Tupac's Fatal Transition from Revolutionary to Gangster

From a musical/artistic perspective, Tupac Amaru Shakur was one of the great talents of the 20th century.  Blessed with a foundational social consciousness, a quick wit, and a drive not matched by many, Tupac was known as a prolific writer and a dynamic performer. 

He was born into the African (Black) liberation movement by virtue of his mother – Afeni Shakur – being a member of the New York Chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP).  The New York Chapter was one of the most creative and active BPP chapters and as a result of their activity, they were specifically targeted by the U.S. government for elimination.  The most significant blow in this realm was the arrest and conviction of 21 New York Panthers, including Afeni Shakur, on baseless charges that they intended to blow up the so-called statue of Liberty and other capitalist monuments in 1969. 

Tupac was born out of that intense struggle and as much of his music reflected, he grew to have a respect for our righteous struggle for justice and liberation.  Still, as most everyone already knows, there was another side to Tupac.  Just as he produced iconic songs that gave tribute to our people and our struggle like “Dear Mama, Lost Souls,” and “Brenda’s Got a Baby” he also produced harsh, anti-woman, and disrespectful music like “Its All About You (we see the same h - - es!), Gangster Party”, etc.  And, unfortunately, like the recently departed Kobe Bryant, Tupac was also accused of sexual assault. 

The complex and contradicting sides of Tupac cannot be ignored and glossed over.  Especially since we would like to explore how and why he, and so many of us, often straddle the line between principles and justice for humanity, and individualistic manipulation and exploitation of our people’s suffering.  This is really an interesting topic for African revolutionaries, and hopefully all revolutionaries, who constantly seek ways all the time to guide people towards revolutionary socialist political consciousness and away from reactionary anti-people ideology produced from the capitalist system. 

In many ways, Tupac’s life is a case study of these vast contradictions.  Coming into a hip/hop – Rap – industry that places a lot of emphasis on where you are from, Tupac was someone who was from the Bay Area, East Coast, Southern California, and really none of those places i.e. having real roots in a particular location.  He got his start with the Bay Area hip/hop collective the Digital Underground who around 1989/90 produced huge hits like “Dowhatchalike” and “The Humpty Dance.”  Tupac’s breakout performance came on the song “Same Song” and from there he won the role in the movie “Juice.”  From that point forward, his career as a solo artist really began to take shape.  During this period around 1991, I had the opportunity to briefly meet Tupac when he performed at our All African People’s Revolutionary Party sponsored African Liberation Day commemoration in Sacramento, California, U.S. in May of 1991.  His performance that day, to which I – unknowing who he was at the time – had the chance to introduce him in my role as the M/C, served as one of the highlights of that event.  Although I didn’t know him then as he’s known now, I recall being struck by his calm and intelligent demeanor and the ease to which he won the complete attention of the crowd of approximately 4000 people that day with his vast array of socially consciousness, pro woman lyrics. 
That’s another reason why I, like so many others, was somewhat surprised to see Tupac emerge in the mid 90s as a Death Row Records artist and eventual participant in many of the actual gang related activities that occurred within that record label that ultimately appears to have cost him his life. 
 
The story of Death Row is well known, but most people probably don’t know that Marian “Suge” Knight, the Chief Executive Officer for Death Row, was never a gang member although he certainly surrounded himself with actual gang members from his Compton, California, U.S., neighborhood of “MOB Piru.”  Death Row’s entire security team was filled with MOB Pirus who carried out, or at least contributed to an environment, where Suge’s violent and sadistic attacks against his artists and employees became common place. 

There’s a lot of information out about the rise and fall of Death Row, but for this purpose, we focus specifically on the events that led to Tupac’s murder in September of 1996 in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.  The MOB Pirus were enemies with the Compton Southside Crips set.  These antagonisms were well established before Death Row Records.  As a result, Southside Crips came to see Death Row as simply a store front for MOB Piru activities.  And, even though many of the artists and employees connected to Death Row had nothing to do with MOB Pirus, they became synonymous to people in the Los Angeles area.  This explains why when Southside Crip Orlando Anderson, known as “Baby Lane” saw someone walking in a Southern California mall with a Death Row chain on, he apparently saw the need to strongarm the chain from that person.  Another element of this story is the rumor that Sean “Diddy” Combs, wanting to ensure security from Suge Knight (as a result of the infamous “East Coast/West Coast” feud from the mid 90s), developed a relationship with the Southside Crips because of their antagonistic relationship to the MOB Pirus.  Some people even say Diddy hired Southside Crips to confront Death Row people.  Whatever the case, the incident at the mall happened which created the conditions for the videoed attack against Anderson in the MGM Grand lobby in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996, after the Mike Tyson fight.  In the video, several people, all affiliated with the MOB Pirus, including Suge and Tupac, are seen kicking and punching Orlando Anderson.  Of course, a few hours later, the car driven by Suge on Las Vegas Blvd, with Tupac as the passenger, was shot up with Tupac being shot multiple times and eventually passing away a few days later on September 13th.

