Tupac: Life and Death

Tupac: Life and "Death"

Ignorance: The condition of being uneducated, unaware or uninformed. Tupac Shakur is arguably the most recognizable name in hip hop. You think with being so well known by such a huge number of people, that Tupac would be better understood. But for some reason, ignorance is a central theme that surrounds this man's life. In my opinion he was the most misunderstood and misinterpreted celebrity of all time. His messages were dismissed because of his profession and his race. He wanted to change the world for good, he wanted to get kids out of trouble and help families in the struggle. He could have been a global voice for good, but he left us too early.

I say "left" us too early instead of died too early because of the second part of societies misunderstanding of Tupac. By this time a majority of people know about the Tupac death conspiracy, or at least know that there is one. This conspiracy, in my opinion, gets dismissed and brushed under the rug more than any other conspiracy that society has. I feel that it is dismissed for the same reason that Tupac was so misunderstood. I had already done some research on his death just out of pure curiosity, and I found that this conspiracy is one that is very legitimate, not only because of the weird incidences on the night of his death but because of the man that Tupac was. I wanted to explore more about who he was and where he came from, and maybe sway some peoples view about him.

To understand why Tupac Shakur was so controversial in the first place, people have to understand that there are two sides to every story. There are reasons why Tupac wasn't liked in some circles. He was born on June 16th 1971 in Brooklyn New York, which at the time was still as rough as a place as it has ever been. To shed light on his violent music and sometimes behavior it should be explained that he was brought up in a violent atmosphere. He was born the son of a Black Panthers Activist, who was never around and addicted to crack, whose whole mantra was violent protest. With all these setbacks just at the very beginning of his life, Tupac could have easily gotten involved with the wrong crowd. But that didn't interest him the most. He was more interested in writing poetry and acting. In his early teens he explored acting as an outlet and he decided to join the 127th Street Ensemble. This was a Harlem based theater company. He enjoyed acting and writing with great passion and eventually joined the Baltimore School for the Arts. There he took more extensive dancing, writing and acting classes.(Glickman, Simon)

Although Tupac was in school and was for the most part staying away from as many bad influences as he could, given the situation that he was brought up in, things kind of changed when him and his mother moved to California. This is where the young talents career would quickly explode. Shortly after moving to the Bay area of California, Tupac joined and Oakland based group called Digital Underground. This is where Tupac really got his rap style and began to get some attention. At the age of twenty Tupac debut as a solo artist for the first time in his life under the name 2pac. His first solo album was called "2pacalypse Now." That album was a great success for a debut album, especially for the music genre that it was in, that was up and coming and was dominated by big name rappers at the time like Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. In 1993, Tupac got his big break that would propel his career and his name into the elite class of hip hop. His second album came out," Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z." This was his first platinum album of his career and he became a household name.(Glickman, Simon)

But this was where Tupac was different from any rapper now and from any rapper then. He knew what was genuinely wrong with the world and actually wanted to help. Yes a lot of his songs, especially in the earlier parts of his career talked about sex, fighting, gangs, and violence, just like any other rapper at that time but it was songs like "Keep Your Head Up" from his platinum album "Strictly 4 my N.I.G.G.A.Z." that really turned heads. This song was dedicated to women all across the United States that weren't getting treated the right way. He praised women for giving all of us men our, "name" and our "game." And didn't understand in turn why men had to take from women and rape women. He said it's time to "heal our women" and "be real to our women." He said this because he believed that in turn that we would have generations of babies that would hate women.("Keep Ya Head Up lyrics-2pac")

This really is where the misunderstanding of Tupac started to begin. For all the big breaks that Tupac made that year, it was also probably the hardest year of his life. That same year Tupac Shakur was convicted of a felony sexual abuse charges for groping a fan that went back to his hotel room with him. He was acquitted of more serious charges of forcing the women to have oral sex with him and a weapons charge. (Richard Perez-Pena) Through it all, Tupac maintained his innocence and claimed that not only was it completely consensual, but also he wasn't exactly getting a fair trial. After one of the court proceedings, Tupac gave an interview outside of the court and said, "It's not even about my trial anymore, it's about some loud, rap music, tattoo having thug." He continued to say. "I'm already convicted," "Just because I look different than her doesn't mean that I am sodomizer or a rapist."("Tupac outside Court Interview"). This is where I agree with what Tupac was saying. He was a young black male who was in a profession that for the most part was looked down upon at the time. It was a music genre that was up and coming and was different from a lot of other music, in the fact and that it was loud, radical and colorful in its language. And in Tupac's case it was being produced by a young black male who wore a bandana on his head and had "thug life" tattooed across his stomach. But Tupac's definition of "thug" was very much different from the common perception of it. He related this word with how you came up in the world and how you respond from adversity rather than the illegal things you do and how many people you can hurt. Now I am not going to say that Tupac isn't at complete innocence for what happened that night, and only he and that young women know what actually happened but being such an advocate for women, nobody can deny that those actions are very surprising and this really hurt the young rapper.

This is what I wanted to explore in regards to the life of Tupac. I feel like a lot of people just dismiss him as another no good rapping