Tupac Shakur, both a rising African American hip-hop rapper and an actor, has become the new face for the 1990’s rap movement of ‘gangsta-rap’. He shares the stage with other gangsta-rap artists like Dr. Dre, N.W.A. and Junior Mafia who each oppose him in the ring. Shakur, better known as ‘2Pac’, started off his career to fight against the injustice and hate that multiple African Americans across the U.S. have been subject to. In 2Pac’s every album, each of his songs are about his urban life and experiences with discrimination or with his and his parents’ involvement with the Black Panther gang. With the strong emotions of despair, fear, anger and justice that he packs into his music, his career and mark on the African American community remains unmatched with his rivals. Through his revolutionary music, he has earned himself the title of not only being an example to follow, but as fighter and an influential image to for future African American and other minority generations to follow in their fight against their discrimination.
2Pac, through your music, you have become an image to African American communities across the U.S. and a reason for them to fight against the hate and injustices forced upon them. How do you feel about this?
I feel happy, but I also feel, like, it’s finally time! Ya get what I’m sayin’? I mean, we’ve been fighting for a better future but we ain’t even close to that ‘cause we haven’t been able to all rise up because there are still some kids who’re too scared to go against those crooked people who’ve been hatin’ us and all of that. They’re scared because they saw those they love dyin’ before them and they’ve been seein’ it around them for so long that they kind of just - just got stuck. Like, they can’t get out and fight ‘cause that image is still in their mind so they keep runnin’ and hidin’ in their homes. But I want to think that my songs kinda . . . push them out of their hole and give them a reason to fight not just with fists but with words, and not just at ‘all the whites’ because there are some whites who don’t like to discriminate. But I want us all to fight against them crooked people who need to know that we ain’t something they can step over like they did all them years ago ‘cause we ain’t slave no more, we’re citizens, we the people of this nation and they can’t keep us down no more.
In your song “My Block”, you have a lyric where you say “Cause all these little babies going crazy and they suffering in the game”. What do you mean by "little babies" here?
So in this song, I was talking about, ya know, how I was feelin’ while I was in my block. I felt that it wasn’t fair to see my brothers die cause of some hatin’ white cops or see people younger than me get hurt just ‘cause they were trying to protect those they love. I just hated that, because, to me and to others, they weren’t even kids, they were still studying in elementary to try to get a good payin’ job for them and their families but no! They never got ta know what the world outside the block looked like or how it felt to love someone or see how the world changed for the better. They didn’t see any of that ‘cause they were shot down in the alley three blocks down their school where some high end white cops thought they were ‘dangerous’ just cause they be protectin’ their sister or somethin’ like that. He got none of it, nothing . . . To us he’s a baby. He was just a baby and they shot him for the color of his damn skin.
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