Tupac Amaru Shakur was born on June 16, 1971 in New York and died on September 13, 1996 in Las Vegas. In-between, he represented Oakland, Los Angeles, and young black men (and to a lesser, but still present, extent, women) everywhere.

A lotta heroes came out of the civil rights movement in the ’60s and the period shortly after, when the movement flamed out and was replaced with… something else. The three most significant men for me were Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and Richard Pryor. I love Ali because he showed that you can stand unbowed in the face of racism and let your confidence do the talking for you. I love Malcolm because he showed the importance of being plain spoken, of being a regular guy, but being razor sharp enough to slice strips off anyone who tests you intellectually. I love Pryor because he demonstrated how corny and stupid racism is, how to laugh at it, and when to stop and say, “Y’all probably done forgot about me… but I ain’t gon’ never forget.”

What the three have in common is that each of them pushed back in their own ways. They held out their hand and said, “You don’t get to go past this point.”

Tupac is complicated. He’s contradictory, or inconsistent, maybe. He walked on both sides of the street, so to speak. You can see it in “THUG LIFE,” the word he had tattooed across his belly. For some, it’s an indicator of a fetishized attachment to the darker side of black culture. For others, it’s “The hate you give little infants fucks everyone.” Tupac expanded “nigga” to mean “Never ignorant, getting goals accomplished.” Contradictions that aren’t contradictions, really. People can be a lot of things at once without being inconsistent, I think, and Tupac definitely walks that line.

One vein that runs throughout Tupac’s work is the idea that we didn’t get here by accident. We made this world, or our parents did, and now we have to live in it. And the only way to live in it is to know your worth, be honest with yourself, and make your own way.

I can’t write a eulogy for Tupac. I don’t think I have it in me. But I want to share this video. It’s “I Ain’t Mad At Cha” off that All Eyez On Me album, and it’s my favorite Pac song for a number of reasons.

This is a remix, actually. The album version sounds fuller, obviously isn’t censored, and Tupac’s delivery is different. Faster, more urgent. The drums are more prominent. The last verse is different, too.

It’s sorta funny how the radio edit makes the song more uplifiting. “Motherfucker” to “young brother,” “get fucked down” to “loved down.” Food for thought. I prefer the original, honestly, because the third verse is much better on the album. But it’s a good song.

Tupac is generally referred to as a gangsta rapper, but that’s not right at all. It’s ignorant, it’s too small. It’s not the whole story. The thing about Tupac, the reason why he was a legend before and after he died, is that he rhymed about life. Living it, losing it, everything. And he did it from several different perspectives. He had something for everyone, from the bougiest conscious rap stan to the cat that only likes songs about hoes and Alizé.

“I Ain’t Mad At Cha” is about change, discomfort, and love. Three verses, and each one tackles a different type of change. The first is about a friend going straight, the second about a girl who stands by Tupac’s side, and the third is about Tupac himself.

I think this is my favorite song because it’s so melancholy, but positive. After reminiscing over how him and his boy used to be two niggas of the same kind, quick to holler at a hoochie with the same line, Tupac takes a look at his man’s new life and gives him a regretful blessing. There’s something I like a lot about “And I can’t even trip, ’cause I’m just laughin atcha/ You trying hard to maintain, then go ‘head/ ’cause I ain’t mad at cha.” That thing about “trying hard to maintain” tells me that Tupac knows how hard changing can be, but he respects the effort, even if it isn’t particularly for him at this point.

I get a lot of things out of Tupac. I love that he was able to be not just explicitly pro-black in his music, but commercially successful, too. It’s more rare than I’d like these days. David Banner and 9th Wonder dropped a positive album that hit with a thud and Kanye and Jaÿ-Z nodded in the direction of how screwed up life is on Watch the Throne, but the deepest thing anyone popular’s kicked recently is Kanye on “Hell of A Life”: “Tell me what I gotta do to be that guy/ She said her price’ll go down if she ever fuck a black guy/ Or do anal, or a gangbang, it’s kinda crazy it’s all considered the same thing.”

But here’s Tupac, making bank off painting a picture of the spectrum of black life, of American life. Striking that balance between thug thizzo and Black Power.

A lot of times, even though the idea of the best of all time is a juvenile idea, I feel like Tupac is the GOAT, or at least one of maybe two dudes (Rakim being the other) who deserves that title.

Rest in peace. Thank you.

The Damon Albarn Appreciation Society is a series of twenty focused observations, conversations, and thoughts about music. This is the eighteenth. Spending some time writing about what I don’t like about the political music of dead prez got me thinking about what I do like in terms of political music. One name came to mind almost immediately: Killer Mike.

