This past week would have been Tupac's 39th birthday. I always felt like the biggest issue with 2pac's songs is that he wasn't really particularly grounded; while Biggie dealt with the day-to-day indignities of his own life, Pac tried to address the broader problems of the country and the world. Biggie was successful at being intimate, and his personal became political. But 2pac was uninterested in shades of gray, and his universal themes tended toward the maudlin.
BUT, like the best heavy metal, the more ridiculous, the more accidentally insightful. In his Thugz Mansion, he describes a glorious afterlife for gangstas, and honestly, it's how I'd like to end up. Nas' involvement on the song seems kismetic (YUP, KISMETIC), since his weaknesses tend to manifest themselves somewhat like 2pac's (though I think he's stronger overall).
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Ok, so I am reading Walden, which is great if often a little preachy. Thoreau has reminded me many times of Tupac: "No man alive has ever witnessed struggles I've survived."
I think it's probably a safe bet that, no matter how long I live, I will never understand the cult of Tupac Shakur.
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