AllMovie

Tupac Shakur was a hard edged gangster rapper, and a poet who wrote with sensitivity and concern about life in the African-American community. Tupac was a violent thug, and a gifted actor who could lose himself in any number of roles. Tupac was a convicted felon, and an activist who without thought of recognition used his time and money to help those less fortunate than himself. Tupac was a self-proclaimed hustler who loved women and weed, and the son of a Black Panther who always gave props to his mother's desire to bring out political and social change in America. Tupac Shakur, in short, was a very complex man, and this documentary about his life and work attempts to explore both the infamous "Thug Life" hip-hop star and the artist and thinker known best to his close friends. Tupac VS. includes interviews with Shakur's biographer Michael Eric Dyson, educator Arvand Elihu (who published a book on Shakur's poetry), business associate Leila Steinberg, and artist and confidante Rah Picasso, as well an interview with Tupac taped in 1995 shortly before he was released from prison and signed with Death Row Records.