The Duality of 2Pac

In Hip-Hop, an opinion comes with a price. Say the “wrong thing” about an icon and you will face vilification. I make no apologies for what I write especially when the First amendment is used without much care. I’ve been a fan of rap music since the mid-80s and I’ve had favorite artists from all across the country. I never found myself caught up in the “East Coast-West Coast” rivalries that were seemingly perpetuated by the media during the 1990s. And to be perfectly honest, I was too young to really understand what it was all about, but it created an ongoing curiosity once 2Pac and Biggie lost their lives within months of each other.

The infernal debate began and nearly 20 years later, Hip-Hop enthusiasts nauseatingly still argue over who’s better, Biggie or Pac and its still an annoyance. What’s even more agitating are those that view these artists asare more than humans. 2Pac nor Biggie were infallible, they were human beings with flaws. With that said, I’d like to break down my confusion with those that will go above and beyond to defend and protect an image of someone (2Pac) that they never met but maybe within my own writing, I may clear up the issue for myself.

I was introduced to 2Pac in 1991 when he dropped “When My Homies Call” from his debut album 2Pacalypse Now and I instantly became a fan. I was too young to watch Juice but I was still aware of the movie and its impact. “I Get Around” was the summertime jam a few years later and I can remember watching Poetic Justice and Above The Rim due to Pac’s starring role in both. I viewed him as the offspring of what Public Enemy created in terms of aggressive sociopolitical content in music but after the 1994 Quad Studio shooting, incarceration and signing with Death Row Records, everything changed. Songs like “Keep Your Head Up” and “Holla If You Hear Me” became “How Do You Want It” and “Hail Mary”. Artistically speaking, how do you go from one extreme to another without compromising your image?

At the age of 25, many of us are a far cry from figuring ourselves out so maybe he didn’t have an idea of a precise direction in life. Some say that 2Pac actually thought he was Bishop, the role he greatly played in Juice while others determine it was the negative energy that surrounded him at Death Row but we will never know. Even the best guesses and the most asinine assumptions about the transformation from a polite performing arts student (borderline Leon from FAME) to an embattled rap artist would leave Stephen Hawking baffled. Was he an actor, a revolutionary or just a rapper? Could he have been all three simultaneously to the point that the machismo and braggadocio were all an act to compensate?

I give credit where credit is due. Though Pac may be my FAVORITE rapper (let alone my top ten), his influence on hip-hop is undisputed. 2Pac’s political roots resonated in much of his early material but it was hard to differentiate him from his peers in terms of content towards the end of his life. 2Pac’s duality defines his humanity, which makes his appeal universal. Everyone can relate. Listening to his 1995 album Me Against the World, one point remains resolute: The Message matters. Was he the most lyrically sharp emcee? Not at all- but he was great with what the talent he had. Sometimes we place too much emphasis on how “real” or how great a “lyricist” an artist is when all we should really embrace the importance of what’s being said and not how it’s being said.