The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200. He was the first artist to achieve that while serving a prison sentence. That’s not just a statistic. That’s a statement about how hungry the world was for his voice. Today, streaming has sanitized the album experience. You click a button, and Dear Mama plays in lossless quality. But you don’t own it. You’re borrowing it from a server in Virginia.

Put on headphones. Lie on the floor. Turn off the lights.

Because that’s the point of the album. It was never just Pac against the world. It was him showing you how to survive your own battle.