The shocking thing about this situation is that Tupac was clearly involved in the attack against Anderson at the MGM.  The question is why and how he, a hip/hop artist with no historical gang connection, felt the need to involve himself to that level in a situation that had nothing to do with him?  There are reports that he had even gotten a tattoo that read “MOB” on his arm sometime before that fateful day.

The point is Tupac was no gangster.  He was a musical artist.  Had he been a gangster, he certainly would have realized who Orlando Anderson, or Baby Lane, was.  He would have known that Baby Lane was without question what the L.A. streets would call a “hitter.”  Someone who definitely would not have hesitated to retaliate.  Why the MOB Pirus around Tupac, who were supposed to help protect him as an investment for Death Row (as probably its most prolific artist at that time) would permit him to make such a reckless and ill-rational decision.  Why Suge Knight, as the CEO of Death Row, would permit Tupac to do so?, but more importantly, why Tupac himself felt the need to mix himself up with something as serious as that to which he clearly was overwhelmed and completely out of his element?

A clue could be found in the collective conditions of African people as an oppressed community.  Everyone wants to be identified with a winner.  Everyone wants to feel that they are a part of something significant.  As individuals existing within a society that has contempt for us, its very difficult for people to feel connected and empowered in this society.  This is true for everyone, especially colonized people like African folks.  This is one of the core reasons why gangs maintain relevance and popularity within our communities because they provide a place for people to exist and a structure of support, no matter how tenuous.  One of the challenges we face as revolutionaries is our work doesn’t provide those “perks.”  There are no image builders.  No visual perceptions of existing power.  No places to go where we can make people feel empowered just by existing and doing revolutionary work.  We don’t have that because our work is focused around getting people to recognize that until we organize on an independent and mass level, there is no power for us.  Just an illusion of power that a gang and other entities within this society provide.  This is the constant challenge we face and in the case of Tupac, I’d argue that somewhere along the way, he decided to forgo any pursuit of that revolutionary work for the shortcut imagery of power that 10 to 15 people beating up someone provided in the MGM that day in 1996.  For him, the desire to be out front in attacking Anderson somehow gave him a sense of loyalty and belonging that he, like all of us, had probably been pursuing his entire shortened life. 

Of course, what Tupac got was the sad reality of street life for an oppressed people.  And eventually, Death Row, Suge, and many of the MOB Pirus and Southside Crips got much of the same.  Orlando Anderson himself was viciously shot down in Compton two years later in a street conflict that had nothing to do with the Tupac situation.  And, this was after he had been shot up within that two year period in street violence that apparently was connected to the aftermath of the war between the MOB Pirus and Southside Crips after the Tupac killing.  MOB Pirus were also murdered from this and other situations unrelated to the Tupac killing.  Suge Knight is currently in prison for unrelated nonsense. 

We as African revolutionaries and people concerned about our people’s deliverance should take this unfortunate reality to recognize how critical it is for us to build concrete community defense projects in our communities connected to our revolutionary Pan-African work.  By doing this we can provide our people, especially our youth, the identity they so desperately crave.  We can give them a productive, militant, and uncompromising identity to counteract what they seeking in gang life identities. 
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When we lose youth like Tupac and Baby Lane we are losing quality voices who can articulate the pain and victories of our struggle.  We are losing soldiers who can give us the strength to win our battles.  What happened to Tupac and the others, and our people everywhere on earth, is symbolic of what we can gain if we properly organize to address these insufficiencies.  When you are listening to a Tupac record, you should think about that and how we can effectively do the work to keep his and everyone’s legacy alive and moving in a positive direction.
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