Today (June 16) would have been Tupac Shakur’s 50th birthday. Many are remembering the late rapper on this milestone day, but Jada Pinkett Smith got started early yesterday by sharing a previously unreleased poem that Tupac wrote for her.
Filming the poem, which was titled “Lost Soulz” and written by Tupac on a sheet of lined notebook paper, Pinkett Smith says in a video, “Over the years, ‘Pac wrote me many letters and many poems, and I don’t think this one has ever been published, honestly. He had a song called ‘Lost Souls,’ on the Gang Related soundtrack, but I believe this was the original concept because he wrote this, I believe, when he was at Rikers [Island]. And I was like, I don’t think he would have minded that I share this with you guys.”
She then recited the poem, which reads:
“Some say nothing gold can last forever
And 2 believe this [I] need no proof
I have witnessed all that was pure in me
And be changed by the evil men can do
The innocence possessed by children
Once lived inside my soul
But surviving years with criminal peers
Has turned my warm heart to cold
I used 2 dream and fantasize
But now I’m scared 2 sleep
Petrified, not to live or die
But to awaken and still be me
It is true that nothing gold can last
We will all one day see death
When the purest hearts are torn apart
LOST SOULS are all that’s left
Down on my knees I beg of God
To save me from this fate
Let me live to see what was gold in me
Before it is all too late.”
Also yesterday, fellow Tupac associate Jim Belushi shared a story about trying to get the rapper to cover Frank Sinatra.
Watch Pinkett Smith read the poem above.