Static: My Tupac Shakur Story
by
Static - My Tupac Shakur Story... One man's first hand account of the impressionable,
turbulent early years of controversial rapper/actor pop-media icon... Tupac Shakur.
No artist in modern popular music so aroused and assaulted our sense of right and wrong, pride, manhood and identity as did Tupac Shakur. His near manic drive to be noticed and to emerge from the shadow of Digital Underground, the zany Hip Hop group that gave him his first big break, is chronicled in the pages of this book.
Had he not thirsted so intensely for the spotlight, to find a receptive audience for his poetry and immense personal magnetism, perhaps he would have been content to have his musical chapter end where Digital Underground’s did.
But Tupac’s adult life was to become a haunted mission to both prove and find himself. To do public battle to win himself wholly over to a fiction he seemed most eager to emulate—Bishop, his character from the movie Juice.
Tupac wove his demons and contradictions into the fabric of his identity. Half calcu- lating opportunist, half victim of circumstance, who deftly improvised through near death experiences. He charmed us like Fred Hampton, menaced us like Huey P. and threw tongues like Stokley Carmichael. He was a cop-shooter who beat the rap. A loving son. Bitch hater. Ghetto romantic. Black Janus. A spike-soled trampoliner on prostrate black temples. A moving target trying to stay ahead of his last quote and public insult. Shot up, but hard to kill. Martyr. Lover. Fool. Imitated and scorned. A brother who desperately sought the approval of real nigs, but was loyal only to himself. A brilliant artist whose musical legacy was built not upon block rocking beats, bombast, or virtuoso rhyme skills, but upon the dignity and vulnerability of his reportage in three priceless odes to the black female experience, Brenda’s Got A Baby, Dear Mama and Keep Your Head Up. This career making trilogy spoke truth to the souls of our sisters and wrapped him in forgiveness for wrongs past and future.
The six year drama that was Tupac’s very public professional life riveted the black nation. He was equal parts swagger and pathos. Seduced by the glitter and excesses of the lavish life he could neither financially nor spiritually afford to live and stalked by the social conscience of his Panther bloodline. He set his soapbox on the backs of hypocrites, heroes and their dreams deferred. Demanding the attention of a genera- tion who had never marched for anything and wanted its pie in this life.
A generation that chose its leaders at listening stations, its identity at tattoo parlors. Impatient and earnest, he was the little brother too young to play but begging to be picked, who grew up one day to beat down the weak. We saw the us in him in so many of our wayward gifted sons. Restless souls running pell mell in the dark, looking backwards, arms akimbo, middle fingers extended, headed straight for the cliff. We held our breath, knowing the outcome and the how come. And we forgave him for shortening our lives with his passing.
turbulent early years of controversial rapper/actor pop-media icon... Tupac Shakur.
No artist in modern popular music so aroused and assaulted our sense of right and wrong, pride, manhood and identity as did Tupac Shakur. His near manic drive to be noticed and to emerge from the shadow of Digital Underground, the zany Hip Hop group that gave him his first big break, is chronicled in the pages of this book.
Had he not thirsted so intensely for the spotlight, to find a receptive audience for his poetry and immense personal magnetism, perhaps he would have been content to have his musical chapter end where Digital Underground’s did.
But Tupac’s adult life was to become a haunted mission to both prove and find himself. To do public battle to win himself wholly over to a fiction he seemed most eager to emulate—Bishop, his character from the movie Juice.
Tupac wove his demons and contradictions into the fabric of his identity. Half calcu- lating opportunist, half victim of circumstance, who deftly improvised through near death experiences. He charmed us like Fred Hampton, menaced us like Huey P. and threw tongues like Stokley Carmichael. He was a cop-shooter who beat the rap. A loving son. Bitch hater. Ghetto romantic. Black Janus. A spike-soled trampoliner on prostrate black temples. A moving target trying to stay ahead of his last quote and public insult. Shot up, but hard to kill. Martyr. Lover. Fool. Imitated and scorned. A brother who desperately sought the approval of real nigs, but was loyal only to himself. A brilliant artist whose musical legacy was built not upon block rocking beats, bombast, or virtuoso rhyme skills, but upon the dignity and vulnerability of his reportage in three priceless odes to the black female experience, Brenda’s Got A Baby, Dear Mama and Keep Your Head Up. This career making trilogy spoke truth to the souls of our sisters and wrapped him in forgiveness for wrongs past and future.
The six year drama that was Tupac’s very public professional life riveted the black nation. He was equal parts swagger and pathos. Seduced by the glitter and excesses of the lavish life he could neither financially nor spiritually afford to live and stalked by the social conscience of his Panther bloodline. He set his soapbox on the backs of hypocrites, heroes and their dreams deferred. Demanding the attention of a genera- tion who had never marched for anything and wanted its pie in this life.
A generation that chose its leaders at listening stations, its identity at tattoo parlors. Impatient and earnest, he was the little brother too young to play but begging to be picked, who grew up one day to beat down the weak. We saw the us in him in so many of our wayward gifted sons. Restless souls running pell mell in the dark, looking backwards, arms akimbo, middle fingers extended, headed straight for the cliff. We held our breath, knowing the outcome and the how come. And we forgave him for shortening our lives with his passing.