"Me Against the World" - A Retrospective

2Pac's soul-bearing classic endures for its emotional resonance

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I had this student. A good kid in a mad city. We’ll call him Jalen. His older cousins were in gangs, so his mother shielded him from them. The one cousin he bonded with died of an illness, and he was left angry at his powerlessness to change the injustice and chaos around him. He told me he listens to 2Pac when he’s feeling down.

As a teacher, I do everything I can to help my students, but sometimes I’m wracked with frustration over my limitations to help. I can relate to them, because even though I’m from the suburbs, I had a hellish adolescence and have battled severe depression for most of my life. My lonely summers consisted of cathartic nighttime walks listening to 2Pac.

This deep connection with artists like Pac led me to become a hip-hop journalist. While working on this piece, I went on YouTube last night and saw that I’m not alone. A commenter named Tracey also uses 2Pac to cope with depression, while another named Kenneth said he has aggressive cancer and listens to 2Pac’s “Death Around the Corner” to get through the day.

I bet you know people like this, too. Maybe you are one of those people whose dark cloud won’t leave them, and the only thing that helps you get through the day is music you can relate to. These are songs and albums that share your anger, fears and despair. Music that lets you know you’re not alone.

2Pac was a master of that kind of music. This is most apparent on Me Against the World, which turned 30 on Friday. Three decades after its release, the album endures as a widely relatable testament to human struggle and survival in the face of overwhelming circumstances.

Me Against the World was recorded from Sept. 1993 to Nov. 1994. In that time, 2Pac faced, among other issues, financial woes and a sexual assault trial.

Pac strongly believed he’d been set up by Jacques “Haitian Jack” Agnant, and on the eve of the verdict he was shot at New York’s Quad Studios during a robbery ordered by Agnant.

The next day, Pac was acquitted of sodomy and illegal firearm possession, but was convicted of sexual abuse (forcibly touching the buttocks).

The verdict and heavy-handed sentencing remain controversial to those who believe 2Pac was targeted as the son of a Black Panther who used his platform to speak out against the United States government. By the time Me Against the World dropped, Pac was incarcerated amidst arguably the darkest time of his life.

As so often happens, from immense struggle came great art. Me Against the World debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and is widely hailed as one of the greatest and most influential rap albums of all time.

The process may have been as cathartic as the results were rewarding. Recording the album gave 2Pac a chance to pour all of his grief, anger and despair into his music.

In part of an interview later included in the book Tupac: Resurrection, he likened Me Against the World to a blues record.

“It was down-home,” he said. “It was all my fears, all the things I just couldn’t sleep about.”

Pac was not alone in what kept him up at night. But a key difference between 2Pac and so many others is that if someone thought it, Pac probably said it.

So often, people are scared to say how they feel for fear of alienating others or being judged. When you expose your wounds, there’s a chance somebody will pour salt in them.

But 2Pac gave us a safe space to cope with our emotions without cruelty. He seemed to understand what so many great artists know: Vulnerability is a strength.

He was starkly honest about his aching loneliness, seething anger over betrayals, immense grief over lost loved ones and his own desire to leave this world.

“I’m suicidal, so don’t stand near me/My every move is a calculated step/To bring me closer to embrace an early death,” he rapped on “So Many Tears.”

Even in 2025, many people in society still view suicide as a weakness rather than a serious brain health issue. So, to hear thoughts of suicide from someone who embodied resiliency was especially impactful.

As The Notorious B.I.G. said in an interview sampled on the posthumous 2Pac cut, “Runnin’ (Dying to Live),” “Pac is a strong dude.”

Much of Me Against the World sounds like it was taken from pages of Pac’s diary. “Old School” is a soulful, I daresay happy tribute to the hip-hop of 2Pac’s Brooklyn youth. “It Ain’t Easy” delves into his fears of going to prison. And the beloved “Dear Mama” is a loving ode to his mother, Afeni Shakur.

Yet, Pac had a knack for weaving his personal life within the fabric of Black America’s struggle as a whole. Though he raps about selling crack to put money in his mother’s mailbox, his friend Ray Luv recalled how 2Pac’s empathy led him to quit dealing after less than a week.

