Welcome to the Sports Media Podcast.

I'm your host, Richard Dodge.

My producer is Patrick Antenetti, one guest on this episode,

my longtime colleague at Sports Illustrated.

And one of the great sports authors of his generation, or any generation,

Jeff Perlman is a multiple-time bestselling author with, I can't even name his whole bookology.

Is that even the right word?

With books on the 1986 Mets, Walter Payton, the Dallas Cowboys, Bo Jackson.

I think people remember the Showtime Magic Kareem Riley book about the Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s,

which became a Showtime series.

His latest book is Only God Can Judge Me, The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur.

Jeff decides to leave the tablob sports to write about one of the most prominent hip hop artists

of his generation and certainly of the last 30 plus years. And he joins us today on the

sports media podcast. Jeff, welcome. You know, I only wrote the book because I thought,

who's the artist who has inspired Richard Dites the most? And I thought, is a Crystal Gale, is a Barber Strysend, or is a Tupac? And the gale, the gale biography was already taken, so I went with Tupac. That's, I appreciate you saying that despite the fact that I'm a lifelong New Yorker. So it would be, perhaps Biggie Smalls might bes might be the guy who would inspire me. But, all, listen, first

of all, thank you for doing this. You've already done 7,000 podcasts. So let's, you know,

I'll try my best to at least give you something different, but it will not be different on this

first question. Why do the decision to spend three years of your life doing a book on Tupac Shakur? So first of all, I just always have been fascinated by Tupac. Sincerely, always fascinated by Tupac. I am a big hip-hop fan. He is an iconic, iconic figure, and I thought there were a lot of questions that could be really answered by digging into a

book. I always saw it for years. There's a writer named Kevin Powell who is covered. Yeah, and he was on

the real world, famously on the real world. That's correct. First one, I think, right? Correct.

And for years, Kevin had on his website, next book or something, or planning on writing a Tupac by me, I mean mean for years. And I always held off on doing Tupac as I figured Kevin Powell was going to do it. And this guy is of the hip hop universe much more than I am. I just kept waiting and he never did it. And finally I said to my agent, David Black, I was like, I think I really want to do a Tupac book. He's like, you're a white sports rider. Do you really think you're the guy to do it? And I was like, I just think somebody needs to do it.

And it might as well be. I was like, I think I really want to do a Tupac book. He's like, you're a white sports writer.

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