SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – On what would have been Tupac Shakur’s 50th birthday, Jada Pinkett Smith shared a never-before-seen handwritten poem that may have been the origin of his song “Lost Souls,” which was released in 1997.
“Let’s remember him for that which we loved most … his way with words. Here are a few you may have never heard before,” she posted to her Instagram just before midnight.
The poem is called “Lost Soulz” and talks about how he lost his innocence and was changed by “the evil men can do,” turning cold as he served time in jail and moved through life. Pinkett Smith believes he wrote the poem while at New York’s Rikers Island jail complex.
In part, it says:
“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”
The clip of the handwritten poem is signed, “Yours, Tupac.”
Pinkett Smith said he had written her many letters and poems, and she was going down “memory lane.” She said she doesn’t think he would have minded that she shared the poem.
The two met while attending the Baltimore School for the Arts, she said on “The Arsenio Hall Show” in 2014. She added, “Pac was probably one of the first male figures that I had in my life that saw the beauty and the talent and my intelligence separated from sex.”
Shakur was gunned down in 1996. The crime remains unsolved.
