Tupac A. Shakur: Diamond in the Rough

Amongst many of my favourite, enduring music artists is Tupac Amaru Shakur (real name: Lesane Crooks). Amongst Bob Marley and Elvis Presley this may seem unusual and not mainstream enough, yet I have never willfully 'followed the crowd' as 'twere. Whilst it is irrelevant that I think a triumvirate of these three incredible artists would be great, there is no coincedence that these three artists are the ones that I respect the most both as individuals and talented artists. Artist in the most literal sense.

This is because Elvis was renowned for being righteous. This is most evident via his philanthropy, which did not occur due to publicity-greed but for the purity of his Christian heart and a burning desire to help heal the world. Furthermore, having grown up in poverty, he respected and understood others who were still living in impoverished circumstances and thus sought to help them. Due to neighbours helping his family during his childhood, he saw being aided and giving aid as no embarrassing occurrence; but rather one of human strength and kindness. Similarly, Bob Marley, when asked by George Negus about his fame and whether he had 'lots of possessions? Money in the bank?' in 1979 replied: 'Possessions make you rich? I don't have that kind of richness. My richness is life, forever'. (Plus I love his music as I'm partly a fellow Carib from Trinidad & Tobago, and his music is healing, powerful and righteous.)

Just like these two aforementioned musical pioneers, 2Pac's outlook on life was an enlightening one. This is evident through his songs such as 'I Ain't Mad At Cha', 'Changes', 'Unconditional Love', 'Dear Mama [Remix]', 'Keep Ya Head Up, 'Ghetto Gospel' and 'Thugz Mansion' (but to name a few). Many tackle unspoken issues such as sexism, female degradation, income inequality, gender inequality, social hardships and inequalities, war, class struggle and violence, and are all well worth a listen; for after Elvis Presley he is my favourite artist and is definitely my favourite artist in terms of lyrics.

This is Tupac's ideologies at SEVENTEEN YEARS OF AGE. I am older than that now...

To conclude, I am going to leave you with a few quotations from Tupac:

"I give a holler to my sisters on welfare Tupac cares, if don't nobody else care... ...And when he tells you you ain't nothin' don't believe him And if he can't learn to love you you should leave him Cause sista you don't need him... ...When brothas make babies, and leave a young mother to be a pappy And since we all came from a woman Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman I wonder why we take from our women Why we rape our women, do we hate our women? I think it's time to kill for our women Time to heal our women, be real to our women And if we don't we'll have a race of babies That will hate the ladies, that make the babies And since a man can't make one He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one So will the real men get up I know you're fed up ladies, but you gotta keep your head up."

"I see no changes. All I see is racist faces. Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races we under. I wonder what it takes to make this one better place... let's erase the wasted. Take the evil out the people, they'll be acting right. 'Cause both black and white are smokin' crack tonight. And only time we chill is when we kill each other. It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other. And although it seems heaven sent, we ain't ready to see a black President, uhh. It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact... the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks... ..."I made a G today" But you made it in a sleazy way. Sellin' crack to the kids. "I gotta get paid," Well hey, well that's the way it is...

...And still I see no changes. Can't a brother get a little peace? There's war on the streets and the war in the Middle East. Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me. And I ain't never did a crime I ain't have to do. But now I'm back with the facts givin' 'em back to you.

#2pac #appreciation #society #ideals #artist