If I die 2nite,
No fear nigga, never worry.
If I die 2nite,
Bury me a mutherfuckin' G, closed casket, fuck death.
If I die 2nite,
You know.
-Tupac Shakur, "If I Die 2Nite"
I've wanted to write about Tupac Shakur ever since "Me Against the World" was released early last year; I wanted to try to organize his turbulent life on paper. Ironically, that which I wanted to record - Tupac's life - was the very thing that made me unable to do so. Shakur was a living question mark full of contradictions. I didn't want to write about him only to wake up and discover that he'd pulled yet another 360-degree turn on me. In fact, I used to joke with myself that he would have to be dead before I'd dare to write a single word about him ... .
Saturday, Sept. 7. He'd just gone to watch his boy Mike Tyson perform a sort of 30-second, deja vu obliteration of Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Afterward, he and boss-man Suge Knight (CEO of Death Row Records) were cruising in a '96 BMW 750 Sedan on their way to the local club scene.
Then it came. A white Cadi.
The shot heard 'round the world. Then another. And another. Thirteen in all.
Tupac was standing through the sun roof ... .
They were taken to University Medical Center. Suge was grazed by shrapnel; he was fine. Shakur was taken into surgery.
It was the first of three operations.
His right lung was removed. He may never rap again. But it wasn't the end.
In the end, Tupac was dead - Friday, Sept. 13, 1996, 4:03 p.m.
The doctors said it was respiratory failure and a heart attack.
His mother, a former Black Panther, was at his bedside. He was 25 years old.
Thus ended the saga with more twists and turns, ups and downs than "Forrest Gump." Tupac's life was an epic spanning his time as a dancer / rapper with Digital Underground, four highly successful solo albums, three movies, more than half a dozen arrests in three years, a sexual assault conviction, marriage and finally his gruesome death, a morbidly fitting end to complement his 25 years of Thug Life. All that promise, all that potential. Gone.
Shakur was many things, but most of all he was a victim of his own words. He was unable to escape the lifestyle he both idealized and demonized without apparent contradiction. Perhaps the Rev. Jesse Jackson summed up Tupac's life best when he said, "Sometimes the lure of violent culture is so magnetic that even when one overcomes it with material success, it continues to call. (Tupac) couldn't break the cycle."
Shakur was certainly a very introverted individual. He didn't say much about himself to too many people. And it would be unfair to take his tattooed, nose-ringed body and hardcore demeanor and assume that to be the complete Shakur. It is only through his music that one can begin to see a more complete picture of this mind-boggling man.
Tupac Shakur was delivered by God into the bowels of American society. He lived in a world most of America wishes it could forget. There, the smallest tear, the slightest sign of compassion, affection or the tiniest hint of fear would cost him his manhood, the respect of others and quite possibly, his life. Thus, like many born into America's underclass, Shakur had to create an identity, a lie of coldness and unfeeling.
And when a man lives a lie, eventually he, too, comes to believe it. In his own eyes, Tupac was the "I Get Around" man, mackin', gattin' and winning in the game of ghetto life. While he had his moments of sensitivity on songs he rapped like "Brenda's Got a Baby" and "Keep Your Head Up," nothing could compare to the hardcore persona he worked to keep - no small feat considering his fairly scrawny six-foot, 160-pound frame.
Last year's sexual assault conviction and a sentencing to four and one-half years seems to have been the dose of reality which finally snapped Tupac's delusions of invincibility. In one fell swoop, Shakur was given his first taste of mere mortality. And as the day drew near when Tupac would be locked up among bigger, badder and even more hardened men, his well-conceived lies that were developed in those housing projects ever-so-many years ago, began to unravel. Yet Tupac could not cry; by that point in his life he must have forgotten how.
But he still had his music, and from him was born "Me Against the World." Hearing this LP, the world could sense Tupac's self-stripping. His songs expressed every emotion which, for his entire life, he'd been forced to pretend he never had. "Me Against the World" was a manifestation of Tupac's fears ("Death around the Corner"), anger ("Fuck the World"), hopelessness ("Heavy in the Game," "It Ain't Easy"), love and affection ("Dear Mama," "Can U Get Away") and yes, even a longing for a better life ("Temptations").
"Me Against the World" was the truth. It was the exposure of all that Shakur had fought to keep concealed due to his misguided notion of what it means to be a black man. And while I feel it relieved him a great deal to speak out honestly about his hidden self, I also feel that he was very embarrassed and uncomfortable with this truth. Tupac's entire life up to that point had been a constructed illusion, and in that illusory life, he could never be hurt, never be sad, never be afraid.
The real world can be a cold and lonely place, and Tupac wasn't ready to face that. So when he was released from prison pending appeal, he quickly jumped back under the blankets of protective lies which he had cast aside on "Me Against the World," and from those quarters came "All Eyez on Me," a two-CD self-glorification meant to put him back on the pedestal of demi-god-ness he'd lied himself into thinking he belonged on. Nothing could yank him down ... .
... Save 13 bullets. They pulled him down through the sunroof and out of the clouds. They brought him crashing headfirst into real life, and no amount of Thug Life could raise him back up.
No one can say Tupac wasn't given a chance. He was given much more than just 15 minutes of fame, and he chose to use the popularity and power to bolster the illusions. It wasn't the bullets which killed Tupac Shakur. The lies tore him apart long ago. I can only hope that, wherever he may be now, Tupac will be able to review the contents of what was his empty life. And at one point, when the angels and demons have their backs turned and no one but God can see, I pray Tupac will be able to summon the energy and the courage to allow a single tear to drop from his eye.
I'm havin' visions of leavin' here in a hearse, God can Ya feel me?
Take me away from all tha pressure and all tha pain.
Show me some happiness again; I'm goin' blind.
I spend my time in this cell, ain't livin' well.
I know my destiny is Hell, where did I fail?
My life is in denial, and when I die,
baptised in Eternal Fire.
Shed so many tears.
-Tupac Shakur, "So Many Tears"
Tupac Shakur's turbulent life and rap music career ended suddenly two weeks ago.