tupac was bigger before the east coast west coast. Pac had been in movies. On tv. His career is almost double the time of biggie. His fame wasn't manufactured. He is a pilar of hip hop. Another font spelled it out. He was on his way to new heights when he died. ESP after those movies he completed at that time.
Changes was actually recycle verses from older songs. I wonder if heaven got a ghetto.
Pac was woke a long time ago. He has various interviews that could still hold up today 20 plus yrs later.
Tupac was convicted but to be honest I don't think he raped her. They had it out for him because he was a baby of the panther and expressed black empowerment in his songs. Tupac didn't have to rape anybody. They had been fuckin with him for years. So they were chomping at the bit for this. I feel like he was set up. I never believe that conviction. A conviction doesn't always mean guilt ESP for many black men in America.
This idea that the police wanted to convict Tupac of gang rape as a conspiracy doesn't make sense to me, and I'm a conspiracy theorist. Why not murder? Something that requires more prison time?
But let's just say you're right. That there was a conspiracy to put Tupac in jail by the big bad police to silence him. From the year of his charge in 93 until 96, his death, what did he say or do that made him a threat?!? How was he so dangerous? How was he empowering? Empowering Black people to do what?
Jail is still the easiest place to organize Black men in the United States. He spent 9 months in jail, came out, made a few films, and recorded more music.
People want to create Tupac as a folkhero because it makes a great narrative, son of Black Panther turned crack addict, stepson of prisoner who robbed a Brinks truck & killed police officer, nephew of a liberated Black prisoner who's still free, come to lead poor under educated Black people to freedom.
But it didn't happen.
His words were only profound to those with little knowledge of history, self and human nature -- young people and people with little education or perspective ... and that was his target audience and thats ok ----- but to continually set either of those men as leaders of black culture and groundbreaking in their impact on critical black thinking does us all a disservice.
Did they resonate with people -- yes.
Are the songs classic and widely known --yes
Were they eye openers to people who didn't use other methods to understand the world -- perhaps.
But important and valid -- no.
Tired, trite and an albatross upon the neck of our people - yes.
I believe the reason African Americans look to musicians as leaders is rooted in our perpetual landlessness.
Musicians are mobile figures who share culture and history in each performance.
But I do think Tupac and Biggie were groundbreaking. More Black youth in 2016 know the lyrics of Tupac or Biggie's catalog than even one speech (or book) by Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Walter Rodney, Huey Newton, and Stokely Carmichael, etc. (Keeping it male here on purpose)
These Black men ARE their leaders. That's dangerous because they moved us back into oral culture as history which is sobering in a world full of well-read people.
That's why I really believe more Black people, older Black people should make hip hop. Cut some speeches into songs. Put some messages into lyrics.
Make a trap beat with a Malcolm X sample. Give them something to bop to with a potent message.