Tupac Shakur inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Why it matters

April 7, 2017. Tupac Shakur was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the 32nd ceremony, held at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It was his first year of eligibility (he had been dead twenty-one years and the Hall requires twenty-five years from first commercial release, which Tupac cleared by months). Snoop Dogg gave the induction speech. Tupac is the first solo hip-hop artist inducted into the Hall of Fame. The first hip-hop group had been Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five in 2007. The first hip-hop solo artist was Tupac in 2017. The ten-year gap between those two milestones tells you something about how slowly the Hall took to recognize that rap also produces solo careers, not just groups. Snoop's speech was warm, autobiographical, and unmistakably emotional; the two of them had been Death Row labelmates and had shared cars and tours in 1996. The induction is one of the rare moments when an institution catches up with what most of the audience had agreed on for two decades. You can argue Tupac should have been inducted years earlier. The answer is: he was inducted as soon as he was eligible. The Hall did the right thing once they could.