Tupac Amaru Shakur is a hip-hop legend whose name is instantly recognizable. He spoke his own truths and told a story that a lot of people were not willing to hear: the story of the streets — the day to day struggles of the average African American in underdeveloped neighborhoods. The story was vulgar and profane, but it needed to be told — and he told it beautifully.
Tupac is an unforgettable, revolutionary figure and one of the most popular faces that left an evident mark in the history of hip-hop. It has been more than two decades since the fatal shooting that took his life and yet, even to this day, when you think of hip-hop one of the first names that come to mind is Tupac.
In 1969, Afeni Shakur, known to many as Tupac Shakur’s mother, was sitting in a cold, grimy jail cell; a place where she would spend the next two years of her life in. She was sick and receiving no treatment — and for a part of her jail time, she was pregnant with Tupac. A little more than a month after her release, her son came into the world.
Tupac’s upbringings: Tupac against the world
After leaving jail, life did not get any easier for Shakur. It was hard to get a job that would accept a former Black Panther and would look past affiliation with many criminal charges—and it bled into her family’s life. She was a single mother who had to work; leaving her two kids alone at home was not an option. They didn’t have the luxury of having food on the table every day or having new clothes to go to school with. Matters only got worse as the crack epidemic completely terrorized the black community, Afeni Shakur being no exception. It was like she left anyway.
After being in jail, Afeni was gone and replaced by someone different, she wasn’t the lively person she once was. Being young with no father figure and a mother who was struggling against herself, Tupac had to fend for his life and help himself. Tupac got to see the world for what it really was — hard and unforgiving.
Before Tupac created a strong impact on the world and established himself as a major rap artist, talented actor and political poet, he was a young boy living on the East Coast who had a passionate love for the arts.
In his sophomore year of high school, Tupac was accepted to the prestigious Baltimore School for the Arts. There, he let his creative freedom run wild in the form of poetry, ballet and theatre; this was his way of keeping himself out of trouble, while doing something he liked in order to avoid the temptations of the streets.
Through his art, Shakur spoke about the topics that he strongly believed in. He was very outspoken about racial equality and the right to express oneself. He was an accelerated reader, who read on topics concerning eastern religions and black history. Occasionally, he even read entire encyclopedias. But these were the brighter moments in Tupac’s life. Eventually, the gang life, wealth, and affiliation with the hottest and most dangerous record label in America, Death Row, would catch up to him.
2Pac
“Tupac was a revolutionary, he did a great job with [combining] intellectual thoughts and ideas and bringing them into Hip Hop and making it mainstream,” said Ms. Erica Evans-DeSimone, the Cambridge Academy leader at MLEC and an avid Tupac enthusiast. “He was a great lyricist; every time you have a new artist coming onto the scene and they would add their [own] little flavor, that means everyone else has to step up their game”.
“[Tupac] got people thinking, he doesn’t necessarily have to be the one to [change the world], everyone can play a role in instituting change, so what are you doing about it? He was smart, he was using his status and his voice to impact thousands,” she continued.
It’s been over 30 years since Tupac first started recording music. Today, his thought-evoking songs are still widely recognizable, played every day across the world as they continue lyrically impacting lives. Shakur simply remains as one of hip-hop’s most iconic figures and is arguably one of the most widely influential persons. He was constantly changing the game. He spoke his truths through his music. His flow and great lyricism allowed him to easily paint the picture of what was wrong in society, which resonated with the many who were listening to his music at the time.
“He talked a lot about [the] things [that were] going on in the black community; he was saying the “quiet” stuff out loud” said Ms. Evans “He came during the Golden Age of hip-hop in the 1990s and before, it was all about dancing and parties, but he still had the beats, so if you listen to his lyrics, he was saying some really important stuff.”
Hearing this music and identifying with it helped many people to look at the world and acknowledge that there was a problem, and it needed to be fixed. This is why many people who weren’t alive during Tupac’s prime era still appreciate what his music had to offer.
“Things are still the same for blacks and hispanics and we are never truly able to separate how unfairly we’ve been treated and that hasn’t changed, it still happens, so it’s still relevant today,” said Ms. Dionne Whitby, a global perspectives teacher at Miami Lakes Educational Center. “So when they see that authenticity of it, it resonates with them,” she explained.
Tupac also managed to gain some bad reputation for his violent lifestyle and constant conflicts with the law and law enforcers. He had been caught up with the legal system many times before and had been in a lawsuit where he claimed to have been beaten by two off-duty police officers in 1993. The following year he was convicted of assaulting a woman while on a music video set and denied profusely to the charges against him.
He was constantly in the public eye and the world watched his every move. All “eyez” were on Tupac since the beginning and this began to go to his head. He got mixed into the wrong group of people after making a deal, and his affiliation with Death Row Records didn’t help his case.
“I love Tupac, but I can acknowledge that many of the things he did were wrong.” Ms. Whitby stated. “The people and things he surrounded himself with were his downfall. I really believe that he had the potential to continue to change the lives of people; he was almost too smart for his own good, he let his environment take him in the wrong direction and that had eventually cost him his life.”
Eventually, his paranoia would reach its peak after what occurred on December 1, 1994. That day, Shakur was shot five times and he sustained fatal injuries from unknown assailants at Quad Studios in Manhattan.
Many didn’t take a liking to Tupac’s image and what he represented; many would say Tupac’s music was vulgar and would destroy the minds of their children. He single-handedly transformed the world and their view on black people. Often, black men and women are portrayed as aggressive and violent. When black people try to express their hardships, people become scared. People aren’t willing to hear about what they’ve done wrong, or where they messed up.
“It was raw, it was gritty, it was real, and people want everything to be sugar coated…he made you think about things and he wasn’t always nice about it,” Ms. Evans stated.
Although he is no longer with us, no other artist can do what Tupac did. He brought together the flow of hip-hop and merged it with important political issues and the struggles of a black man, or woman, in America. His words were powerful and meant what they appeared to be: a couple rhymes and a beat. He included topics on pride, and included real world “thug” problems that are included in the lives of black men and women and made it mainstream.
“People often feel like I am a threat as a strong, intelligent, black woman…when I’m dealing with people of other races, they feel a certain way because of how I look,” Ms. Whitby continued. “I’m not asking anyone else to change but why does that obligation exist for black people?”
Many may not agree that Tupac is “the best” rapper to ever change the “game,” but no one can deny the way he molded hip-hop with his vision and by extension, society and racial relations in the real world. Shakur was a rapper, remodel and an amazing actor. He commanded the screen whenever he was on and outshone those who co-starred alongside him. Tupac was a star since the beginning who was born to shine.
“When I think of him, I feel that we lost a hero, a voice that spoke from a true place; He was a genuine soul who was really intelligent, strong, compassionate,” Ms. Whitby explained.
“There was no other person like him. He was, Tupac Amaru Shakur.”
