50 Cent was inspired by Tupac Shakur as much as anyone. Before recording his projects, the G-Unit boss often listened to Makaveli’s best songs, followed by Biggie Smalls’ greatest tracks, as inspiration. He’d even play three Tupac albums back-to-back, crediting his influence on him as a rapper from the East Coast.

50 once claimed that Tupac played a role in every rapper’s career in the 1990s. ‘Pac carved his own lane and laid the blueprint for many of the successful artists we see today, and the ‘In Da Club’ rapper isn’t oblivious to that.

“Every rapper who grew up in the ’90 owes something to Tupac,” he told Rolling Stone in 2001. “People either try to emulate him in some way, or they go in a different direction because they didn’t like what he did. But whatever you think of him, he definitely developed his own style: He didn’t sound like anyone who came before him.”

50 revealed that 1996’s The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory was his favourite Tupac album. The project was released on Death Row Records less than two months after his death and recorded over seven days during the first week of August 1996.

“My favourite Tupac album is The Don Killuminati,” he said. “It was recorded after he was shot and spent time in prison. It was like a doctor told him he was going to die, and he was trying to get it all down on paper. That’s something the average rapper just could not do: build an entire album around that concept and stay in that negative space. Everybody knows that they’re going to die. But after you’re in a life-threatening situation, you think about it a little more.”

Speaking on his favourite song from the album, he said. “Tupac’s aggressive records are my favourite. ‘Hail Mary’ is just perfect: ‘Picture paragraphs unloaded/ Wise words being quoted.’ Most artists now just aren’t smart enough to write that, or honest enough to write a line like, ‘I ain’t a killer but don’t push me.’ These days, rappers will just tell you, ‘I’ll kill you.’”

Dr Dre signed 50 to Aftermath Entertainment in 2002. Dre, who co-founded Death Row, collaborated with ‘Pac on songs such as ‘California Love’ and ‘Can’t C Me’ with George Clinton. By working with Dre, they were able to be spiritually aligned.

50 stated that Tupac’s focus was lyricism, as opposed to Biggie Smalls, who he believed had a more melodic approach. “Tupac was like a camera. It’s incredible how much he wrote — how much he documented,” he said. “To me, ‘Pac was more of a poet than a rapper. You can always tell when you’re hearing Tupac verse. He wrote those lyrics without any music.”

Adding, “Notorious B.I.G. was more melody-driven — I’m sure he wrote his shit without a pen, and over the music — but ‘Pac was just hashing out his life. The thing was, he was doing that when the public eye was on him, and everything he was hashing out just expanded, and that’s when things got out of control.”

He concluded, “All of us on the East Coast loved Tupac. The music was all that mattered. That East Coast/West Coast feud was just personal beef. Now that he’s not here, he’s bigger than ever.”