Far from being an aggressive front, Pac’s melding of his own reality with that of others was a way to be a voice for Black people. Though 2Pac lived a wild life, some of the more violent imagery on “If I Die 2Nite” and “Death Around the Corner” is representative of the hustlers and gangsters he had love for rather than his own experiences.

Yet, every track on Me Against the World is imbued with authentic fervor. And that genuine passion is precisely the driving force of the album’s appeal across ethnicities, classes and cultures.

That’s not to say most people can relate to the specifics of 2Pac’s extreme hardships. As he rapped on “Lord Knows,” “I done suffered so much, I think I’m shell-shocked.” But on an elemental level, most of us can relate to loving our mothers, having nostalgia for our youth, grieving loved ones and feeling hopeless.

And for those who feel intensely, 2Pac’s cry that “no one in the world loves me” on the album’s title track connects on a deeper level than, say, Simple Plan’s “I’m just a kid, and life is a nightmare.” Even if the latter’s content may be more applicable to the listener’s life.

This especially true given that the production of Me Against the World is appropriately emotive for each track. On “So Many Tears,” D-Flizno Production Squad’s sample of the horns on Stevie Wonder’s “That Girl” sounds like wails of grief. Meanwhile, Mike Mosley’s sample of Maze featuring Frankie Beverly’s “Happy Feelin’s” sounds like it’s pining for the lady of Pac’s affection.

Throughout the album, the music neither underserves 2Pac’s weighty subject matter nor upstages it. The beats are in concert with Pac’s sentiments, making for an engrossing listening experience.

Similarly, cinematic soundbites enhance the extreme desperation of “Death Around the Corner.” The track closes with a rageful rant by Robert De Niro’s Al Capino in The Untouchables. It’s a powerful choice, given that the root of Pac’s pain - loneliness - is vocalized by De Niro in the actual scene: “What am I, alone in this world?”

Is there a point where the relatability of intense music can become harmful? Sure, if someone is using the music to wallow or stay stuck in negative thought loops for long periods.

But even aside from the fact that artists aren’t responsible for their listeners’ actions, what hip-hop’s detractors missed in 1995 - and what some still don’t get today - is that music like Me Against the World is a healthy outlet for painful emotions.

The people who are using this music to relate to and cope are already suffering. And it’s a lot healthier to scream along to “Fuck the World” than it is to take your anger out on someone else.

Me Against the World is often discussed as a dark, hopeless record. While it is true that the aforementioned themes are pervasive, only focusing on the struggle fails to acknowledge the album’s profound inspiration.

2Pac references God or Heaven on several tracks, repeatedly asking for forgiveness and crying out to the Lord like King David did in Psalms. Pac is not disrespectful to the Most High, but he’s honest in a way that would make many church-going evangelicals uncomfortable. Yet, at the end of the crushingly bleak “Lord Knows,” vocalist Natasha Walker belts out hope for desperate prayers: “He is listening!”

That’s not the only moment of optimism on Me Against the World. 2Pac counsels juvenile gangsters to choose a better path on “Young N—-z.” The title track finds Pac passionately motivating people to “always do your best, don’t let this pressure make you panic,” and encouraging them that “through every dark night, there’s a bright day after that.”

Even on the fatalistic “Death Around the Corner,” 2Pac refuses to quit. “I can’t give up although I’m hopeless, I think my mind’s gone/All I can do is get my grind on,” he insists. With all Pac went through in his life, his incredible perseverance is a light for anyone walking through a dark tunnel.

Therein lies 2Pac’s superpower as an artist and a spiritual man; even through his devastating trials, he used his struggles to uplift and motivate others. It’s evidence of Pac’s amazing strength, inspiring empathy and beautiful soul.

It’s also a small yet essential part of Me Against the World, an album that, three decades after its release, remains timeless for its author’s courageous honesty and profound expression of powerful emotions.

I believe it will stay that way for at least another 30 years, and likely much longer. Because, as one YouTube commenter put it, “Listening to Pac is like talking to an old friend who understands you.”