On Friday night (April 7), 21 years after his death, Tupac Shakur was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
Snoop Dogg was in attendance to accept the honors on Pac’s behalf, and he was joined by Alicia Keys, YG, Naughty By Nature’s Treach, and T.I. for a medley performance that celebrated the hip hop icon’s prolific career.
Keys kicked off the performance at the piano, honoring Shakur with soothing renditions of “Ambitionz Az a Ridah,” “I Get Around,” “I Ain’t Mad at Cha,” “Dear Mama,” and “Changes.”
Taking a break to speak to the audience about his influence on her, Alicia explained: “One of my favorite things about Pac is the way that he, you know every lyric that he ever said, it came exactly from his life, exactly from his heart. He was so raw and so real and so honest. And even though I never met him, I wish I did. I learned so much from him. All those stories and all that realness. All the honesty, I took that with me. And now that he’s gone, it’s different ya know.”
“It’s just the way it is,” she said before ending her tribute with “Changes.”
Check out the footage below.
(Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
