WT1- First draft.

Rationale

Tupac Shakur’s life has been full of controversies. He expresses himself and the community as a whole through his music which is written in AAVE hence proving his identity as an African American rapper/artist. Because he expresses his identity through using AAVE words in his music, doing an interview would be best because it will be more interactive and the use of words in AAVE will make the interview authentic and legitimate. The interview will also feature real life words Tupac has used in the past.

The interviewing company will be MTV and therefore the interviewer will be asking Tupac on news heard of him in the general public like gossips, rumors, etc. and will ask him specific questions from a linguistic point of view, talking about his culture and thug life and how it impacted his music. The interviewer will be a black person for the fact that the intimacy between them would encourage Tupac to talk more freely.

 The intended audience for this interview is the young aspiring rapping community trying to gain inspiration from Tupac and wanting to know what he feels about his community and how his experiences and his dialect (AAVE) have helped him create creative rhymes while using meaningful sentences all the time. The purpose is to inform the American community about how Tupac’s dialect, the community he was raised, and the discrimination towards black people influenced his music.

 I aim to bring out how Tupac Shakur’s language and the community that he lived in affected his music and identity. This was a time where the rap music industry was at its peak and there was great competition between rivals from the east and the west coast. Tupac Shakur was the most highly rated rap artist of the time drawing thousands of fans, black and white, eventually increasing the number of enemies in the industry. I also aim to bring the most out of what he speaks like using his dialect, the African American Vernacular English, which he uses to express his feelings of anger, hate, disgust, remorse and faith to the American community; what he thinks about racism, poverty, blacks being the majority in the prisons, ‘thug life’ and his own life experiences. This text will provide insight into many of these aspects but will mainly talk about how Tupac Shakur’s music originated from his dialect and how it had a good effect on the community.  

 

An Interview with Tupac Shakur

We see a lot of ‘changes’ nowadays with technology, music, automobiles and many other fields. But, there is a group of people who believe otherwise, maybe a side we haven’t considered yet. Today on MTV, we have an artist who is in the forefront of this movement. He has inspired the black community with his deep and meaningful music. You know who I am talking about: Please welcome Tupac Shakur!

Interviewer: Welcome to our show Tupac. It’s so exciting to have you here!

Tupac: Hey, what’s happening?

Interviewer: What do you mean, you are! Your music is what is happening in America right now.

Tupac: Thanks. I appreciate it. I dedicate my success to all my homies back in the hood and all my niggas: Snoop, Ray, B.I.G, Suke, and Death Row for bailing me out of jail. Without them, there is no 2Pac, just a plain old nigga in the dark streets of Baltimore; you know what I’m saying.

Interviewer: Certainly; you seem a lot more humble than the last interview you were in….. Why is that? Any specific reason for the change?

Tupac: It’s simple. I’m a man who likes to take the lead and right now I think humble should be the new way of looking attractive, hahaha, I mean it’s like you know one of those things that you gotta do.

Interviewer: Interesting… How was your time in prison? There were rumors spreading around that you were writing a lot of music. How much of that is true?

Tupac: Simply put I was writing nothing there. Trust me, prison does give you time alone, but it kills your drive, it really did kill my music. I don’t know about the others, but you can’t find inspiration in a penitentiary. All you see is your homies suffering for a crime they haven’t committed and that’s what really revs me up. I just recorded a song on racism. It will be out soon… This is gonna blast everyone outta their houses. Damn, it’s gonna be a good one!

Interviewer: Do you mean ‘Changes’? I’ve got a copy right here and the audio recording with the mix.

Tupac: Nah, how did you get that paper? These homies are unpredictable; you know what i’m sayin. It’s like they upto something every single time you turn your back onto them.

I would like to talk to you about this song. It is very interesting. But let’s hear it right now for the first time on MTV.

