R.I.P. Tupac Amaru Shakur

Nobody is calling him a hero.

 

Just heard 'My Block'. Damn.

Anybody know what album that appeared on? I'm talking remix version with the kids chorus.

God bless XM 65.


P.S. I'm not calling him a hero. I just think he was a hell of an artist.
Would we have to endure this shit if we were having a Woodie Guthrie or John Lennon or Jimi Hendrix or Buddy Holly or Hank Williams circle jerk?
Let us enjoy it in peace.

 

JOHN LENNON IS NOT A HERO! HOW DARE YOU HOLD HIM UP FOR DEIFICATION! THE BALLS!

 

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Well played, IJAG.

 

After all, he did have sex with a non-white woman. The mixing of the races! Oh, the humanity!

 

What about Earth, Wind & Fire?

 

2pac was very lyrically gifted, not unlike NaS and maybe even Eminem.

Here's a great verse from "Keep Ya Head Up" :

You know it makes me unhappy (what's that)
When brothas make babies, and leave a young mother to be a pappy
And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can't make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up?
I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up

 

Sorry. I judge folks by their character and their actions. Not their ability to write songs.

 

You'd take some shit from me on that one...

I hope everyone will forgive me for thinking that some of the naysayers on this thread can't get past Tupac's pigmentation.

Because no one has called the man a saint or a hero, or anything else even close.

If anything, there's the wistful tone of people who know how flawed he was, and feel a little bad about how much they enjoyed him anyway.

Maybe that's why people like All Eyez on Me, come to think of it. It embodies the persona, big, brawling, complicated, crappy at points, brilliant at others, too clever by half, etc.

Though I agree with whoever posted that they thought Me Against the World was his best, especially lyrically.

 

Who mentioned the color of his skin, besides you?

 

And again, no one's judging him.

Us praising his lyrics, or saying we liked his songs, is no different from anyone on here posting a Posnanski column, or a Plaschke piece, and saying they liked it. Posting turns of phrase in stories that they liked. Talking about Gary Smith.

Doesn't mean we're commenting on them as people. We're commenting on the job they did. And Tupac did a helluva job.

 

What about their ability to write, period? Do Hemmingway and Poe get roundly dismissed because they weren't church deacons and Rotary Club members?