I have been thinking about Tupac and how much joy I miss in not having more music in my life. I am not a diehard fan of 2Pac’s — Mr Tupac Amaru Shakur — but I am fascinated by his music, his story and ancestry. “Hit ‘em Up” is also the angriest, most viciously violent song that I listen to often. But I have a lot of respect for him; he is a great poet, though he doesn’t do the roses and violets poetry of William Shakespeare, his are the words of the gun and death.
If Winston Churchill “mobilised the English language and sent it into battle” (to quote JF Kennedy), Tupac has taken it and, like a stuffed turkey, basted it with thug fury, Black Panther violence and the outrage of an ideologically conscious intelligent man who went to prison, as did his mother and most of the people around him and whose father was on the FBI’s most wanted list; a clan that considers itself victims of a racist but powerful system and have no qualms taking up arms to oppose it.
Tupac was born in Harlem, New York. He is about my age mate. His mother moved to Baltimore — where Tupac studied ballet and drama in high school, ha! — and eventually to San Franscisco. The violent disputes around his life had to do with the conflict between the West Coast and East Coast rapper gangs.
Tupac, by the way, was killed in 1996 in Vegas. Two years earlier, he was shot five times in a New York studio in an apparent robbery. But he believed the whole thing was a set up and blamed Puff Daddy (Sean Combs) and Biggie (Notorious B.I.G.), among others. He glorified in thoughts of violent revenge, though he achieved lofty heights of impact by sometimes being humorous about it. But we ain’t singin’, we bringin’ drama, he raps.
Tupac is not just a cult gangster rapper, and one of the most successful, but also an influential icon of rebellion and tragedy in Black America. His life, parentage and death violently brings home the reality of a race that is, in many ways, criminalised and its sometimes violent reaction to racial hatred and oppression in the wealthiest, “freest” and most powerful nation on earth. But even he was not beyond looking down upon his rivals. He raps in Hit ’em Up:
Thug livin’, out of prison, pistols in the air (ha ha)
Biggie, remember when I used to let you sleep on the couch
Now it’s all about Versace, you copied my style
Five shots couldn’t drop me, I took it and smiled
With my AK, I’m still the thug that you love to hate
In that song, he spares nothing in the lives of his rivals—not their Mamas, wives or even diseases. Don’t one of you ni**as got sickle-cell or somethin’? he raps, and advises them not to run around and risk a seizure or a heart attack.
So here was an uber thug, who was friends with Jada Pinket, studied poetry, jazz and ballet, whose mother was a Panther, whose godmother is still wanted for the murder, a felon suspected of being a cop killer, but otherwise an intelligent, socially advanced human being who, in a different context, would have turned out very differently. The waste of Tupac Shakur is a stinging indictment of American racism.
This is not to say that music only shines a light on tragedy and inequality. Like all art, it is most times a mirror, shining a gentle light on society, so that we can see ourselves with some humour and amusement.
My favourite band for the moment is, of course, Sauti Sol, and I listen to their music nearly every morning — sometimes the same song on repeat. I like the rebellion in Extravaganza, but it is in Nairobi, which sometimes gets uncomfortably graphic, and Mbwe Mbwe, that the raw poetic talent of those boys shines.
What I find fascinating is not the use of language, which, in many places, is beautiful, it is the cultural context; it fills you like a bowl of uji . If you were not born here, you will struggle to get it. Until recently, I didn’t know what a sinia was. I nearly choked on the rice when the coin dropped. When the guy laments in Nairobi that his sahani had become a sinia , it is an outrageously powerful image. What he thought was private is now socially shared like a sinia and there is also a sly (and inappropriate) allusion to dimensions.
I think if you didn’t know how funeral and wedding feasts are organised, you will miss the humour in Mbwe Mbwe, where the artistes invite you to “kula ukasirishe kamati” and “haribu jina jenga mwili” . A committee organises and budgets for the food. It is expected that everyone will eat with moderation, it is just good manners, so that everyone can get a share. It is very embarrassing to over-eat in these functions, hence the delicious inappropriacy of the artiste, who advises young thugs to eat and counter the effects of their drinking.
Don’t kill yourself with the politics; enjoy, and appreciate, some music too.
