By Brandon Perkins

Tupac Shakur sits at the edge of the bed and shakes his head at the flicker coming from the boxy, carefully worn television set. He’s watching his former rival Notorious B.I.G. sit next to George Wendt on Saturday Night Live, yukking it up in the infamous “Da Bears” sketch. As Biggie feigns a heart attack in the middle of nominating Mike Ditka for sainthood, Shakur—whose own heart gave out for nearly six minutes a decade ago—smiles at the screen, looks down and chuckles. Seeing B.I.G. matured and vulnerable enough to succeed at comedy is making him feel his age. Fifteen years ago, Shakur met a paranoid Brooklynite fresh off the block and downright petrified of the camera. With a decade and a half drowning out the sound of studio laughter, he shuts the television off.

But it is the …