“As a Hip-Hop artist and educator, I wrote the song 2pac in Tamil, to look at his impact to this day. I remembered other poets and liberators and found a deep similarity in the story of 2pac and the mahakavi (greatest poet in Tamil) Bharathiyar and found it interesting that they died on the same day, 75 years apart. I wondered how the souls of liberators are intertwined, and how the rhythm of resistance poetry beats in unison in the hearts of the people. This song pays homage to an artist, whose music blared out of headphones and stereos for Tamil people facing war crimes committed by the government of Sri Lanka, traversing post-colonial realities of life in South Asia and in the Diaspora with an identity of a people who aren’t tied to a nation. Tupac Amaru Shakur is alive and he lives through me.” — Professor A.L.I.