Tupac (2Pac) Poetry & His Politics

Pictures taken from the Tupac Peace Garden at the "Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts" located just outside Atlanta, Georgia.

Tupac was very politically conscious at a very young age, which was evident in his lyrics. Did you know he was born in East Harlem, NY & lived in the North East for 17 years before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. There he initially lived with a non-black woman Leila Steinberg (1/4 Turkish, 1/4 Mexican, 2/4 German-Polish) who instigated Tupac's mind by having him read deep books, such as feminist writings, by age 20. According to a Harvard study, Tupac was more well-read, and intellectually well-rounded at that age than the average student in the first year class of most Ivy League institutions. I can attest to this after watching underground home video of a young Tupac (see documentary "Thug Angel").

Leila Steinberg: "From the very first day, he defiantly wanted to use his art for social change. He wanted to be a voice, not a star. So we stayed up probably until three in the morning that very first day that we met, talking about what we found in terms of our visions, for the planet, for people, for healing prejudice, for understanding black struggle, native American struggle, Latin struggle, women struggle, and just our commitment to fight for oppressed people."

Just read the lyrics for a song "Words of Wisdom" released in 1991 on his very first album: "No Malcolm X in my history text. Why is that? Cause he tried to educate and liberate all blacks. Why is Martin Luther King in my book each week? He told blacks, if they get smacked, turn the other cheek."

Text Sources: http://www.hitemup.com/interviews/leilasteinberg.html ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur