Jeff Pearlman on his new Tupac Shakur book: ‘Only God Can Judge Me’

Jeff Pearlman is best known for his books on legendary sports figures and teams. However, his most recent biography explores the world of hip-hop.

Pearlman’s new book is Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur. In it, he details one of the most influential rappers of the 1990s. Tupac was infamously a victim of a drive-by shooting in the Las Vegas area after leaving a Mike Tyson fight in 1996. He died six days later at 25 years old. Like many musical artists who die early, his pop culture status remains high, and his mythology has grown over time. Today, it’s not uncommon for teenagers to wear shirts with Tupac’s likeness.

We recently caught up with Pearlman to ask the New York Times best-selling author about his latest work. “Only God Can Judge Me” will be released on October 21, but it is now available for preorder.

Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Awful Announcing: What made you want to write about Tupac Shakur?

Jeff Pearlman: “A bunch of years ago, Garth Brooks did a rock album under a pseudonym, Chris Gaines. It didn’t sell well, and people made fun of him, but I thought it was this great album that he really busts his ass on. I admired that he took a shot.

“I’ve always been fascinated by Tupac. He’s my favorite hip-hop artist, him and A Tribe Called Quest, and Nas. I’ve always found him intriguing, but I never thought there was a truly great definitive book. I’m not saying I’m great, just a book I’d want to read about Tupac. I kept waiting for someone else to do it, and no one did it. I thought, ‘Well, I can do the Garth Brooks-Chris Gaines thing. I can try something different.'”

Being a sports writer, did anyone try to talk you out of this book?

“My agent said to me early on: ‘You want to do a Tupac book? You’re a white sports writer from upstate New York.’ I think the key was that I’m not approaching it like I know everything about Tupac at all. I’m certainly not going to be the sports writer lecturing you on Tupac. I’m going to interview as many people as I can who knew Tupac. I’m going to read everything there is to know about Tupac, and then we’re going to try to filter the story through those lenses. So, when I explained it to people that way, it was received pretty well.”

What would you consider to be the most fascinating detail in your book?

“There’s a song you should listen to called Brenda’s Got a Baby. It was his first song that anyone knew outside of Digital Underground. Tupac was filming the movie Juice, and he read an article about a 12-year-old girl being raped and throwing her baby down the trash heap. Tupac read that article, and that was the inspiration for the song Brenda’s Got a Baby. The kid (lived and) has never been found or identified, so I decided I needed to find the kid and the mom. The book opens with that saga. I wound up finding the baby from Brenda’s Got a Baby, which is, in the hip-hop world, no small thing because it’s his iconic song.”

Are there any other details you can share?

“He was 33 when I found him. It was amazing. It was one of the great reporting finds of my career, all because of a genealogist I worked with who was incredibly helpful. It was in Brooklyn. It was in public housing. It was a 12-year-old girl who was raped by her cousin. She was impregnated. She didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant. She delivered the baby herself. She wrapped the baby in a denim bag and threw the baby into the trash heap. A guy in the basement is working there, it’s the day the trash compactor’s actually supposed to go off, and he hears crying, and he finds the baby.”

There’s no easy way to transition from that, but what is Tupac’s influence on modern music today?

“I don’t think you can find a rapper who wasn’t influenced by Tupac. When Tupac came along, a lot of rap was about cars, women, and money. Tupac was echoing the lessons, not only of his mom, who was a Black Panther, but of rappers like Public Enemy, about social consciousness, Black empowerment, lifting ourselves up, fighting the system. Not, ‘let’s just have a good time and party.’ That’s a heavy Tupac influence right there. “

How many people did you speak with for the book?

“I interviewed 652 people, which is a lot for me. I interviewed his sister. I interviewed a lot of relatives. I interviewed the woman whom I call his godmother. She’s not technically his godmother, but a woman who’s sort of a former Black Panther named Yaasmyn Fula, who was instrumental in his life. She was immensely helpful. I found a lot of his teachers, his early managers, his early collaborators in rap, his early acting coaches, and people who worked with him in theater.”

Did you get a sense of what Tupac’s mother thought about his career?

“Incredibly proud. The greatest influence in Tupac’s life was his mother, good and bad. You need to look up the Panther 21 trial. Afeni Shakur should be taught in history classes across America. She was pregnant with Tupac in 1971 while representing herself on trial in New York City. The whole story is just amazing and inspiring. She was his role model, but later on, he also watched as she fell prey to severe addiction issues. I think when Afeni finally got clean later in life, I would say her No. 1 inspiration was not disappointing her children.”

Is there anything in the book about Tupac dating Madonna?

“It didn’t last very long. He wrote her a letter from prison explaining why he couldn’t date her anymore. He wrote this beautiful letter, and Madonna was basically like, ‘Alright, that’s fine.’ I think he believed she was going to be more heartbroken and devastated. He wrote, ‘For you to be seen with a Black man wouldn’t in any way jeopardize your career. If anything, it would make you seem that much more open and exciting. But for me at least, I felt due to my image, I would be letting down half of the people who made me what I thought I was.'”

Do you have any lingering questions about Tupac’s death?

“I feel pretty resolved in it. Whenever a celebrity dies young, it becomes a made-for-TV mystery. Based on the people from Death Row I talked to, based on the police officers I talked to, I honestly think his murder was a reaction to him punching someone, then that guy not being able to live with being punched by a rapper, by Tupac Shakur.”

So, you don’t believe it was part of a larger conspiracy?

“I understand why people think Puffy was involved. I understand why people think Biggie was involved. I just think there’s a somewhat simpler story to it. I think it’s possible that Biggie’s death had some retribution elements to it, but I don’t think Tupac’s death was related to Biggie.”