This Thug's Life

The first-ever insider account of the Shakur family, the iconic hip hop group T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E., and the life and death Tupac Shakur – written by Mopreme Shakur, the legendary rapper’s big brother and eldest son of Black liberation activist Mutulu Shakur.

Maurice. Little Mutulu. Mogie. Mocedes. ’Preme. Wycked. Mopreme Shakur has been known by many names. Fitting for a multi-hyphenate like Mo: hip hop artist and sole surviving member of T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. and Outlaw Immortalz, soldier, writer, husband and father, filmmaker, record producer, and the big brother of, and co-collaborator with, the legendary Tupac Shakur, the greatest rapper of all time. The one thing Mo hasn’t done—until now—is tell his story, one of complex family relationships, fame, tragedy, politics, musical innovation, and brotherly love.

Born in Flushing, New York, in 1967 and raised in South Jamaica, Queens, Mo got an early education in what it meant to be a man of righteous New Afrikan values imparted by his activist and healer father, Mutulu. The son of a revolutionary, Mo’s childhood was rife with upheavals, inspiration, dramatic highs and lows, and unbreakable bonds of love. None stronger than when he met his new baby brother, Tupac. Mutulu said, “This is your brother. Hold his hand.” Over the more than two decades that followed, Mopreme never let go. As Tupac rose to transcendent heights in the industry, Mo was on Pac’s team as writer and collaborator, producer, stagehand, and sibling confidante. Everything Pac did, Mo was there—right up until the day Pac’s life was cut short in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.

In his memoir, Mo shares not just an intimately personal story of family, but also one of resilience, a quest for racial justice informed by decades of struggle for Black liberation long before the Black Lives Matter movement, and of two brothers who rose from the streets to become icons. It’s insightful, inspirational, powerful, and authentically and unapologetically Black. As Mo himself would say: dig that!