Today, June 16, Tupac Shakur would have been 44-years-old, and to honor the slain rapper, Jhene Aiko posed like Pac in some of his most iconic photos. Photographer Danny Williams is behind the camera lens of the images, which captures the unforgettable essence of the legendary rapper.
“HAPPY 44th BIRTHDAY PAC!!!!!” she tweeted early this morning.
Sporting plaits, gold jewlery and overalls, Aiko recreates the cover of Pac’s 1996 album, All Eyez on Me, gets up and close with a blue bandana to recreate the cover of his posthumous Greatest Hits collection, and lies half nude in a bathtub with gold chain covering her nether regions like Pac in David LaChapelle’s 1995 “Becoming Clean” photo shoot.
Aiko tells MTV, “I feel like I have to give his legacy some type of present…. It’s a special day because to me he was such a special person, so this year it was just an idea that me and my team had and I’m passionate about Tupac so it was something and I was like, “Yeah.” It was just random, it just happened on the spot; it was a really good idea for his birthday….For me, it’s just about expressing my gratitude towards him and his legacy.”
Aiko goes on to say she was inspired by Pac's poetry, which isn’t surprising considering her often deep, introspective, and socially-aware lyrics: "I remember for one of my birthdays, my dad got me one of his poetry books and I was just tripping out because his voice is his own thing. Even if he didn’t write, his voice is powerful enough to stand alone, but then his words are the same thing. They’re powerful enough to stand on their own by just reading them. That’s something that I would like my words to be," she said.
Hit “Next” below to view the photos, and peep the entire interview here.
