CLEVELAND - Tupac Shakur managed to be a superstar rap artist as well as a highly coveted sex symbol, but never quite understood the power of his true brilliance because he was busy covering it up.What a shame.
It was 13 years ago today that arguably the most shocking and pivotal moment in hip-hop history took place; Shakur died from wounds he suffered in a rainstorm of gunfire six days earlier in Las Vegas, NV. His death dealt a gigantic blow to both his legion of devoted fans as well as the music industry, particularly urban music. At the time, Shakur (popularly known as 'Pac) was the biggest star in the game. His magnum opus, the sprawling, double CD All Eyez On Me had been released seven months earlier and received massive acclaim. Additionally, 2Pac had been embroiled in a tit-for-tat feud with rival East coast rap star the Notorious B.I.G. and had recently released a vitriolic song entitled, "Hit 'Em Up" in order to publicly humiliate B.I.G.
Shakur had come into national prominence in 1992 when both his debut album 2Pacalypse Now and his feature film debut Juice were released to glowing reviews. From there, the previously introspective, often political 'Pac began to get involved in trouble of all sorts. He began modifying his image and soon became "thugged out" in both appearance and behavior. Brushes with the law and antagonistic lyrics soon became his trademark and ironically, his fame and status grew significantly.
In 1993, Shakur shot two police officers and was accused of sexual assault on a woman. He himself was shot several times in November 1994, and even though he survived the attack, he went to prison for the sex crime. 2Pac wound up spending less than a year incarcerated, but once his $1.4 million bail was posted by music mogul Suge Knight, he was a free man, but indebted to Knight for his generosity. This is when 'Pac signed to Death Row Records and promptly began crafting music for All Eyez On Me. Strangely enough, 2Pac became more brash and pugnacious once he was out of prison. Being in Knight's camp almost seemed to provide him a security blanket and he let his hubris hang out all over the place with "gangsta' posturing" and sharp bravado designed to paint him as a "hardcore thug nigga from the street."
The problem with all of this was simple; 2Pac only hurt his image by cultivating such a negative one. By the time he attended the Mike Tyson/Bruce Seldon prizefight at the MGM Grand on September 7, 1996, he'd completed his 5th solo album, "Makaveli: The Seven Day Theory" which was scheduled for release two months later. He was gunned down in a still-unsolved drive-by shooting on the Vegas strip after the Tyson fight while riding in a BMW with Knight.
Since he had been shot two years prior, many believed that he would again pull through. He also seemed to be, through the mythology of his music, invincible. He wasn't. He received major surgery and lapsed into a coma before finally fading away on that awful Friday the 13th afternoon 13 years ago. Of course, fans were overcome with major grief and disbelief and Shakur became canonized almost immediately. He was now seen less as a troublemaker and more as a martyr who became the voice of a generation.
What is so wasteful to me is that Shakur was amazingly intelligent, philosophical and articulate. There's an interview of him, filmed in 1988 when he was just 17 years old where he poses some very thoughtful observations and questions about politics and the plight of poverty stricken people and how they are overlooked by the "hotshots" in Washington, D.C. That intelligence and analytical ability was on display occasionally, though not nearly enough because he was busy living up to his contrived "thugness."
Don't get me wrong. I'm aware of Shakur's upbringing and his street-side, so there are no false illusions on my part. I'm just disappointed that the man who became an icon in death wasn't more forthcoming with his genius. I always say that if he were around nowadays, he'd be a far more professorial type, maybe in the vein of Michael Eric Dyson; Dr. Tupac Shakur if you will.
Shakur's lyrics were often a work of art -- when he eschewed the violence and mayhem for poetic amelioration. He was an idealist as well as an activist in his own way, but he too often got in his own way and his potentially transformative influence was extinguished.
Looking back on 2Pac's brilliant career from the vantage point of 13 years later, I can't help but wonder how he would have impacted the world in the 21st century. Remember, he was just 25 years old when he was killed so he had so much room for improvement and time to shake off that young ignorance that we're all cursed with initially. Tupac Shakur was so much more than we knew at the time, but if we continue to listen to his music, we'll continue to decipher his true message, not the commercialized one.
Long live Tupac.
