With a first name that means "shining serpent" and a last name which means "Thankful to God", Tupac Shakur was born with a mystifying contradiction which he embodied most of his life. Some of us who knew about Pac and listened to his music, can actually recall where we were the night he was killed on September 7, 1996. What led to this very unfortunate event involves a variety of experiences and influences and then his death as the career move which changed people's perceptions of him like a pebble hitting the waters and causing ripples to spread out.
The night was crisp and unusually dark, and I just came back from cheerleading practice with my friends and I got into my aunt's car. When the radio popped on I heard some static, but the verdict was clear: "Tupac, dead after four gunshot wounds" Truthfully as one who listened to R&B and Gospel mostly, I still knew who he was and knew the hooks to most of his songs and seen him in a few movies. I felt myself slump in the car and then I dared to reflect back on his career and his life and what led to this.
Tupac was born to Black Panther Party members Afeni Shakur, and Billy Garland. His mother, who was jailed on bombing charges while pregnant, decided to name him Tupac Shakur, his father at this time was not present. (www.rollingstone.com/artists/tupacshakur). Even though born in the midst of this negativity and violence, something promising was happening with Tupac. He attended the Baltimore School of the Arts for a short while then dropped out, and became a dancer and "roadie" for Digital Underground before releasing his own album, 2Pacalypse Now in 1992, which was #13 on R&B charts.
To add to his burgeoning successes, he appeared in Juice in 1992 and opposite Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice in 1993. I've watched these movies and watched his contradictions then: he was hard and unapproachable in Juice, while a warm person full of love and sadness in Poetic Justice. This is the side I believe many people have seen of Pac. In poetic Justice he completely shed his armor and let down his guard as a boyfriend for Janet Jackson. The two lit up the screen, and I and many of my friends saw him as cute.
What happened next was Tupac's rising success off of "gansta rap", here, the myriad of personalities were very evident. While younger, I hadn't realized the misogynistic messages rappers were promoting then and now, yet Tupac did this and more. He did songs like "Hit Em Up" to encouraging songs about life like "Brenda's Got a Baby."
Back and forth to jail he went on numerous charges from assault to police wounding. While locked up he continued to have selling success with an album reaching #1. He is the first artist to achieve this status while in prison. Even after this stint, he opened a new door to his persona again with the hit song "Dear Mama", showing he could be a gangsta rapper and a nice mama's boy that any girl could take home. Yes, Tupac had many sides.
The unfortunate business continues when he was let out of jail and signed with Death Row. It's not only ironic but serious when I think back on what Death Row represented, even then. As a young lady about to enter high school, many young boys were talking about "Death Row" and Tupac coming back hard. I can't say I was thrilled, yet I listened to some songs like "California Love" with hard hitting lyrics by Pac and Dr. Dre and the robotic voice made by the late Roger Troutman. There were other songs too that he made that I felt were ghostly messages. "I Ain't Mad At You" had a video of Tupac in heaven surrounded by all the great musicians and the video even detailed how he was going to be gunned down and killed. It was a message indeed, for on September 7, 1996 he was shot down on a Las Vegas strip amid crowds of people and no one saw anything. He died 6 days later reports say.
After his death, he posthumously had several albums appear, making me and everyone else think he faked his death and was living lovely on an island somewhere. I remember thinking: "His albums are doing well even while he's gone. He can't be dead." Yet his mother, I'm sure, really feels the loss more than we. We knew him as a rapper/actor, she knew him as Pac, her son, her love, her life.
The ripple affect soon occurred after his death. I didn't know him personally but I heard he was a "Grease" movie fan, after his death did I look at more of his videos and movies, after his death I browsed music store catalogs to see his previous album covers and read his many "thank you's", only after his death did my older aunts and relatives began to ask the question: "Who is he, who was this man who has a huge cross tattooed on his back and Thug Life across the front?" Only after his death did I realize he was fatherless, confused, happy, mad, sad and normal.
In 1999, Pac released an album entitled "Still I Rise"
How true.