Join an activist with a tattoo-loving gangsta’ rapper, mix it with leadership and a baldhead, you’ve got Tupac Amaru Shakur.
“My mother was pregnant with me while she was in prison {1971} and a month after she got out of prison, she gave birth to me, so I was cultivated in prison, my embryo was in prison,” reflected Tupac Shakur during a 1995 interview.
With his embryo being incarcerated then growing up poor with a mother who abused drugs often, Pac was born and raised around some of the world’s biggest issues: drugs, poverty and crime.
That is what built him to be so intelligent and socially conscious at an early age.
He experienced worldly trauma first hand before he was a teenager. It was inevitable that he would grow up to be a revolutionary leader.
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Starting from his early adult years as a precocious teen, to his mid-20s as a resilient solider, Pac’ has every reason to be labeled as a legend.
During his short time here, he was adamant about dropping nuggets of wisdom on his peers. The wisdom he shared in the mid-90s is still effective today.
“What I would tell anybody who would listen to me is that you got to start peepin’ game…and if you see it, you’ll see that the guns are turning away from Europe and Russia and Iran and Iraq and they’re turning to us,” he sporadically continues, “look how they’re doing our music {rap}, you’ve never seen it no time in history, where they have put so much attention on some music, and they made it like we are the cause of all these problems {drugs, guns, violence, etc}.”
When you’re fueled with so much energy and equipped with incredible knowledge like Pac, the craving to want to notify the community comes naturally. He did it with compassion. “Stop being cowards and let’s start a revolution, if you’re that tough, let’s start our own country,” says Pac. This is what validates his historic legacy.
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In the same 1995 interview conducted while Pac was in prison on sexual assault charges, he still continues to warn whoever will listen to him.
“Jail is a big business,” he gives a grin and sarcastically looks around him, “believe me, I know I’m in jail, I see the big business, they charge you for telephone calls, they charge you for disciplinary problems,” he looks up and around once more “this jail is in the middle of a town that feeds everybody, everybody works here, this is the main income, so if there was no criminals, nobody would work, so if we don’t start peepin’ that, we in trouble.”
His activism aside, after releasing over 13 albums, more than half of them being posthumous releases, some fans deliberated that Pac’ was still alive, somewhere.
Unfortunately, he is not, but there is one thing that is, his music.
We can remember soft records like Brenda’s Got a Baby, it explored the issues of teen pregnancy and the negative effects it had on families and furthermore communities.
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We can even remember the hardcore records like Bury Me A G, and then zigzag right back to the soft encouraging tunes like Keep Your Head Up, which focuses on enlightening young people.
The music video featured Pac’s high school buddy Jada Pinkett Smith. While reminiscing about her friend in later interviews she breaks down in tears. “It was beyond friendship for us…
It’s really difficult to explain because, the type of relationship we had, you only get that once in a lifetime so, he was like a brother, father figure for me, very protective. We gave each other a lot.”
Pac’ will be remembered for his ability to bounce back from being all about “thug life” to wholeheartedly caring about the issues of society. The fact that he was well educated beyond his years will not go unnoticed.
His last album Pac’s Life was released in 2006, no word yet if there will be another Tupac Shakur album.
On the 15th year anniversary of his death, take with you his messages and always remember the sacrifices he made to keep you informed.
“I’m a solider, I’ll always survive, I’ll constantly come back, the only thing that can kill me is death and even then my music will live forever.”
