For me he was more than just a rap musician, he was a Legend, an anti-racism crusader human rights activist, a black liberationist,a thug, a Nigga, a bold figure, an inspiration to many, a feminist who spokee against rape and violence against women in his hit song 'Keep Ya Head Up' and above all a man who appreciated his mother's struggles to get him to where he got to in his Grammy-nominated song 'Dear Mama'.. He was a rare gem because I still struggle to imagine how he achieved all these beforeha he died at 26 years... I love you PAC and thanks for everything...
Tupac Shakur died 20 years ago this week. Two decades after his death on
September 13, 1996, Tupac Shakur endures as one of hip-hop's most iconic figures and its most powerful enigma. His life was a tapestry of often contradictory images: the concerned young father cradling his son in the video for "Keep Ya Head Up"; the angry rapper spitting at cameras as they swirled around his 1994 trial for sexual assault; the artist who animatedly, yet eloquently, pushed back at Ed Gordon's questions during a memorable Bet interview; and the man who seemed to predict his own demise when the "I Ain't Mad at Cha" video, released weeks after his death, depicted him as an angel in heaven. Although he is no longer with us, the myth of 2Pac the thug angel remains.
No other artist better illuminates hip-hop's fault lines between regional pride and mainstream success, and the struggle to transcend and elevate beyond humble origins while honoring the streets that raised you.His wayward, conflicting expressions of pride, militancy and gangster-ism resonates in a world when black men and women celebrate their heritage and collectively organize against a racist America, yet are also cautious to protect themselves from each other.
Fans - Particularly East Coast rap listeners who, after all these years, still harbor a grudge against him – will continue to debate whether 2Pac's albums can measure up to Nas' Illmatic, the Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die , or Jay Z's Reasonable Doubt. But no one can deny the way he transformed hip-hop into his singularly muscular, tattooed, bald-headed, bandana-clad image. Here are some of the ways 2Pac changed hip-hop – and, by extension, pop culture - forever:
1. Shakur's appearance in Juice as Bishop, the troubled high school teen who fashions himself into a cold-hearted killer, is the first great dramatic performance by a rapper in a movie. Yes, Ice Cube launched his acting career with his understated depiction of the Compton crank dealer Doughboy in Boyz N Tha Hood, which preceded Pac by a year. Months after Juice debuted in theaters in January of 1992, Ice Cube would become a movie star in New Jack City . But Shakur, who studied acting while attending high school in Atlanta,commanded the screen with an effectiveness that no rapper-turned-moonlighting-actor had managed before, and few have done since. While he didn't realize the promise of that early breakout role, he managed a few more solid acting performances before his death, including an overheated reprisal of his Bishop template in the basketball drama Above the Rim ,and a nice turn as a heroin-addicted jazz musician in the underrated indie flick Gridlock'd .
2. He's the man who single-handedly transformed a common epithet for a criminal into a source of masculine strength. After recording two albums – the muddled 2Pacalypse Now and the slightly improved Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. – Shakur unveiled his crew T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E., an acronym for The Hate U Gave Little Infants Fucks Everybody. At the time, it seemed like an unnecessary variation on the "gangster" trope that dominated West Coast rap at the time. However, his reimagining of a word that the Oxford Dictionary defines as "a violent person, especially a criminal" into an positive attribute resonated. 2Pac's vision redefined the word "thug" into a man who triumphs over systemic and societal obstacles. By the end of 1994, Cleveland quintet B.O.N.E. Enterprises had renamed themselves Bone Thugs-N- Harmony; the word has been since been adopted by Young Thug, Slim Thug and too many others to mention.
To Be Continued!!!
Very inspiring
ReplyDeleteVery true... Thanks for the comment..
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