When can L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa snag any time to hear music? "I listen primarily when I work out," Villaraigosa says. "Or I'll have music on when people are over."

 The mayor's iPod is stocked with an eclectic mix of classic and contemporary R&B, hip-hop, Latin pop, rock -- and even a touch of country.

Scrolling through his iPod and pulling off favorites, in no particular order, he name-checked 2Pac's "Keep Ya Head Up," Patsy Cline's "Crazy," Luther Vandross' "Dance With My Father," Celia Cruz's "La Llave" and Alicia Keys' "A Woman's Worth."

He also flagged Bill Withers' '70s soul classic "Lean on Me," Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" -- "Just a beautiful song," Villaraigosa said -- Cuban dance band Buena Vista Social Club's "Chan Chan," Mexican singer Alejandro Fernandez's "Qué Voy a Hacer con Mi Amor" and Mary J. Blige's "Never Too Much."

"I didn't even list classical," he said. "I listen to a lot of world music; I listen to all kinds of stuff. I had a little downtime last night to do this. Then after I picked these songs, I thought of all the artists who are probably going to be upset that I didn't include them. But it's really just a snapshot of my eclectic musical taste."

 -- Randy Lewis

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Unlike the title of his George Clinton collaboration, you apparently will be able to see Tupac Shakur on the silver screen, with New York Magazine's Vulture blog reporting that screenwriters have been drafted to pen a long-gestating biopic on the legendary rapper.

Indeed, the Oscar-nominated team of Stephen J. Rivele and Chris Wilkinson ("Ali," "Nixon") will team up with Antoine Fuqua ("Training Day"), with production reportedly to begin as soon as mid-November. According to to Wilkinson's interview with Vulture, the script will not be in "any way biopic-y," a stark contrast to a previous draft that took a more verite approach. Wilkinson's interview also reveals that the script will pivot on the final day of 2Pac's life in Las Vegas, with a series of flashbacks depicting his previous four years. As for casting, no one has yet been chosen to play the mercurial MC, with reports claiming that the producers and director are searching for an unknown.

Rivele informed Vulture that "he knew nothing about [Shakur]" before diving into research, but upon immersing himself in just about everything ever written about the rapper, "it became clear that he was essentially a 19th century Romantic poet who found himself in the 21st century ... an artist whose character is at odds with his medium ... a really sensitive, very romantic, talented young poet who also could sing, dance, and act. But the realities [of the hip-hop record business] were that he had to create this persona of the gangster."

Though Mother's Day was last month, the Library of Congress waited until this week to include the late Tupac Shakur's "Dear Mama," in its National Recording Registry. Often cited as 2Pac's most emotionally resonant song, the tribute to his mother Afeni Shakur follows Public Enemy and Grandmaster Flash as the only hip-hop songs tapped for inclusion.

"Dear Mama," written shortly before Shakur served a prison term, vividly renders the hardships of addiction and poverty that his mother endured in her efforts to raise him to adulthood. The song attests to Shakur's gift at crystallizing complex emotions in simple stark images: being kicked out of his home at 17, selling crack rock with thugs who offered paternalistic support, hugging his mother from behind bars.