Decade after death, Tupac remains compelling

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born to former Black Panther Afeni Shakur in 1971 — his father wasn’t around. Afeni was pregnant and incarcerated while she and other Panthers faced conspiracy charges that were later dismissed.

His mother’s revolutionary qualities infused many of Shakur’s raps, like the angry “Souljah’s Revenge” or “Words of Wisdom.” But Shakur’s lyrics also reflect his unstable childhood — his mother battled drug addiction and he and his sister lived in poverty. That pain, frustration, anger and bewilderment became the inspiration for some of his most poignant, searing songs.

“He had a view that I think extended to what we would think of various kinds of sociological arguments, humanistic arguments, arguments around morality,” said Marcyliena Morgan, a Stanford University associate professor and director of the school’s Hiphop Archive.

Though he attended a school for talented teens while living in Baltimore, by the time he reached the California Bay Area, he was dabbling in street life. Soon his rap talent would lead him into another world that would prove just as turbulent.

As Shakur said after one arrest — “(I didn’t have) no police record until I made a record.”

With each platinum album, trouble found him anew. He was criticized by national figures like C. Dolores Tucker and former Vice President Dan Quayle and involved in a gunfight with off-duty police officers in Atlanta. While his pro-woman anthem “Keep Ya Head Up” scaled the charts, he was accused of leading a group in sexually assaulting a young woman in a hotel. While on trial for those charges, he survived a shooting at a recording studio where Biggie Smalls and Sean “Diddy” Combs were present.

Shakur was convicted of some charges at his sexual assault trial, and spent several months in a maximum security prison before the fearsome Suge Knight got him out on bail pending an appeal and signed Shakur to his Death Row label.

Words are remembered
In the last year of his life, Shakur was at his most popular and sensational — and his most reckless. He ignited the so-called East Coast-West Coast war, claiming that Biggie and Diddy were responsible for his shooting (which they denied).

On the last night of his life, Shakur, Knight and their entourage delivered a violent beatdown to a rival gang member in a Las Vegas casino. Hours later, while riding in the passenger seat of Knight’s BMW, Shakur was riddled with bullets. Police arrested and questioned the gang member who was stomped in the casino, but no charges have ever been filed.

While other dead celebrities are celebrated as nostalgia acts for what they once represented, Shakur remains a vital presence in today’s rap world. Perhaps that’s due to the volume of material he left behind. So many albums of previously unreleased songs have been issued since his death, a few people are convinced that he’s still alive.

However, it may be the words of Shakur — often overshadowed by the controversy that dogged him — where his brilliance is most notable. Rather than becoming dated, songs like “So Many Tears” and “Changes” still speak to the despair and pain that remain very real in urban America.

“He was one of a kind,” said Smith, “and I think whenever you want to ask yourself who Tupac is, as much as I’m a journalist and I live by headlines, don’t go to the headlines to find out who Tupac was, go to the music. You will not be disappointed.”

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