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Thursday, October 25, 2012

Tupac Shakur

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/14/arts/tupac-shakur-25-rap-performer-who-personified-violence-dies.html

This is an article written by Jon Pareles of The New York Times the day after Tupac Shakur's death. Pareles believed Tupac personified violence until his death on September 13, 1996. He claims that Tupac was a “contradictory figure, with a career featuring million-selling albums, gunshot wounds, and run-ins with the police”. Pareles uses Tupac's lyrics, quotes and history to build on an argument that he was a man that tried to exemplify both the positives and negatives of his “gangster” life.

Jon Pareles is totally unbiased as he makes his point that Tupac “glamorized the life of a 'player'” and how he “portrayed portrayed the gangster life as a desperate, self-destructuve existence of fear and sudden death”. I totally agree with these stements because when listening to his music you don't just get the feel that Tupac is only embracing the life that he lives but also trying to get away from the life in other songs.

I think the most important part of this article is when he quoted Tupac saying “children should be told that 'because I'm talking about it doesn't mean it's O.K.'”. I think that this is a strong message from Tupac and by the author for mentioning it. Tupac have been the personification of violence but the children or anyone listening to his music do not have to act on his music. But the worse part of this is that some people do act on his music that he might not have wanted to be known for. Some people forget that he was “this wonderful, charming, bright, talented, funny person that no one is going to get to know; they are just going to know this side”.



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