‘He never stopped being hurt’: Tupac Shakur and the women who shaped him

This June, when Tupac Shakur belatedly received his star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, a crowd of hundreds turned out for the occasion. Pressing up against steel barricades, they rapped his songs and chanted his name. Almost three decades after his death, Shakur still feels powerfully alive. He was a star for just five years, from the release of debut album 2Pacalypse Now in 1991 to his death in 1996 at just 25 in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, for which nobody was charged . Despite the brevity of his time in the spotlight Shakur released four albums – three of which went platinum – and appeared in six films. That work – and the 75 million record sales that followed – have ensured a kind of immortality. It’s no coincidence Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg brought him back as a hologram for Coachella a decade ago. Apparently untroubled by death, Shakur has always stayed relevant.