top of page

Untold Kobe Bryant, Tupac Shakur First And Only Encounter

Updated: Aug 3, 2020

Late hip-hop icon Tupac Amaru Shakur and late NBA legend Kobe Bryant actually met each other once. Delray Richardson, a platinum songwriter and Tupac’s friend, recently shared a story about how Bryant and “2pac” met for the first time. The said meeting also was the first and only personal encounter of the two late icons.

Delray Richardson

Speaking to “Straight Game T.V.,” Richardson revealed that it was on August 11th back in 1996 at the House of Blues when the young Bryant introduced himself to the rap star. At the time, Richardson was sure the two have never met each other because Kobe just got to LA, and he was still a 17-year-old kid.

On the said year, Bryant was still an NBA rookie while Tupac had already established his name as one of the most celebrated and most influential artists of his generation. Richardson didn’t even think that the encounter would be an epic event in the future. He even noted that “it wasn’t something deep” but looking back, the songwriter was grateful to witness a future legend introduce himself to another master in his own craft.

Kobe Bryant was with his good friend Dougie Dee Gipson that night.

“They met. It wasn’t something deep or anything like that. More so, Kobe went to 2Pac because he probably didn’t know who Kobe was at the time. I remember he introduced himself and said, what’s up,” Richardson said about Tupac and Bryant.

On this very night Kobe was also witness to a meeting between Tupac Shakur and Nas. The beef between the two Hip Hop icons is well documented. A beef that was squashed 3 days before Tupac’s passing at the MTV Music Awards after party in New York.

Check out the whole interview here:



1,975 views0 comments
bottom of page