Dear Mama
The 1995 tribute to Afeni Shakur that became 2Pac's first top-ten hit.
"Dear Mama" is a song by 2Pac from his third studio album, Me Against the World (1995), released on February 9, 1995, as the album's lead single. Dedicated to his mother, Afeni Shakur, it details his childhood poverty and her crack cocaine addiction while insisting that his love and respect for her outweigh the bad memories.
Quick Facts
- Artist
- 2Pac
- Album
- Me Against the World
- B-side
- Old School
- Released
- February 9, 1995
- Studio
- Encore Studios (Burbank, California)
- Genre
- Hip-hop
- Length
- 4:39
- Label
- Interscope, Jive
Lore & Background
The song was Shakur's first top ten on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number nine, and it topped the Hot Rap Singles and Hot Dance Music Maxi-Singles charts. As of March 2021 it is certified 3x Platinum by the RIAA.
Reader's Guide
In 2009 the Library of Congress added "Dear Mama" to the National Recording Registry, the first hip-hop recording by a soloist to be inducted, calling it a moving homage to the rapper's mother and to all mothers struggling to hold a family together against addiction, poverty and indifference. Afeni Shakur and her husband had been Black Panther Party members in New York; Shakur was born a month after she was acquitted in the Panther 21 case.
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