Tupac Was White

What's woody wood, grasshoppers?

Off the heels of Lil Xan dissing a legend and the Bruno Mars debate about cultural appropriation (which is silly), I want to discuss the whiteness of Tupac Amaru Shakur

You see, 2pac was the son of a Black Panther Party member...an infamous political organization that brought forth social awareness to not only the US, but the world...Pac received his views about the world from his mother, Afeni Shakur, which had manifested itself in his first album, 2pacalypse Now

But here's the thing...

...that album flopped

That album was a biiiiiig whomp whomp

While 2Pacalypse Now was politically charged with tracks like Trapped, Soulja's Story, and Words of Wisdom, the album lacked a strong single

Brenda's Got a Baby was a dope song, but it failed to move the needle

And that brings us to this...

Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z was Pac's breakthrough album...hands down...he needed strong singles to push him to the forefront, and he got them...courtesy of Keep Ya Head Up and I Get Around

Not only those tracks had pushed him to the forefront...

...but they also brought him closer to suburban America

The demographic that moves albums past gold (500,000 copies sold)

No longer the politically charged eMCee like he was on 2Pacalypse Now, he repped THUG LIFE...an acronym for The Hate U Gave Little Infants Fucks Everyone...a concoction of the street mentality and social consciousness that he'd expressed on his first album...not only he needed the backpacker support, but he also needed credibility

Street credibility

Then came the tats, the outlandish public behavior, and the bad ass rebel image that he portrayed to the public

Pac was pretty much acting like the stereotypical nigga that America either loved to hate, or loved to see as a form of entertainment before the tragedy like a Shakespeare play

And tragedy came closer to my favorite 2pac album, Me Against the World...

This album shows the growth and maturity of 2pac...he wasn't as thugged out like his last album, as cautionary tales like Young Nigga, If I Die 2nite, and Death Around the Corner shows a different side of Pac other than the tough, braggadocious style of rhyme...Pac was on his way to striking a perfect balance between the negative and positive forces that govern people until a sex abuse charge had handed him a prison sentence for damn near a year

A prison sentence that was cut short with the help of Suge Knight, CEO of Death Row Records

All Eyes On Me had catapulted 2pac into full fledged whiteness; commercial acceptance...because the so-called real Hip-Hop headz didn't support him earlier in his career, Pac had to find other ways to market himself as a media giant...the album was a celebration as a new artist on Death Row...full of sex, drugs and rock n roll

Gone was the cautionary tales and political rhymes of past albums that fizzled faster than the cases of champagne he gulped

Don't get it twisted tho...

...he still managed to call out Bill Clinton, C. Delores Tucker, and Bob Dole in How Do You Want It, a club track with Jodeci members K-Ci and JoJo

The political side was still there (kinda), but not like the past, which meant that the album was safe...safe for suburbia to listen to without worrying about the revolution knocking on their front door (in contrast to his first two albums)

The double album was about partying and bullshitting...in a good way tho...but a far cry from the socio-political content he was previously known for as the album had went on to sell 5 million copies

A bonafied best seller

He traded in his Black Panther card as America's Nightmare to live the American Dream; mansions, yachts, cars, clothes, fine baby dolls, and countless nights of turn ups with weed and Hennessy

The same way Ice Cube had went from the Nigga You Love to Hate and AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted to America's lovable dad in the film Are We There Yet? for middle America (white folks) to easily digest and accept

So much for Burn Hollywood Burn

No longer the social activist we'd hope for, 2pac was all rock n roll months leading up to his untimely, youthful demise...

...the James Dean of Hip-Hop

And the sad thing is, before he was able to break out of the drug induced haze that clouded his thinking after he'd bailed out from Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York, his life was cut short from a hail of bullets after a Mike Tyson fight in Vegas

Only for him to resurrect as Elvis Presley once people had crazily thought he'd faked his death and moved to Cuba

Aight ya'll, I'm Audi 5 stacks

Peace and Afro Grease

Nah'Sun the Great @ www.nahsunblaze.com