Come on come on
I see no changes. Wake up in the morning and I ask myself,
"Is life worth living? Should I blast myself?"
I'm tired of bein' poor and even worse I'm black.
My stomach hurts, so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch.
Cops give a damn about a negro? Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he's a hero.
Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares? One less hungry mouth on the welfare.
First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal to brothers.
Give 'em guns, step back, and watch 'em kill each other.
"It's time to fight back", that's what Huey said.
2 shots in the dark now Huey's dead.
I got love for my brother, but we can never go nowhere
unless we share with each other. We gotta start makin' changes.
Learn to see me as a brother 'stead of 2 distant strangers.
And that's how it's supposed to be.
How can the Devil take a brother if he's close to me?
I'd love to go back to when we played as kids
but things changed, and that's the way it is

[Bridge w/ changing ad libs]
Come on come on
That's just the way it is
Things'll never be the same
That's just the way it is
aww yeah
[Repeat]

I see no changes. All I see is racist faces.
Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races we under.
I wonder what it takes to make this one better place...
let's erase the wasted.
Take the evil out the people, they'll be acting right.
'Cause both black and white are smokin' crack tonight.
And only time we chill is when we kill each other.
It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other.
And although it seems heaven sent,
we ain't ready to see a black President, uhh.
It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact...
the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks.
But some things will never change.
Try to show another way, but they stayin' in the dope game.
Now tell me what's a mother to do?
Bein' real don't appeal to the brother in you.
You gotta operate the easy way.
"I made a G today" But you made it in a sleazy way.
Sellin' crack to the kids. "I gotta get paid,"
Well hey, well that's the way it is.

[Bridge]

[Talking:]
We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive.

And still I see no changes. Can't a brother get a little peace?
There's war on the streets and the war in the Middle East.
Instead of war on poverty,
they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me.
And I ain't never did a crime I ain't have to do.
But now I'm back with the facts givin' 'em back to you.
Don't let 'em jack you up, back you up, crack you up and pimp smack you up.
You gotta learn to hold ya own.
They get jealous when they see ya with ya mobile phone.
But tell the cops they can't touch this.
I don't trust this, when they try to rush I bust this.
That's the sound of my tool. You say it ain't cool, but mama didn't raise no fool.
And as long as I stay black, I gotta stay strapped and I never get to lay back.
'Cause I always got to worry 'bout the payback.
Some buck that I roughed up way back... comin' back after all these years.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat. That's the way it is. uhh

Interviewer: Damn! That’s some good rhymes Tupac!

Tupac: Ah thanks, I poured it out from my heart, my soul. This song is for real, it is the real deal. Do you feel that vibe?

Interviewer: I certainly do. Now, let’s talk about the lyrics of this song. How much of this is actually true?

Tupac: It’s all true. Everything I said in that song has been part of some of my life’s episodes. Most people don’t know this, but only the main idea of slavery was abolished. Even in these times where everything is becoming so ‘digitalized’, racism against blacks still exist. I mean tell me this, what’s the ratio of blacks to whites in a prison; might be about 5:1 or something. It’s crazy how black people get randomly convicted for wrong and absurd reasons. I use my language to voice what’s happening out there and my identity as a black person has inspired me to use this language that we have acquired, to its full effectiveness.

Interviewer: Indeed, looking at this song though, one part has really got me thinking. It’s this, ‘You gotta operate the easy way.
"I made a G today" But you made it in a sleazy way.
Sellin' crack to the kids. "I gotta get paid,"
Well hey, well that's the way it is.’

What does this mean?

Tupac: The world out there is dark and cruel and unless we have our unity and unless we don’t get our cultural values back none of us are gonna be left in this world to tell our grandchildren these stories. The fact of the matter is we are living in poor times, the blacks I mean. People are trying to make ends meet and little black kids are getting influenced by drugs, money and violence; you know what I’m saying. A new trend that has popped up is selling drugs to kids. Back in my time, people who helped me were drug dealers, pimps and many other people who are considered to be horrible. They took me in as a real brother and never told me to sell drugs or anything bad.

Interviewer: Then why do you think you see no changes?

Tupac: Hahaha, I think you misinterpreted me. What I meant was there were no changes being seen from the white communities’ attitudes towards blacks. I mean they are trying to keep us oppressed. We all know the blacks will emerge and walk with equal rights as the white man in the years to come.

Interviewer: Tell me more about your life… This is getting interesting. How did your language help you write music? And how did it affect your life.

Tupac: Our language, the English we speak, was made for rap and hip-hop. All those rhymes you can pick up just from everyday sentences. The way we talk also has a rhythm. Our language has also helped me improvise the term ‘nigger’ to ‘nigga’ which now means never ignorant getting goals accomplished. Such is the power of our language, me and my homies use it to educate people, we make them realize.

Interviewer: Any last words to the young aspiring rap community before you leave?

Tupac: Always remember to keep it real. Educate and don’t use rap to promote violence. Peace! You got that?

Audience: Yeah!!