You can damn 2Pac for being a thug. You can chastise him for epitomizing every gangster stereotype upheld by those who couldn't understand him. You can burn him at the stake for not being able to control his cast of mind and winding up on the wrong side of the law as a result. But you can't deny his genius. You have to admire how he never held anything back, and you must admit that ultimately, he was truly beautiful and completely irreplacable.

When listening to Me Against The World, two things become clear. First, it's glaringly apparent that Tupac Amaru Shakur was a rap legend in the making, a man who was able to harness his brooding paranoia and thug mentality and turn them into resplendent verse. Second is the foreboding sense that he was completely aware of, and possibly even expecting his early demise. These both come through best on this brilliant 1995 release.

Me Against The World dropped at a tumultuous time in 2Pac's career. The release came while he was serving a four-and-a-half year prison sentence for sexual assault (he only ended up serving eight months before Death Row founder Suge Knight posted bond). As contemptible as prison time may be, the record projects an overwhelming sense of 2Pac finding his sense of self, and trying to make sense of it. While in his other releases, he appears to take the worst aspects of ghetto life and make them somewhat glamorous, on World, he's merely trying to make everything right again.

"Dear Mama" shines through as one of 2Pac's most sincere offerings in his archive. Through heart-wrenchingly earnest rhymes, he acknowledges and reconciles the turbulent relationship he had with his mother. In retrospect, 2Pac casts aside the negativity of his upbringing and delivers a rare expression of gratitude, as the lyrics state, "There's no way I can pay back / But the plan is to show you that I understand / You are appreciated."

His newfound sensitivity continues to manifest itself throughout the album, especially on tracks like "So Many Tears", where 2Pac addresses that the thug life he was notorious for caused him to lose much and gain little ("And though my soul was deleted, I couldn't see it / I had my mind full of demons trying to break free"). Just as deep is "Temptations", where he drops the mack-daddy persona in exchange for that of a tortured gangster trying to find a woman who will be there for him despite his hellish lifestyle ("Even though I'm known for my one-night stand / I want to be an honest man").

But what resonate more are cuts like "Death Around The Corner" and "If I Die 2Nite", which cast an eerie light that also shone on 2Pac's later works: no matter how hard he worked at self-reform, he was always anticipating an early death. "2Nite" begins with a boisterous statement: "A coward dies a thousand deaths / a soldier dies but once", which gives a sense that 2Pac was afraid of dying, but determined to go down courageously and leave a hip-hop legacy that would not be soon forgotten. Even though one of - if not the - greatest hip-hop artist of all time met an untimely end, 2Pac was right about everything.