Only God can judge me The many lives of Tupac Shakur

Biographer Pearlman (The Last Folk Hero) chronicles the brief, chaotic life of rap legend Tupac Shakur in this excellent biography. Shakur was born in 1971 to mother Afeni, a Black Panther who successfully defended herself in the Panther 21 trial but fell into crack addiction, often leaving Shakur to fend for himself. They moved from New York to Baltimore in 1984 and later to California, where Shakur found acting success as an "intimidating street hustler" in 1992's Juice, a role the sensitive young man sometimes seemed to play in real life to gain acceptance, according to Pearlman. That persona--along with drugs, alcohol, the effects of childhood trauma, and a general recklessness--contributed to Shakur's erratic, sometimes criminal behavior, Pearlman suggests. (He was convicted and imprisoned for sexual assault in 1995, the same year his album Me Against the World launched him to commercial success.) Drawing on interviews with nearly everyone in Shakur's orbit, including the man who, as an infant, inspired "Brenda's Got a Baby," Pearlman paints a complex, three-dimensional portrait of a passionate artist who could be single-minded and obstinate, who was driven by a nagging need "to fulfill his destiny before it was too late" (which became tragically prescient when he was killed in 1996), and whose contradictions were many (his legacy as "hip-hop's greatest booster of women" seemingly runs counter to the numerous sexual assault allegations made against him). The result is an endlessly captivating portrait of a singular artist. (Oct.)

Inside the brief, brilliant, and tragically reckless life of Tupac Shakur (1971-1996). Pearlman, a sportswriter by trade (The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson, 2022, etc.), seems an odd fit as a biographer of a hip-hop icon, but his reportorial chops and distance from the hip-hop world are largely an advantage here. He uncovers a complex persona who at once dominated '90s and rap and succumbed to its worst influences. Shakur was raised in New York and Baltimore by his mother, Afeni Shakur, who worked with the Black Panthers and other groups devoted to improving Black lives. But it's more correct to say he was hardly raised at all, as she fell victim to a crack addiction in the '80s. Shakur found a sanctuary at a Baltimore arts school, and the acting skills he developed there served him well when he headed west. In the early '90s he was both a rising film actor and rapper ("I always thought he was one or two movies away from Academy Award talk," said hisGang Related co-star Jim Belushi), but internally he was going south. He could be wildly mercurial--Pearlman's sources suggest Shakur had undiagnosed ADHD--serving prison time for sexual assault, suffering paranoid delusions (particularly around rival MC Biggie Smalls), and, at the instigation of record exec Suge Knight, developing a belligerent persona that insiders felt was forced (his infamous "thug life" tattoo puzzled many) and speeded his murder in Las Vegas. Pearlman spoke to many in Shakur's orbit, from family (his sister, Set, is particularly poignant and observant) to entourage members, to the man who, abandoned as a newborn, inspired Shakur to write his classic "Brenda's Got a Baby." A thorough accounting of a complex figure. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.