The year 1996 was indeed momentous. For me, it was especially so because it was the year my daughter, Ayaana, was born. It was also the year Tupac Amaru Shakur was killed. The two things were connected, if only fleetingly, and somehow I knew after '96, life would never be the same...
David Corio, Retna
"In Tupac there was beauty and pain, hard and soft, rich and impoverished, ignorant and profound, subtletly and brashness, aggression and vulnerability, everymaness but wholly unique, provocateur and proletariat, rapper and poet, East and West -- his Gemini duality ever clear and present, obviously dangerous. He was all of us."
Remembering Tupac Ten Years Later
The year 1996 was indeed momentous. For me, it was especially so because it was the year my daughter, Ayaana, was born. It was also the year Tupac Amaru Shakur was killed. The two things were connected, if only fleetingly, and somehow I knew after '96, life would never be the same.
The day I found out about Tupac's death, I was going out for the first time since I'd given birth. It was Friday, September 13 and in the middle of my pre-party revelry, while flitting around and applying make-up, Boyz II Men's 'It's So Hard to Say Goodbye To Yesterday' cracked the upbeat occassion.
Huh? Soon after, D.J. Angie Martinez somberly announced that rapper Tupac was dead. To say the very least, it cast a heavy pallor over the night -- I don't even remember where we went, but every where we did go, we asked people if they knew -- and if they did -- our eyes locked in weighty sadness.
Funny, it was Tupac's eyes that were the most memorable thing about him. He had two dreamy, slanted orbs shrouded in a gypsy's veil of lashes; behind its doors, all of our pain and promise. If eyes are the window to the soul, it was through Pac's eyes that we glimpsed true imagination (incidentally, his 'All Eyez on Me,' was the first double hip-hop album ever and went platinum seven times.) Pac was more than just a rapper. He was more than just an actor, an activist, teen idol, misogynist or martyr.
Tupac was and continues to be an icon. There are very few in this "hip-hop" generation. (Biggie, possibly. But from the ranks of the living, none come to mind.) Not only was Tupac otherworldly beautiful, he embodied a mish mash of things that when churned and lived and spit out, begat something so outsized that he continues to be even more of presence dead than alive.
It was evident: In Tupac there was beauty and pain, hard and soft, rich and impoverished, ignorant and profound, subtletly and brashness, aggression and vulnerability, everymaness but wholly unique, provocateur and proletariat, rapper and poet, East and West -- his Gemini duality ever clear and present, obviously dangerous. He was all of us. And like Malcolm X before him, Pac was our shining black prince; he could be many things to many people, a pimp and a preacher who elevates all the while -- in a bizzaro America, many out of one.
It was not so much Tupac's rapping prowess from which he derives his esteem -- everybody knows that contemporary The Notorious B.I.G. was unparalleled and almost perfect in flow and rhyme scheme -- but it was his pure soulforce energy and raw, unbridled passion that transcended the music, a curious mix of pain and pride swirling on wax.
Why Tupac's Memory Didn't Die With Him
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By Angela Bronner, AOL Black Voices
David Corio, Retna
"In Tupac there was beauty and pain, hard and soft, rich and impoverished, ignorant and profound, subtletly and brashness, aggression and vulnerability, everymaness but wholly unique, provocateur and proletariat, rapper and poet, East and West -- his Gemini duality ever clear and present, obviously dangerous. He was all of us."
- The Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation
- Talk About 2Pac
Remembering Tupac Ten Years Later
You could just feel Pac in the lyrics of 'Keep Ya Head Up,' 'Against All Odds' and 'Hail Mary,' echo his playfulness on 'I Get Around' and know he'd go gangsta on joints like '2 of America's Most Wanted' and 'Live Freestyle '95,' sharing the stage with the Notorious B.I.G. and Mister Cee -- an undeniable hip-hop classic.
Warriors grin cuz he shouts out Sekou Odinga and political prisoners Geronimo Pratt and Mutulu Shakur; hustlers lean to "California Love," all of us stand in awe that this man put out there that his mama was on crack, but still remained a queen in his eyes. A child of Panthers and crack. What a dichotomy indeed (or is it?)
For those children of the world, especially in Africa -- where his mother Afeni Shakur will spread his ashes in Soweto on his 36th birthday in June -- where children are too young to have heard his music when he was making it, those who believe that he is still alive and kicking, well, that just continues to add to his larger-than-lifeness. Autopsy photos on the net be damned.
In addition to the mildly intriguing conspiracy theories -- the fact that his posthumous pseudonymn, Makaveli (author of 'The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory,') was named for a 16th century prince who fakes his own death; that he died on Friday the 13th, that he was cremated; that he spoke about dying on more than one occasion ('cuz Mama I ain't happy here), playing out his own death on video ('I Ain't Mad At Cha') -- add to this his real conflicts with police, being shot five times and living to tell of it -- who else but Tupac could defy death?
"He had two dreamy, slanted orbs shrouded in a gypsy's veil of lashes; behind its doors, all of our pain and promise."
Who else could shoot two cops on Halloween, 1993? Who but Pac could be listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the best-selling rap/hip-hop artist ever, having sold over 73 million albums worldwide? Who but Pac influenced so many rappers, that we now take it for granted that even if he was not the first to jump out there with sing-songy lyrics and bare chested conviction, he was the first to truly matter? Who rocked with Janet Jackson before she was touchable? Who named names when he got into beef? Who was the only artist ever to have an album at number one on the charts ('Me Against the World') while in prison?
No matter if his death was far more sinister (or simple). He lives because his spirit was STRONG; so strong that it continues to walk the world with heavy feet, a ghost tethered to a generation devoid of political conviction and any real heros to speak of.
This thoughtful thug's passion was indescribable, rare and magical, like a shooting star, coming once in a lifetime, living long after it traverses the sky.
All Eyez On Him (Still)
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