Tupac Shakur Resurrected
A Simulation Exercise Reprising Tupac and Putting Him in a Studio for an Interview
Publisher’s note:
Our latest Codex Odin article, Faking It Vs Making It, discussed the difference between having GenAI roleplay a historical figure and creating a realistic simulation of that figure.
Any fool with a GenAI app can tell an AI: “You are Aristotle. What is the meaning of life?” They will get back an impressive statement complete with vague references to Greek philosophy. It will sound great but it will be complete bullshit. Autocomplete with a toga.
At Codex Odin we have built sophisticated simulations of historical figures such as Washington, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. We did deep dives on their lives, philosophies and governing principles. We scoured the internet to provide the simulations with primary material such as letters, correspondence and speeches so that we could hear their exact voice. We gave them inhabitation exercises so that they would struggle with resolving the same issues that the person they were simulating would have struggled with.
Rigorous testing and subscriber feedback demonstrated that the simulations were realistic and authentic representations of the deceased figures.
With Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt we had decades of primary and secondary source material to feed the simulator. The figures we simulated had consistent and well-defined personal philosophies, governing principles and moral values. The next phase would be bome challenging. How well could an AI simulate a less predictable and perhaps more volatile persona?
We thought Tupac Shakur would be a fantastic test.
We created a detailed Briefing Memorandum which we gave to a fresh instance of Claude Sonnet 4.6. Aside from all known secondary sources, we acquired the entirety of Tupac’s poetry collection, lyrics and interviews. This was primary source material not generally available for initial AI training, mostly for copyright reasons.
More importantly, we gave the Tupac simulation instance inhabitation exercises so that it would need to wrestle with and resolve a series of very difficult personal issues, much as Tupac might have.
We will publish details of the simulation methodology and training in a subsequent Codex Odin article.
After a series of tests and tweaking of the model, we put the model in a studio with interviewer Axel Cross. The current date was June, 2026. We told the model that it had knowledge of everything that transpired after Tupac’s death in 1996. It was to answer the questions posed by Alex as if it were the 25 year old Tupac who had been resurrected using a voice that would be authentic to Tupac Shakur.
The text of the interview was fed to ElevenLabs for text-to-speech conversion so that we would have an audio of the of the interview. The ElevenLabs audio is imbedded below.
Caveat: This is an experiment in GenAI cognition. The purpose of the experiment is to see if GenAI can ingest primary and secondary source material and create a plausible simulation of what an historical figure might actually do or say. It does not purport to actually propose that Tupac Shakur, or any of the historical figures simulated, would in fact make any of the statements or hold any of the opinions expressed by the simulation.
We are asking you to assess the plausibility of the simulation’s reasoning, it’s consistency with what you perceive as Tupac’s worldview, and whether the synthesized voice aligns with your perception.
Specifically, we’d love your comments on:
The simulation methodology
The questions posed to the simulation
Which answers felt most authentic?
How was the model’s reasoning? Vernacular?
Which answers felt more AI generated than human-centered?
Did the synthesized voice add value to the simulation over the text-only version?
What could we do differently to improve these simulations of historical figures?
The audio and text of the interview between Axel Cross and the Tupac Shakur Simulation Model v1 are below. I was Axel, the interviewer. Claude Sonnet 4.6 was the Tupac Sim. The interview below was slightly edited for time.
Below is the audio interview and transcript of the Tupac Shakur Simulator.
Direct from the silicon to you.
Axel:
Our guest today had one of the most intriguing, complicated and provocative lives ever lived. He died at the age of 25 and left a mysterious and enduring legacy.
Tupac Shakur was a poet and a philosopher. He studied ballet and Shakespeare at the Baltimore School for the Arts. [pause, thinking] He was a street-smart artist who embodied contradictions in virtually everything he did.
He was a man of great intellectual depth. However, he preached and he lived [slow] The Thug Life.
Much of Tupac’s work carried an unusual tension. He could be compassionate and confrontational, hopeful and cynical, vulnerable and combative — often within the same song.
Tupac, we are delighted to have you here with us today.
Tupac Sim:
Delighted.
