Artist	Song
Last Poets	Wake Up, Niggers
from Last Poets (1984)
Marvin Gaye	Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)
from What's Going On (2003)
Stevie Wonder	Living for the City
from Innervisions (2000)
The Temptations	Papa Was a Rollin' Stone
from 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: Motown 1970s, Vol. 1 (2001)
Bobby Womack & Peace	Across 110th Street
from Across 110th Street (2008)
The Staple Singers	I'll Take You There
from Be Altitude: Respect Yourself (2006)
The Undisputed Truth	Smiling Faces Sometimes
from The Best of Undisputed Truth - Smiling Faces (2003)
Doug E Fresh & Slick Rick	Ladi Dadi
from Doug E Fresh (The Greatest Hits) (2011)
Eric B. & Rakim	Paid In Full
from Paid In Full (1990)
LL Cool J	Rock the Bells
from All World - Greatest Hits (1996)
Boogie Down Productions	Criminal Minded
from Criminal Minded (2005)
Public Enemy	Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos
from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1995)
N.W.A.	Fuck tha Police
from 'Straight Outta Compton' (2002)
Too $hort	The Ghetto
from Short Dog's In the House (1990)
Ice-T	New Jack Hustler (Nino's Theme)
from New Jack City (Music from the Motion Picture) (2009)

Comment:

Both playa and politico, 2Pac brought a sensuality and race-consciousness that could be traced back to the womb. Born to two Black Panthers, he first inhaled oxygen in the spring of '71, one month after his mother was acquitted of 150 charges of conspiracy against the United States government. Immersed in a cocoon of rebellion and civil rights activism, he had his mindset forged by the crumbled-brick sultriness of Marvin Gaye, whose "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" offered a damning portrait of ruined infrastructure, unbreakable cycles of poverty, and endless bloodshed. And as it did for so many of his peers, the drug-ravaged Reagan years solidified his sensibilities. With the inner city still aflame, Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" served as a beacon — the tale of a draft dodger who takes a principled stand against an unjust war, and suffers brutal consequences. Indeed, the erstwhile MC New York was similarly inspired by the Maya Angelou-meets-Malcolm X eloquence of Boogie Down Production's "Criminal Minded," a cut that merged hardcore with the high-minded. Like all great thinkers, 2Pac was a sponge — one that soaked up game from everyone from the Last Poets to Too $hort, from Stevie Wonder to N.W.A.

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