Baltimore showed up big for one of Hip-Hop’s greatest legends this week. Tupac Shakur got the full city treatment with street dedications, stadium celebrations, and community commitments that prove his Baltimore roots still run deep.
The Baltimore Orioles started the party at Camden Yards on May 8. Twenty thousand fans walked out with Tupac bobbleheads during the game against the Athletics.
People camped out early just to grab one. That’s the kind of demand you see for something real.
But Baltimore wasn’t just handing out collectibles.
Mayor Brandon Scott took it further by renaming part of Greenmount Avenue as Tupac Shakur Way. The street sits right outside Penn Lucy in North Baltimore, the exact neighborhood where Tupac lived during his teenage years.
That’s not just a street sign. That’s the city saying this artist mattered.
Tupac’s sister Sekyiwa “Set” Shakur flew in for the events. She hadn’t been back to Baltimore in 40 years.
Set runs the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, which focuses on building communities and promoting peace rather than violence. She planted a peace pole at the street dedication ceremony.
The foundation puts these poles in neighborhoods across the country as symbols of conflict resolution.
Set spoke about what the foundation does.
“Our plan and mission is to unify with the on-the-ground organizations here in this community. Follow students from kindergarten to college. We dedicate our resources, our brain, our heart, and income or funds to children from coming from this community, living through this community,” Set said.
That’s not just talk. Set is committed to investing in Baltimore youth through education and community programs. She’s making good on the promise to give back to the city that raised her and her brother.
Tupac moved to Baltimore when he was 13 years old. He went to the Baltimore School for the Arts from 1984 to 1988. Those four years shaped everything about him as an artist and activist.
He built friendships there that lasted his whole life, including with actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who was his classmate.
The tributes this week show Baltimore hasn’t forgotten where Tupac came from. Thirty years after his death, the city is still honoring his legacy and using it to push for real community change.