2Pac, 1991

Tupac had a rather meteoric rise to superstardom before his untimely murder, but in 1991 when ProSet released their Yo! MTV Raps rapper trading card set, Tupac was still a relative new-comer to most of the established artists in the set.  This card has a little fun imagining "what if" Tupac had made it into that card set.

In 1991 Tupac --then going by the stage name 2Pac-- was a roadie/back-up dancer in the rap group Digital Underground.  He had a cameo with the group in the movie Nothing But Trouble performing the song "Same Song", which also was featured on the film's soundtrack.  Later that year Tupac released his debut album 2Pacalypse Now.

Above The Rim

1993-94 Upper Deck

Back in middle school I still had high hopes of being a professional basketball player. I’m of average height with the skill set to match, but I held out hope for an eight inch growth spurt that simply never came. Basketball was my passion. I wore the And1 gear and studied SLAM Magazine like it was religious text. After school I always had a few hours to myself before anyone else got home and nearly every day I would watch my copy of Above The Rim that I dubbed off of cable. For this period of time it supplanted The Karate Kid as my favorite and to this day remains among my top favorites.

There’s a lot of great basketball movies that have been made, but for me Above The Rim is number one. It’s urban and from living in and around Detroit that made it more relatable to me, the streetball element. It told a great story. Tupac and Leon were cool as hell. Duane Martin was brash reminding me of a young Allen Iverson and Marlon Wayans was really funny. Plus the soundtrack was super hot. You probably can’t find too many people between the ages of 30 and 40 that don’t know “Regulators” by Nate Dogg and Warren G word-for-word.

Above The Rim was released in 1994 so I chose to go with a 1993-94 Upper Deck basketball inspired design. Around this time, the mid-’90s, I was exclusively collecting basketball cards so these were real fun for me to recreate especially for this particular movie. Unless I’m forgetting one these are the first Upper Deck inspired design I’ve done.

I went with the blue-to-black gradient based on Kyle Watson’s Shout Out Tournament team wearing blue, and I also thought it looked got with Birdie’s team’s black unis.

Jeff Capel x Tupac

When you think of Duke basketball you probably don't also think of hip hop culture, except for that iconic photo of Tupac rocking former Dukie guard Jeff Capel's #5 jersey back in the mid '90s (1996, I believe). I was thumbing through for images on Instagram and was reminded of the picture and knew it would make for a really dope custom basketball card.

1993-94 Skybox

I chose the 1993-94 Skybox basketball design for this card. The template is a bit of the departure from the '80s era framed-in Topps designs I enjoy recreating, but I think it works perfectly. I was collecting a lot of basketball cards this season due to it being Chris Webber's rookie season. I've always thought, even more so in later years that this is one of the classiest looking card sets ever.

As a sidebar, the vertical white banner makes for a beuatiful spot for an autograph which is exactly where I hope do get Jeff Capel to sign this, Tupac too if it's ever revealed where he's been hiding.

Fun fact: Jeff Capel, now a college basketball head coach, has said that he once used the photo in a recruiting effort for a player who is friends with a popular rapper.

Hockey Pac

Well, you can file this one under cards that I probably won't be able to get autographed.  But, in case Pac is alive and planning the greatest comeback ever I've got a card for custom card for him to sign. This is one of the more famous images on Tupac and practically begging to be a card.

This one is inspired by the 1986 Topps hockey set.  This is the second time (Cameron Frye) I've used this design, and also the second Red Wing.