadcasts that are equal parts truth and fiction, recounting robberies, shootings, court drama, and the media storm that followed.
Nearly a quarter of a century later, 2Pac’s death is still one of the most impactful events in hip-hop history – arguably the root cause of the music’s wider paranoia and obsession with death. But despite the press labeling his lifestyle (and its harsh consequences) a persona, 2Pac knew better than anyone the realities of thug life, and Me Against The World found him coming to terms with them. Heading straight to No.1 in the US, it also made 2Pac the first star to top the album charts while in prison. Hitting the shelves while he was still in prison, the album helped shift his image from that of gangsta rapper to more of a gangsta poet, setting the stage for 2Pac to become one of the most famous MCs in the world. Released on March 14, 1995, Me Against The World was 2Pac’s most introspective effort to date. Listen to Me Against The World on Apple Music and Spotify. While his next two efforts, All Eyez On Me and The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (and their respective singles), would raise his profile, it was Me Against The World that transcended the cultural trappings surrounding 90s gangsta rap, making Tupac a cultural force that went beyond hip-hop. Me Against The World is the album that made 2Pac the artist we know and revere today.
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