Only God Can Judge Me

“Jeff Pearlman breaks down Tupac’s life like a veteran sportswriter examining a dynasty. This detailed look at his life is the work of a writer who understands the ego of greatness.”  — Chuck D”Tupac Shakur’s life has been explored and excavated longer than he lived. Yet, Pearlman delivers rich, engrossing, and fascinating new details about Shakur’s life and legacy—not just once or twice—but throughout each lively page. He takes us through the streets Shakur walked in New York, Baltimore, Marin, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas in revealing the brilliant, troubled man and not just a caricature or myth. This is the type of needed journalism, reporting, and biography that finally and deservedly provides the definitive historic account on Shakur.” — Jonathan Abrams, author of The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop“A rollicking, smoke-filled joyride through the life of one of our generation’s greatest street poets. Jeff Pearlman unfurls Tupac’s complex, brilliant and troubled story like a Shakespearean drama, with the detail and punch only he could deliver. Along the way, he excavates themes of race, class, social justice and hip hop history. Pearlman’s best work yet.”   — Rick Jervis, Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and author of The Devil Behind the Badge. “Here is the definitive biography of a star-crossed American genius, Tupac Shakur. It’s also Jeff Pearlman at his very best: lively prose full of the stuff you’ve never heard, all of it underwritten by tireless, unbiased reporting. Everyone talks to Pearlman: family and friends, lovers and haters, artists and inmates, gangbangers and cops. Shakur’s brief life was a series of epic contradictions. How did a sensitive drama kid—a big Kate Bush fan with his dog-eared copy of Macbeth—become hip-hop’s Jimmy Cagney? Why did he die playing the role of a lifetime? You really want to know? Read this book.” — Mark Kriegel, author of Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson“This book is remarkable and unflinching, just like its subject. It will have you talking aloud and saying, ‘No way that happened,’ but Jeff Pearlman is an annoyingly brilliant, thorough, and exhaustive reporter—even Tupac experts like myself will find little moments we knew nothing about. Despite the amazing level of detail, the read is effortless and damn near conversational. Only God Can Judge Me is a phenomenal achievement that will piss some people off but enthrall even more.” — Cheo Hodari Coker, showrunner of Marvel’s Luke Cage and author of Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Notorious B.I.G.“[An] excellent biography…Pearlman paints a complex, three-dimensional portrait of a passionate artist who could be single-minded and obstinate, who was driven by a nagging need “to fulfill his destiny before it was too late” (which became tragically prescient when he was killed in 1996)…The result is an endlessly captivating portrait of a singular artist.”  — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Jeff Pearlman is a columnist for SI.com, a former Sports Illustrated senior writer, and the critically acclaimed author of Boys Will Be Boys, The Bad Guys Won!, and Love Me, Hate Me.