Weaving together smart samples, live instruments and intelligent vignettes of ghetto life, The Score is intimate and thoughtful, at the time providing a broader appeal to masses who were skeptical about hip-hop music. If you talk that kind of talk, you sure as hell have to walk the walk and, upon release, The Score did not disappoint. “It’s almost like a hip-hop version of Tommy, like what The Who did for rock music,” said Lauryn Hill of Fugees’ second album, before it had even been released. Equipped with Death Row Records’ most celebrated producers – including, you guessed it, Dr Dre – to match his swaggering braggadocio, All Eyez On Me may not be 2Pac’s most thoughtful album, but it’s the one on which all elements came together harmoniously and, considering its sheer scale and quick turnaround, deserves to be remembered as one of the greats. While a tone of urgency runs through it, 2Pac’s work on this album is anything but sloppy, eschewing the more self-reflective themes explored on Me Against The World for an unashamed celebration of Thug Life. The rapper died in a drive-by shooting less than a year later, but not before the release of All Eyez On Me, an album that was hastily recorded in two weeks.

In today’s world, no label in their right mind would have bailed him out for his crime, but that’s what Death Row Records did in 1995, forking out $1.4 million on the condition he would make three albums for them once released. At 27 songs long, 2Pac’s fourth and final album to be released during his lifetime is a tour de force of hip-hop, the first of its kind to ever be released for mass consumption and a ferocious return to music after spending eleven months in jail for sexual assault.

Me against the world album artwork