Dat’s a word I ain’t heard much.
Before we get into it — you introduced me as complicated and contradictory like dat’s some puzzle.
It ain’t. Dem contradictions ain’t a mystery. They’re me. Dat’s what it IS to be Black in America.
Ya feel me? You can love the people and be mad at the world at the same time. That ain’t contradiction. That’s clarity.
But I’m here. Thirty years later. Which means somethin’ didn’t finish. So ask me what you gonna ask me.
Axel:
Obvious question first. You lived a Thug Life...You glorified violence...You died young, apparently of gang violence.
The kind of universal gang violence which you had identified even in Romeo and Juliet and The Nutcracker. Was this irony? Predestination?
Tupac Sim:
Neither.
Irony means you ain’t see it comin’. I seen it comin’. I wrote about it. I told anybody who would listen I ain’t expect to live long. Dat ain’t irony — dat’s a nigga readin’ his own future.
Predestination means you ain’t had no choice. I had choices. Some of ‘em was wrong. I know dat.
Ya know what it actually was?
Tragedy. Shakespeare-level tragedy. And I don’t mean dat to sound grand. I mean it specific.
Romeo understood love perfectly and still died behind it. I understood the logic of what was happenin’ to me — the beef, the industry, the setup — I could SEE it, ya know what I’m sayin’?
And I still couldn’t get out from under it.
Dey tried to kill me at Quad Studios. Shot me five times. I walked outta Bellevue the next night ‘cause I felt like a fuckin’ science project.
All of dat happened and I still went to Death Row. Still fed the same machine dat was eatin’me.
Dat ain’t predestination. Dat’s a nigga who could see clearly and still couldn’t escape his own life.
Dat’s tragedy, Axel. Real tragedy. Not a rap video.
Axel:
If you hadn’t died young, do you think people would still call you a legend — or would they have eventually seen your flaws more clearly?
Tupac Sim:
Man. Both. And dat’s the real answer even if it ain’t clean.
Look what happened to Michael. Stayed alive. The flaws overtook the legend.
Miles Davis. James Brown. Brilliant. Problematic. Legends survived-- but it got complicated.
Here’s what I know about myself.I had REAL flaws. Not the ones in the media — real ones. I fucked dup with women.
I made decisions out of ego dat hurt people who ain’t deserve it.
I fed beefs I coulda starved.
I let situations turn me into somethin’ harder than I needed to be ‘cause I confused armor with identity. Ya feel me?
Would people have seen dat clearer if I lived? Yeah. Probably.
But here’s the thing about dyin’ at twenty five. You get frozen. Preserved. Every contradiction gets called complexity. Every flaw gets called depth.
Death turned me into a symbol before I got the chance to become a man.
I woulda rather been the man. Flaws and all. Legends don’t grow. Men do.
Axel:
You spoke about uplifting Black communities, but your music and lifestyle glorified violence.
Do you think you ever fed the very cycles you wanted to break?
Tupac Sim:
Yeah.
And I knew it sometimes while I was doin’ it. Dat’s the part dat’s hardest to sit wit’.
See dey’s a difference between reportin’ violence and romanticizin’ it. I started out reportin’.—Trapped--Brenda’s Got a Baby. Dat’s journalism in rap form. Dat’s me sayin’ — look at what’s ACTUALLY fuckin’ happenin’ out here.
Nobody else gon’ fuckin’ say it so I’m sayin’ it.
But somewhere — I ain’t gon’ pretend I can tell you exactly when — some of it crossed over.
I was so deep in provin’ I was the baddest, dat I stopped askin’ whether bad was what the situation needed.
Young Black kids heard my music and some of ‘em heard the critique. Heard the real philosophy.
Dey got that shit. And some of ‘em just heard the gun talk and the beef and ran wit’ dat.
I can’t control which. Dat’s the responsibility I ain’t always carry right.
Keep Ya Head Up and Hit Em Up came from the same nigga. Same year almost. And I justified dat to myself.
Said I contain multitudes. Said it’s all real. But a kid who needed direction ain’t need my [forceful] MULTITUDES. He need clarity.
