that was a line in 8mile... right???2Pac’s got some good stuff though. He was deep, I mean with his lyrics and the emotion he conveyed.
That was sarcasm right??
I admire him most for his courage. He had a lot of ball.
that was a line in 8mile... right??? Still is. 6 feet or so.
Well you have some academics on your side asserting the importance of Tupac, but the mere fact that he expressed a few thoughts beyond the usual cesspool of rap and hip hop doesn’t necessarily make him a profound thinker. However, I have never found him worth the effort for me to develop an informed opinion about his ‘work’ so I’ll have to say I simply don’t know what his life’s output was worth. I have to be skeptical of any claim that he’s some artistic genius until I see real evidence, but I confess I haven’t begun to look at his output.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur
On April 17, 2003, Harvard University co-sponsored an academic symposium entitled “All Eyez on Me: Tupac Shakur and the Search for the Modern Folk Hero.” The speakers discussed a wide range of topics dealing with Shakur’s impact on everything from entertainment to sociology.[61]
Many of the speakers discussed Shakur’s status and public persona, including State University of New York English professor Mark Anthony Neal who gave the talk “Thug Nigga Intellectual: Tupac as Celebrity Gramscian” in which he argued that Shakur was an example of the “organic intellectual” expressing the concerns of a larger group.[62] Professor Neal has also indicated in his writings that the death of Shakur has left a “leadership void amongst hip-hop artists.”[63] Neal further describes Tupac as a “walking contradiction”, a status that allowed him to “make being an intellectual accessible to ordinary people”.
A memorial of Tupac Shakur at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia
A memorial of Tupac Shakur at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia
Professor of Communications Murray Forman, of Northeastern University, spoke of the mythical status surrounding Shakur’s life and death. He addressed the symbolism and mythology surrounding Shakur’s death in his talk entitled “Tupac Shakur: O.G. (Ostensibly Gone)”. Among his findings were that Shakur’s fans have “succeeded in resurrecting Tupac as an ethereal life force”.[64] In “From Thug Life to Legend: Realization of a Black Folk Hero”, Professor of Music at Northeastern University, Emmett Price, compared Shakur’s public image to that of the trickster-figures of African-American folklore which gave rise to the urban “bad-man” persona of the post-slavery period. He ultimately described Shakur as a “prolific artist” who was “driven by a terrible sense of urgency” in a quest to “unify mind, body, and spirit”.[65]
Michael Dyson, University of Pennsylvania Avalon Professor of Humanities and African American Studies and author of the book Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur[52] indicated that Shakur “spoke with brilliance and insight as someone who bears witness to the pain of those who would never have his platform. He told the truth, even as he struggled with the fragments of his identity.”[52] At one Harvard Conference the theme was Shakur’s impact on entertainment, race relations, politics and the “hero/martyr”.[66] In late 1997, the University of California, Berkeley offered a student-led course entitled “History 98: Poetry and History of Tupac Shakur.”[67]