What the world needs now is another Tupac book?

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It was an odd pitch.For nearly 30 years, veteran journalist and author Jeff Pearlman had made his bones as a respected sportswriter with a stacked resume that included seven New York Times bestsellers.

His acclaimed 2014 read “Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s” was even adapted into an Emmy-nominated HBO series, “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.”Yet when Pearlman told his agent in the summer of 2022 about an idea he had for a book chronicling the turbulent life, euphoric rise, and tragic death of hip-hop deity Tupac Shakur, he was met with bewilderment.“He said, ‘But you are a white guy who writes about sports,’” Pearlman said of the initial discussion.“Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur” (Mariner Books/HarperCollins Publishers), which hit bookshelves Wednesday, sticks out of Pearlman’s literary portfolio like Kendrick Lamar at a Drake fan meet-and-greet.

His previous work detailed the highs, lows and triumphs of such sporting icons as the 1986 World Series-winning, wild bunch New York Mets; disgraced MLB pitcher Roger Clemons; dynastic ’90s Super Bowl champs the Dallas Cowboys; Chicago Bears running back great Walter Payton; NFL gunslinger Brett Favre; and two-sport phenom Bo Jackson.Yet the charismatic Tupac Amaru Shakur, a gifted emcee, actor and social activist — who was killed at the too-soon age of 25 in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting on Sept.7, 1996 — was as much an eloquent voice of a generation as he was the self-destructive face of gangster rap.

The same celebrated Shakur who rapped about women’s empowerment on his hopeful song “Keep Ya Head Up,” also did a seven-month stint at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York in 1995, after being charged and convicted of sexual abuse, stemming from a 1993 incident.Shakur’s turbulent yet impactful short li...