Join us for an evening with Maurice "Mopreme" Shakur to celebrate the release of his new book, This Thug's Life: An Unapologetically Black Story. He'll be in conversation with Dr. Akinyele Omowale Umoja.

Brave and Kind Books will be the bookseller for this event. You may preorder This Thug's Life or purchase it at the event.

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested. This event is happening at the Decatur Library, in the Ground Floor Auditorium. Due to new security protocols, you'll need to enter through the rear doors from the top level of the parking garage and go through security, and then take the elevators to "G." They will be unlocked at 6:30.

About the Book: 

Maurice. Little Mutulu. Mogie. Mocedes. ’Preme. Wycked. Mopreme Shakur has been known by many names. Fitting for a multi-hyphenate like Mo: hip hop artist and sole surviving member of T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. and Outlaw Immortalz, soldier, writer, husband and father, filmmaker, record producer, and big brother of, and co-collaborator with, the legendary Tupac Shakur, the greatest rapper of all time. The one thing Mo hasn’t done—until now—is to tell his story, one of complex family relationships, fame, tragedy, politics, musical innovation, and brotherly love.

Born in Flushing, New York, in 1967 and raised in South Jamica, Queens, Mo got an early education in what it meant to be a man of righteous New Afrikan values imparted by his activist and healer father, Mutulu. The son of revolutionary, Mo’s childhood was rife with upheaval, inspiration, dramatic highs and lows, and unbreakable bonds of love. None stronger than when he met his new baby brother, Tupac. Mutulu said, “This is your brother. Hold his hand.” Over the more than two decades that followed, Mopreme never let go. As Tupac rose to transcendent heights in the industry, Mo was on Pac’s team as writer and collaborator, producer, stagehand, and sibling confidante. Everything Pac did, Mo was there—right up until the day Pac’s life was cut short in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.

In his memoir, Mo shares not just an intimately personal story of family, but also one of resilience, a quest for racial justice informed by decades of struggle for Black liberation long before the Black Lives Matter movement, and of two brothers who rose from the streets to become icons. It’s insightful, inspirational, powerful, and authentically and unapologetically Black. As Mo himself would say: dig that!

About the Author:

Mopreme Shakur is a solo rapper and member of T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. and Outlaw Immortalz, a writer, producer, and performer who played a crucial role in the production, recording, and release of all of Tupac Shakur's albums, both during his life and posthumously. A crucial keeper of his brother's legacy, he has appeared in and produced/consulted on Tupac Assassination, American Gangster, Who Killed Tupac?, Hip Hop Evolution, Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G., and Dope is Death, which premiered at the prestigious Brooklyn Academy of Music. Mopreme is currently producing a feature documentary about the influence of T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. in music, popular culture, politics, and beyond; as well as developing a video game and producing a scripted series and three feature films.

About the Conversation Partner:

Dr. Akinyele Omowale Umoja is an author, historian, and scholar-activist and Professor of Africana Studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Umoja is the author of the award-winning book, We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance and the Mississippi Freedom Movement (2013). Professor Umoja is co-editor, with renowned scholar-activists Gloria Aneb House and the late John H. Bracey, The Memoirs of Robert and Mabel Williams (UNC, 2025). Umoja also co-edited another prizewinning publication, the two-volume Black Power Encyclopedia (Greenwood Press, 2018). His scholarship is featured in several other journals and anthologies, including editing a special issue of The Black Scholar (2018) on revolutionary activist, attorney, and Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, Chokwe Lumumba and co-editing a special issue of the journal SOULS (2022) on the political legacy of Mopreme Shakur’s father, the activist health worker, freedom fighter, and political prisoner Dr. Mutulu Shakur.