The Case Against Tupac

Tupac Shakur is probably the most recognizable face in hip hop. Quotes from "Me Against the World" can be found in high school freshmen profiles everywhere and many are quick to say that Pac was the greatest rapper period. However, I see a lot of problems with this claim and I hope to give everyone a few reasons as to why I think Pac can never touch Rakim, KRS, and even Biggie in terms of greatness. So in the words of Slick Rick...hereeee we goooooo!

It seems to me that Asian kids always have had a strange affinity for Pac. From my perspective, it seems odd for kids who grew up in safe, homogenous, subruban communities to be able to relate to lines like "my stomach hurts so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch". So what is the correlation between Pac and us? It was said that Tupac was introduced to violence at an early age while growing up in Mahattan. But the closest we have seen to what Tupac might have seen would be Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. What seems to be the selling point of Tupac is that he is the image of the black man that exists in our fantasy worlds. What Tupac sells us is an image of a 40 drinking, bandana wearing, buddah exhaling, middle finger pointing, tatted, irate, "fuck-the-world" mentality, rep LA til I die black man. It is the thug appeal that makes Tupac so influential and so marketable. I think it is a safe guess to say that Tupac didn't give a shit about the slew of Asian kids who live in Rowland, Diamond Bar, Cerritos, or even places like Alhambra and Glendale. But these same kids are drawn to Tupac because he is the image of "the hood". However, I think Murs says it best; "Any white boy who thinks he knows my struggle because he listens to Pac and his adrenaline doubles".

But can we really say that he is one of the greatest rappers because he was and continues to be such an influential image? Tupac was not one of the greatest lyricists to ever live. Nas' Illmatic runs circles around every album Tupac has released in terms of flow, wordplay, and composition. There is no intricate rhyme structure and no killer punchlines in Pac's rhymes. "Picture perfect, I paint a perfect picture" is not a GOAT verse and neither is Pac repeatedly dropping F-bombs to his rivals on the east coast. It can be said very easily that KRS-One, Rakim, and even Eminem are true lyricists but there seems to be very little we can work with in stating Tupac's ability to rip the mic apart. He was never much of a storyteller either (at least nowhere near the genre that Slick Rick perfected).

It can't be said that he created the gangsta rap genre since NWA was saying "fuck the police comin straight from the underground" two years before 2pacalypse Now was even released (2Pacalypse Now would be a moot point anyways since it wasn't even at this point where he started making waves in the music scene). Cali love was well in place before Pac ever signed to Death Row.

He wasn't the first to make beef tracks either. LL Cool J's mama alraedy told him to knock you out before he was asking Mobb Deep if they had "sickle cell or sumfin". Maybe it wasn't as heated as Tupac made it but can that really be a positive point for him? Nowadays, everybody's starting beef with everyone and releasing all these downright AWFUL "battle tracks" featuring weak punchlines from wack crews. (It's times like these I wish Big L was still here to rip some of these guys to shreds).

So all in all, it can be said that Tupac never really contributed anything brand new. What he did contribute is the outspoken antagonist, fighting a revolution for a cause that didn't exist. Tupac is not Chuck D, and he is not Ice Cube. It seems silly to say that Pac was a martyr because what was the cause he died for? He wasn't throwing his fist in the air and demanding change in politics and society. What resulted from Pac was a further stratification of the black man. Pac was the black man that we conjure up images of when we hear the 10 o' clock news gone 9x platinum. He was the quintessential "n****r".

I am not saying that Tupac was a bad artist. I still love to hear I Ain't Mad Atcha (whether or not COC had that beat first) and California Love. But he is absolutlely not someone I would consider one of the greatest rappers of all time. Like John Lennon, he is one of the biggest icons in music without a doubt. However, John Lennon was a part of the goddamn Beatles, who changed the face of not just rock, but music forever. Just because Pac was murdered doesn't martyr him for the same reasons as why Cobain isn't a martyr either. So the next time Tupac comes up in your iTunes (full of Tupac songs that you probably downloaded illegaly), think about what Pac and his lyrics are to you. Because like Q-Tip said, "hip hop can never be a way of life / it doesn't tell you how to raise a child or treat a wife". To look at Tupac in the most objective manner is to look at him in respect to the genre of hip hop. Sure he went platinum multiple times. But MIMS is about to also...