So someone gives me a $20 gift card to Best Buy for Christmas. I walk into Best Buy and see two CDs sitting on the front rack. “Best of 2Pac Vol. 1: Thug” and “Best of 2Pac Vol. 2: Life.” They were priced at $9.99 each.

Needless to say, I walked home with my first two 2Pac albums. They sat on my dresser for the better part of a year before I uploaded them to my iPod and listened to them on a long drive.

I would hardly call myself a hip-hop aficionado, but these albums gave me a new respect for the genre and a deeper respect for the late Tupac Shakur.

The collection goes through years of Tupac singles in no particular order. In my mind, I break it down into three segments.
1) His earlier stuff, like “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” explicitly takes on social issues with the kind of bounce you’d hear from 80s hip hop.
2) His middle stuff (I think) is dark, violent and tough, like “Hail Mary,” and details what he calls “Thug Life.” Murder and suicide are common topics.
3) His later stuff, like “Still Bawlin’” and “How Do You Want it,” includes some upbeat party songs with R&B-fueled lighter tracks.

No matter how you slice it, Tupac has an intense wit and portrays himself as a kind of flawed god. Read up on the man, and you’ll see his persona as an entertainer and his real life are inseparable.

RIP