Older Than Tupac

I realized the other day that I am now older than my childhood hero, Tupac Shakur, ever lived to be. I know I’m not the only person to idolize Tupac and greatly appreciate his music, philosophy, and films, but some things are worth saying time and again. Tupac was incredible!

If you watch Tupac: Resurrection it’s a documentary that summarizes the high points of Tupac’s life. You learn about how his mum did crack and joined the Black Panthers, which is Tupac’s hip hop way of saying that his mum has a post-secondary education. Tupac narrates the whole thing. Apparently he could feel the walls closing in and that his days were numbered so he set out to document his life by recording audio narration retelling key moments.

How did Tupac know his days were numbered? Maybe he’s a profit or maybe he had just pissed off too many of the wrong people. If you see this movie from Denmark called Pusher (inspired by a mate of mine’s life) you’ll get a great depiction of pissing off the wrong people and feeling the walls close in on you. This Pusher film you’ll also get the added treat of the most memorable line of subtitled dialogue of the year. There’s a part where two blokes are having cognacs and the one dabs his middle finger in the other’s glass and licks the finger to get a taste. The bloke who’s glass it was says “Don’t stick your pussy finger in my drink!” I don’t speak Danish so I don’t know if these subtitle typists were just having some fun but I think that is a crazy gross thing to say. It’s a phrase that suits a lot of situations, at least for those of us in the accounting profession. So this guy, The Pusher, in the Pusher film, pisses off the wrong people and he looks pretty fucked by the end of the film, but apparently they made two sequels Pusher 2: Blood On My Hands and Pusher 3: I am The Angel of Death, so maybe he works something out, and maybe there’s still hope for Tupac. The video store where I rent only has the first one.

So Tupac had this sense of impending doom and started recording huge amounts of music and maybe these spoken narrative recordings to immortalize his short life. A lot of critics give this film a hard time because they play some of the audio clips out of context. Tupac endured two shootings during his puff and the second one killed him. So in the film when Tupac gets shot to death they play audio of Tupac talking about getting shot and show footage of flying above the clouds to make it seem like Tupac is narrating from heaven. Big deal. Shot is shot. The guy knows what it’s like. Let it be.

Obviously if Tupac were actually narrating from heaven he would identify his yet unpunished killers. There’s another documentary called Biggie & 2Pac about the murders of both these rappers. The funny little guy who made this film develops a theory that record executive Suge Knight had them both whacked and he actually confronts Knight in jail, which is mind-blowing. Tupac made a video with Dr. Dre for their hit called “California Love”. The video is obviously a take off on Mel Gibson’s Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome. It’s really kind of an omen that Tupac died in a Thunderdome kinda way. Two men enter, one man leaves. If the Biggie & 2Pac documentary is correct that means Suge Knight is like Master Blaster, or Tina Turner depending on your analysis.

Just as a sidenote, the theories presented in Biggie & 2Pac about the conspiracy to kill these two rappers were purchased by none other than the Cliffhanger himself, Sylvester Stallone. He wanted to make a dramatized film based on these alleged events but figured he couldn’t handle the lawsuits when he accused half a record company and the Nevada police force of corruption, conspiracy to commit murder, murder, obstruction of justice, fraud, perjury, assault, bribery etc. etc. I mean, just look at the legal shit Borat had to put with. I can understand why Sly would rather just make more Rocky and Rambo flicks and let this 2Pac project drop.

Tupac was really caught up in this whole East Coast versus West Coast thing that was really big in rap at the time. It was really sad because we now know it was so pointless. This is before rappers realized that there was more demand than supply as far as rappers were concerned and they didn’t have to fight to control the scene. The demand for rappers grew so much that soon they had to include an average of three to four rappers on any one track. But the demand grew from there, people wanted rap to show up in every other musical genre and so you got rap interludes in pop and R&B songs, you got that whole awful rap-metal thing, you got rappers just standing around in videos for songs in which they didn’t participate. People just need more and more rappers. When I called my investment broker about investing in rap he didn’t know what I was talking about, even though I used economic terms like “potential for growth” and “rich muthafucka”. What a fucking dumbass. What do they teach these guys?

Tupac doesn’t talk much about his film career. I guess Poetic Justice hasn’t endured like his music has. Despite that film having timeless themes like sleeveless shirts and station wagons it hasn’t stood the test of time the way Casablanca or Russ Meyer’s Supervixens have. Maybe that film will get more attention in Janet Jackson: Resurrection.

Pac talks a lot about the intertwinement of his music and his philosophy, which he calls “Thug Life”. Thug Life is all about how if the world perceives you as a thug you might as well become one and take it all the way because no matter what you’ll always be a thug. He wrote a song called “Me Against the World” in which he relays how he feels it’s he against the world. He developed this outlook based on being hassled by the pigs in Los Angeles. Just for being a black man they perceived him as a thug until he actually became one. I’ve so been there. I have this orange and black windbreaker that I ordered from the back of a box of Frosted Flakes and when I wear it around people think I’m a tiger. I don’t correct them. The longer I wear it the more I become like a tiger and think like a tiger. I find myself growling instead of speaking and eventually end up attacking the deli counter at the grocery store and wondering if I mated with a chick with big blonde hair if our kid would be a liger. I’m sure if I wore that windbreaker to sleep and bathe I would eventually, for all intensive purposes, become a tiger and lose my driver’s permit accordingly. But I can take that windbreaker off; Pac can’t take off his blackness.

I think psychologists call Thug Life “a self-fulfilling prophecy”. No wonder the only people who study psychology are stupid rich girls with no life direction; psychologists can’t name shit. Thug Life sounds way better. I’d study anything if it had theories called “Thug Life” or “Advanced Balls Theory” or “Don’t Fuck My Bitch Syndrome” or “Don’t Put Your Pussy Finger in My Drink Complex”. If psychologists used that kind of terminology I’d be packed into those psychology seminars along with all the lower back tattoo-sporting retards who were even too stupid to get an English degree. But they don’t name stuff all cool, because these academic types don’t have shit on Tupac.

It’s amazing to think of everything Tupac Shakur gave us during his short life and the maturity and wisdom he achieved at such a young age. In Tupac: Resurrection we find out that Pac even gave the great Mickey Rourke romance advice. I couldn’t believe that somebody who’s achieved as much in the fields of acting and boxing like Mickey Rourke would need advise on anything, but if there’s a man who knows more: it’s Tupac Shakur.

Pac’s suggestion for making up with your lady after a spat is to bust open a bottle of Crystalle, but not to bust it open on her head, just unscrew the cap and pour some like they do at hotel bars. Pac’s logic is that you can’t stay cross when you’re drinking something classy and sweet like Crystalle. I can’t fault his logic; it makes more sense than my usual bouquet of bricks through the window approach (the trick is finding the right card). Thanks, Pac.

Tupac has left us with so much great music, much of it still unreleased. It’s sad to think that we live in a world that would claim the life of some one so visionary, but shit happens. Thug Life is eternal, and those motherfuckas who stuck their pussy fingers in Pac’s drink are going to pay in this life or the next. Fuckin’ count on it.