One of the defining characteristics of Kendrick Lamar’s sophomore album, To Pimp A Butterfly, is a running poem that builds and unfolds as the album progresses, with K.Dot sharing more and more of the piece song by song. The piece culminates after the music fades out during the album’s final track, “Mortal Man,” and as Kendrick finishes he asks a question, answered by the voice of Tupac Shakur. The two proceed to have a conversation about metaphors, social inequality, classism and maintaining sanity in the face of so much pressure; towards the end, Kendrick asks ‘Pac for his take on the future of Kendrick’s generation and receives an answer that wouldn’t seem so out of place if it was given today. The only difference is, that interview with Tupac happened in 1994.
How exactly Kendrick came across that particular interview—which you can hear in full here—is still a slight mystery, but the origins of ‘Pac’s answers are not. The interview was conducted in the Atlantic Records office in New York City around the time of the release of ‘Pac’s Thug Life: Vol. 1 album with his group Thug Life, which came out Sept. 26, 1994. The journalist in question: Mats Nileskår, a Swedish radio host who has been documenting the careers and music of African-American musicians through the jazz, soul, funk, R&B and hip-hop eras since 1978, conducting around 6,000 interviews in the past 37 years by his estimation. Nileskår’s P3 Soul radio show has grown into an influential and now-legendary European institution over that time period, with this Tupac interview one of the crown jewels of his collection.
Got The Drop 