Tupac Shakur - His Impact on American Culture Essay

2pac (Tupac Shakur) is known as one of the most influential rappers of all time and his music expresses transcendentalism. In the song Changes he raps about how the world needs change and that its corrupt. People need to change and treat others with respect instead of with hate. In the song it says "It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.-Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live-and let's change the way we treat each other." 2pac wants the people to become something better and make an effort to help and treat others with respect. He is advocating a movement. A movement that is dedicated to peace. He had a hard life in New York with a drug dealing father and a missing mother. Although he had an awful life he was optimistic and hopeful this is shown in all of his music. In the song "Keep Your Head up" 2pac raps about being yourself and doing what you believe is right. He wants to start a movement that influence people to act for themselves. A movement where people will be influenced to change and treat others better like his song

I believe tupac's philosophy was to change the way people viewed thugs. For ordinary people thugs were gang bangers and drug dealers, but for Tupac it was his pride and for him

Tupac Shakur is one of the most legendary and popular poetic/rap artists to this day. He is considered to be one of the most influential people of his time, influencing every African-American citizen in North America. Thought of as the creator of rap, Tupac has sold over seventy-five million albums worldwide although his career ended as quickly as it started. Six, is the number of years Tupac spent making rap professionally. Thirteen is the number of years Tupac spent writing poetry and rap lyrics. Twenty-five is how old Tupac was when he received four bullets to his chest causing him to pass away. In those twenty-five years, Tupac has influenced millions of people and artists

A few years later his family moved to the West Coast in California where he began to to grew as an artist. In 1995, he became a solo artist and signed to Death Row with label CEO Marion “Suge Knight. That same year he also dropped his album Me Against the World . He record this album while he was in jail. According to a BET article, he was arrested for a felony with a deadly weapon. Despite his issues of being in prison, he was the first artist to go Number One on the Billboard charts while he was in prison. On September 7th 1996, Tupac was gunned down and was pronounced dead after 6 days of fighting for his life. As an artist he spoke a lot of violence and how to be aware of the society that everyone is exposed to. He spoke to the youth and was actively involved in the group the Black Panther which emphasizes equity and black power. Tupac music had meaning and emotion behind it that most struggling people in the urban community could connect to which made his so popular because people could relate. According the Rolling Stone index, Tupac was viewed as “one of the most dynamic, influential and self destructive pop stars of the Nineties.” Despite him going to jail for his wrong doings, he was a man who spoke only of the

Even though Tupac is not alive today his music still carries throughout this generation. His music talks about topics that most people are too scared to talk about. He gave people a voice that were not confident enough. He related problems to his real life. He stood up for himself through music and expressed himself through it.

Tupac Shakur, TLC, and even the young sensation Zendaya Coleman are a few celebrities that are seen as nonconformist in the media. Just like every teenager, I can’t live in a world without music,and I definitely can’t live without these three inspirations on my playlist. Their lyrics have such a great meaning deep down in them, especially the older generation of artist including Tupac and TLC. Just like any other non-conformist, Tupac went against society’s ways and when he wrote he talked about dreams,world peace, and racism. “I’m 23 years old. I might just be my mother’s child, but in all reality. I’m everybody’s child. Nobody raised me; I was raised in this society.” Basically what Tupac is saying is that even though you were raised by

To gaze into the lyrics of both Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur is like living in the ghettos of New York City where violence never stops. Both of these artists grew up seeing and living a life filled with violence. Gunshots and drive-byes, death and murder were a daily occurrence. Although the lyrics of both artists are simply telling their life stories and how hard it was to grow up in their “hoods” they contain vulgar, hateful, and sexual verses that send the wrong message to their listeners. Whether these listeners are teens or adults, white or black, they are continually sending notions of hatred and fear through their lyrics and actions. Ultimately,

1-3. “Went on like that all winter long, then February came and they sent Tupac to jail for some dumb stuff and people started talking about that—the negative peeps talking about that’s where he needed to be and all the rest of us saying how messed up the law was when you didn't look and act like people thought you should.” (3)

The Controversial Life of Tupac Shakur Despite his reputation as a criminal and a thug, Tupac Shakur effectively spread his message of the unfairness in society through his storytelling, music, and public stance to increase awareness of discrimination against African Americans. Tupac Amaru Shakur came into the world on June 16, 1971 in Brooklyn, New York. While poverty stricken,Tupac faced many obstacles as a child and an adolescent. All his life, Shakur used issues in his family as an underlying conflict and expressed these issues while growing up.

Tupac needs to motivate his kin to go along with him and stand firm against these issues that are keeping his kin down. Tupac raps on how there's a war in the Middle East yet as opposed to handling neediness, the legislature is handling medications and in light of the fact that African Americans have a certain inclusion with the utilization and trafficking of medications, they can target them, the lines are "There's war in the city & the war in the Middle East, rather than war on destitution, they got a war on medications so the police can

His music had a voice for many. His lyrics often included themes of world problems and his experiences of violence, hardships in inner cities, racism, and many other things. Tupac was speaking about issues before many of them became mainstream. For example he stated, “A woman brought you into this world, so you have no right to disrespect one.” Tupac didn’t even have to be a woman to be a feminist and stand up for their rights.

He pushed toward the thought of unity for all rather than dissension. Tupac's perspective of himself towards others functions as a foundation for

Central theme: Tupac was a very misunderstood individual, and a lot can be learned from his life.

Tupac faced stereotypes and demonization by the mainstream media. Something he did to regain a sort of agency was "self-domonologizing" which is embracing the stereotypes and playing up to the paranoia of white people.- adopting "a mask of defiance" to the "mainstream demonization." His personal agency is limited by the stereotypes created by the racist social structure and he critiques it. With his fame, "Tupac was repeatedly constructed as archetypal," he became a symbol for romanticized thug life as one example but there was also a responsibility as well. There was the idea that he should uplift young African American men to better themselves because to some people he was the platform of "a young black man in America." Tupac also had to deal with the responsibility of being cast as a representative to so many people and ideas along with his public celebrity image that is partly out of his control and partly exaggerated by his own

"There's war on the streets & the war in the Middle East, instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me, and I ain't never did a crime I ain't have to do." These lines represent how the government is not resolving poverty, but instead tackling drugs in the Middle East and because African Americans are deeply involved with the use and trafficking of drugs, blacks are easily targeted. In the last line of those lyrics, Tupac refers to himself for never committing a crime unless he was forced to because he needed to get by as stated before African Americans don't have the same opportunities or fair chances in society as other races. Even though the white race mistreats, targets, and does not care for the black race, Tupac also points fingers at his own race for a lot of the hate and anger they are surrounded by. In addition to this, he raps "I got love for my brother, but we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other. We gotta start makin' changes, learn to see me as a brother 'stead of two distant strangers." He knows that his own people are at blame because they have jealousy towards each other and they're more about individuality than unity. Again Tupac is trying to inspire his people to quit the selfishness and take a stand to help configure a