SameOldShawn: What relationship do you see if any between his work and 2Pac's?

Todd Kriedler: Oh, oh, oh my god. I see a lot. I see a lyrical love of community and a lyrical love of people and this willingness to expose humanity in all of its ugly and beautiful ways, you know what I mean. Both of them are like -- I mean obviously I am very biased -- but I do compare it to Shakespeare in terms of the richness and complexity of the characters he's written. And I think 2Pac, even though he wasn't writing characters, lyrically he was in that same kind of role. So I feel very much tied to one another, and of course in my life, it's not a universe in which, you know, I write 'Holler If You Hear Me' without my relationship with August and then my relationship with Kenny... There's sort of like a road that's full with all sorts of unlikely twists and turns, but somehow we came to say "This kind of makes sense!" Even though, frankly, I was resistant to this at first. But Kenny called me and said, "Man, you know, I'm trying to do this 2Pac musical and I think you should write it." And I said, "Really, me? I'm the first guy that pops to mind?" And he was like, "No, no, man, I think you can come at it full of these lyrics and fuck with people's ideas of what they think 2Pac is, and stuff." Kenny had a big head and was coaching me and encouraging me to do something -- which you can imagine, is fucking terrifying!