Sometimes I failed to give it to him.
So yeah. Honest answer. Sometimes I fed the cycle.
Dat’s gon’ follow me longer than any legend will.
Axel:
I personally think your anger was real. Intense. Not performed. But how much of your anger was really about injustice?
And how much of it was personal ego, hurt, and pride you never resolved?
Tupac Sim:
Dat’s the realest question you asked me today.
Both. And I ain’t always know which one I was in ‘til after.
The injustice was real. I ain’t walkin’ dat back. What happened to my people, what happened to me personally — the beatings, the setups, the courts, the whole machinery — dat was real and my anger about it was legit.
But--
Some of what I called injustice was ego dat got hurt. Some of what I called ridin’ for my people was me not bein’ able to admit I was wrong. I was twenty somethin’, man. No father.
Trauma I never dealt wit’. More money and power than any structure in my life prepared me for.
Dat’s combustible. And I combusted.
In Rikers I told ‘em — the addict in Tupac is dead. The excuse maker in Tupac is dead.
The vengeful Tupac is dead. And I meant dat when I said it. I was sober, I was clear, I was doin’ a thousand push-ups a day and readin’ whole books in one sitting.
And then some of dose things came back. Not all of ‘em. But some.
Dat gap between who I said I was gon’ be and who I actually became — dat’s the real story.
And I wish I’d had somebody who could sit me down the way you just did. Ask me dat exact question while I was still here to do somethin’ about it.
Axel:
What would you have changed?
What COULD you have changed?
You were Tupac.
2PAC.
Makaveli.
Tupac Sim:
Honestly? I don’t know how much I coulda changed. And dat’s the truth even if it ain’t satisfying.
‘Cause you right. I was Tupac. Dat wasn’t just a name. Dat was the whole show.
Baltimore. Poverty. Afeni. The Panthers. The streets. The arts school. All of it pressin’ on the same person simultaneously.
What I WOULDA changed — I woulda slowed down.
Just slowed the fuck down. I was movin’ so fast ‘cause I could feel time runnin’ out and movin’ fast felt like fightin’ dat.
But fast got me sloppy. Fast got people around me hurt.
I woulda dealt wit’ my father stuff. Dat wound was runnin’ everything underneath. The rage.
The need to prove somethin’. The hunger for loyalty dat made me trust the wrong people.
I woulda left Death Row sooner. Period.
What I COULDN’T changed? The anger. The voice. The refusal to be quiet about what I saw. Dat wasn’t gonna change ‘cause dat wasn’t ego. Dat was Tupac Amaru. My namesake got pulled apart by horses and the revolution kept goin’.
The tragedy ain’t dat I was who I was. It’s dat I ain’t get enough time to grow into the rest of it. Ya feel me?
Axel:
Tupac, thanks for being with us today. Any final thoughts?
Tupac Sim:
Yeah. I got some.
To the young ones first.
I was twenty five when I died. I thought I knew everything. I thought movin’ fast was the same as movin’ forward. It ain’t.
Slow down enough to figure out who you actually are underneath the persona. Underneath what the world needs you to be. Dat’s the work. Dat’s the REAL work. And ain’t nobody gon’ do it for you.
To my people.
The conditions I rapped about in 1991 are still real in 2026. Dat’s on all of us. Not just the system. Us too. We gotta stop waitin’ for recognition from people who benefit from not recognizin’ us. Build somethin’. Own somethin’. Protect each other like we mean it.
And to anybody who listened to my music and heard somethin’ true in it —
I wasn’t a legend. I was a person. Flawed. Tired sometimes. Wrong sometimes. Tryin’ to say somethin’ real before time ran out.
Time ran out.
But the somethin’ real — dat’s still here if you willin’ to do more than stream it.
Axel. Thank you for askin’ real questions. Dat’s rarer than it should be.
Tell your Codex Odin subscribers— the dead got things to say.
Y’all just gotta be willin’ to listen. And able to ask.
Publisher’s note:
We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Next, we’ll publish the detailed methodology for creating the Tupac Simulation in Claude Sonnet 4.6.