Kendrick Lamar Pens Open Letter to Tupac on 19th Anniversary of His Death

Kendrick Lamar has openly applauded Tupac Shakur as one of the most influential artist of his career, and rap period. Today, Sept. 13, marks the 19th anniversary since Tupac Shakur's tragic passing. With it, K. Dot decided to honor the late rap legend by penning an open letter. Lamar's words are short and sweet, consisting of two paragraphs where the rapper talks about being inspired by Shakur's life and music.

This gesture should come as a surprise to no one as Lamar has never shied away from his adoration for Tupac. On his last album, he featured Shakur on the track "Mortal Man" where he played a fictional conversation between the two, using footage from an old Pac interview from 1994. In an interview last year, Kendrick stated he would be a Tupac fan until his dying day. “Huge Tupac fan forever,” said Lamar during his interview for The Message. ”‘Pac? Energy, aggression, emotion, something I gotta dig deep and think about all my woes in my life.”

Back in 2011, the Compton MC revealed Shakur visited him during a dream and gave him specific instructions. "I was sleeping one night and [Tupac] said, ‘Keep doing what you doing, don’t let my music die..." The shit scared the shit out of me," he said. "I’m doing it for the people around me, my city of course and a bigger power, and that’s to continue the message that he tried to carry."

Check out the TDE rapper's thoughts on the memorial of Pac's passing, below.