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... and that this is a black man that's still tryin' to grow, you know?" By December, Singleton, who Tupac considers his "one friend in Hollywood" and was planning to cast the rapper as the lead in his next film, Higher Learning, was forced by Columbia Pictures to drop his star because of Tupac's recent arrests in Atlanta and New York. "Basically, since all this stuff is happening, the media is trying to play 'good nigga vs. bad nigga' and say I don't want him in the movie, " Singleton says. "That ain't true. In their minds, it doesn't matter if he's guilty or not. They don't want nothin' to do with him.
I talked to Tupac and said, 'I still got your back. '" Atlanta is considered the black mecca for the ' 90 s. It is here that black folks can own businesses and homes, run city government, attend historically black colleges, create a thriving music industry la L. A. Reid and Babyface, Dallas Austin, and Jermaine Dupri, and feel empowered. It is also here that Tupac's manager decided to purchase a home for his client, "So he can have a calmer life. " But on October 31, just a few days after moving in, Tupac was arrested for allegedly shooting two white off-duty police officers, brothers Mark and Scott Whitwell. The Whitwell's were in the midst of a traffic-related argument when Tupac and his entourage pulled up.
What happened next remains unclear. The Whitwell's say Tupac fired at them; other witnesses say Mark Whitwell was the first to pull a gun. Tupac contends that he was merely coming to the aid of a black man the Whitwell's were harrassing. Charged with two counts of aggravated assault and released on bail, Tupac and his attorneys maintain he and his associates were acting in self-defense.
On the day of Tupac's hearing, Mark Whitwell was charged with aggravated assault, and the investigating detective admitted the officers' report stated that "niggers came by and did a drive shooting. " The sexual-assault case in New York is more complicated. The details are sketchy (for legal reasons, not much can be said by either side), but according to Tupac and his lawyers, they are these: Tupac and several friends went to the club Nell's on Sunday, November 14, and it was there that he met the 20 -year-old woman who almost immediately "rubbed his sides on the dancefloor. " Shortly thereafter, according to defense eyewitnesses, the young woman then engaged in oral sex with Tupac ("I never got my dick sucked in public. That was a new one for me"), and subsequently went back to Tupac's hotel where they had consensual sex. "She called me every day after and I was scared, 'cuz she was coming on so hard, " says Tupac. "What she said happened did not happen. I never touched her. I feel like somebody's setting me up because I'm Tupac Shakur. My mother was a Panther.
It's based on what they did and what I'm doing. " Throughout his life, Tupac has been struggling to define himself: First as the son of a radical political activist, then as the son of a gangster, then as an outcast in Marin City, and, finally, as a rapper and movie star living the self-described "Thug Life. " Like many young black men, his struggle has been outright rebellion-both internal and external-against a life he sees as stacked against him. I look at Tupac and I see myself, my homeboys, all the brothers I've ever encountered, trying to prove ourselves to the world. But I wonder why Tupac's efforts to validate his existence are so destructive. Over the past several months, as the media reported one violent incident after another, many people asked, "Is Tupac on a self-destructive mission? Does he have a death wish? Is he crazy?" Ultimately, though, those are the easiest questions to ask.
The tougher ones-about race and class in America-no one wants to think about. Back at his home outside Atlanta, a mellow Tupac bites off a sliver of his thumbnail and spits it on the floor. "These are life-moving type things, " he says. "Some days I wake up and it wouldn't take nothin' for me to go, 'POW!' " He points an imaginary gun at his head. "But I wouldn't do that because I don't want no one to think that's the way to go. " Tupac stares across his barely furnished living room. He reaches for his pack of cigarettes, lights one, then sucks in hard. "It was all right with the police thing [in Atlanta], but this rape shit... " He draws in a deep breath. "It kills me. " A pause. "'Cuz it ain't me. " His voice rises and he grows visibly angry. "What was all that 'Keep Ya Head Up, ' 'Brenda's Got a Baby'? What was all that for? To just be charged with rape?" He seems close to tears. "I love black women, " he continues. "It has made me love them more because there are black women who ain't trippin' off this.
But it's made me feel real about what I said in the beginning: There are sisters and there's bitches. " I ask him if he thinks he " ll beat the Atlanta and New York cases. "If they keep doin' me like that in the press, I'ma lose 'cuz the jury gonna believe everything they been reading. If they give me a chance, I'm not just gonna walk to jail. " He sighs. "My spirit would die and that's all I got. I'd be another statistic. " He turns upbeat. A smile creases his face. "I got faith in God.
I don't believe God brought me this far to crucify me like this. I believe he's doin' this just to make me stronger. "What about being more careful?" I ask, and he becomes animated. "Where do I go to stay out of trouble? That's why I came to Atlanta. What do they want me to do? There's not a place called 'Careful. ' I'm accessible, doin's tree rallies, just to let niggas know I'm here.
That's why I'm gettin' into trouble. " He laughs half-heartedly. I ask him about death. "Ever since I was a kid I been dreaming about dying saving somebody. I feel like I'll probably die saving a white kid. " I laugh. "I'm serious!" he yells, his long arms slicing the air to underline his point. "I see me dying... getting shot up for a white kid. In my death, people will understand what I was talking about. That I just wasn't on some black-people-kill-all-the-white-people shit. "
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Research essay sample on Lifestyle Of A Rapper The Life Tupac Shakur