Minutes from previous meetings of the Society: The Beatles – “Eleanor Rigby”, Tupac – Makaveli, Blur – 13 (with Graeme McMillan), Blur – Think Tank (with Graeme McMillan), Black Thought x Rakim: “Hip-Hop, you the love of my life”, Wu-Tang Clan – Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), On why I buy vinyl sometimes, on songs about places, Mellowhype’s Blackendwhite, a general post on punk, a snapshot of what I’m listening to, on Black Thought blacking out on “75 Bars”, how I got into The Roots, on Betty Wright and strong songs, on screw music, on Goodie MOb’s “The Experience”, on blvck gxds and recurring ideas

If you want my personal gold standard for political rap, it’s gotta be Killer Mike, and more specificaly, his I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind II. “Pressure” is extraordinarily hard and as blatantly political as Mike gets on this album:

Here’s the intro to the album:

This is not your regular rap album. This is meant to be a soundtrack to your success, brother. A soundtrack to your success, sister. This is right now, real-time music, what the fuck is happening. What ain’t happening is the bullshit lies you been going through. What ain’t happening is the bad examples you been following. You see, the Grind believes in you because we know you believe in us, therefore we don’t bullshit you. Nuh-uh. I wanna see whoever’s buying this record win right now and do great things. But the only way you gonna do that is if you get up off your ass and get about the act of doing something. Grind Time Rap Gang, fucker, bang bang bang. You can never lead if you only follow. What I mean is, if you sit around, and you look at people, and you wait for them to give you permission to do something great, you will never do anything, so get up, brothers! Get about your grind! If you have a boss, maybe you should fire your boss. Maybe you should change your life. Your work ethic will determine your worth, meaning whatever you get is determined by how hard you work to get it. You understand what I’m telling you right now? What I’m saying is there’s nothing in the world that can stop you from achieving whatever it is you wanna achieve. And I want you to let I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind Part II be a soundtrack to your success. Until we meet again on that path of getting to the money… it’s Grind Time Rap Gang. Bang. Bang. Bang. C’mon, let’s go!

What I like about Pledge II is that I can hear a lot of Tupac in it. Pac is still probably my favorite rapper, just because he got it so well. He got it better than anybody else. He understood that you can play a role and still kick knowledge. Son didn’t have a criminal record until he rapped about having one. But he still managed to kick rhymes that had everybody relating to him. He was an everyman, in a way. I don’t mean that he was himself just like the rest of us — he clearly wasn’t, for better or worse — but he understood the value of theater and played a lot of roles. He made “Dear Mama” and “Wonda Why They Call U Bitch.” He rapped about living the fast life and being so depressed he wanted to kill himself. He was everyone, and that’s why he clicked so hard. It’s not that he was conscious or a thug or loved his mom or could spin a sex song. It’s that he was all of that in one.

Mike stepped into that role for me. I’ve liked Mike for years, ever since he hit the beat running like Randy Moss on his feature on OutKast’s “The Whole World,” and I love that he’s grown into this quietly revolutionary figure. Pledge II runs a range of subject matter. He pretty much hits every rap cliche but how much he loves his mom, I think. No, that’s not true: “Grandma’s House” counts there. Civic pride (“2 Sides”), fly rides (“Big Money, Big Cars”), drug dealing (“Good-Bye (City of Dope)”), and on and on. He glorifies drug dealing, stripping, big cars, education, looking out for your family, protecting yourself, and self-esteem. He touches on the power, occasional hypocrisy, and shortcomings of religion. He’s running through a wide range of experiences.

But what makes this political for me is that it’s an entire album not about how ill Mike is but how important it is to grind and get your own. It’s about being self-actualized, loyal, honest, and willing to do what you need to do to survive. On a very fundamental level, it’s about loving yourself because society hates your guts. You have to look out for yourself, your family, and your community.

His point of view is pointedly black southern and post-Reagan, too. The mistrust of authority, the matter-of-fact approach to the way crack ravaged the black community, an emphasis on money but a conscious knowledge of the evils that come from chasing it, and black power themes present on the album all scream that at me. Even the Grind Time Rap Gang stuff is part marketing and part motivation. You’ve gotta make money for yourself if you ever want to have anything of your own.

That’s the sort of political music I can get behind. It’s honest, direct, and if it came down to it, you could dance to it. Throw some elbows or groove, whatever you want. Killer Mike has demonstrated growth in his sound, but also in his politics and prejudices. I listen to Mike and I hear somebody who knows the game and is working to both fit in where he can get in and make things better, which sounds like a lot of people I know and look up to.

I go back to this album regularly. It’s motivation music. I went and checked last.fm to see if I could see how often, and came up with this image:

I was actually surprised to see “Grandma’s House” at number one, but I do love that song. (“If she catch me serving hard, it’s gon’ break my nana’s heart, so I take them bricks, I cut ’em quick and hit the boulevard,” whooo) I figured that “Pressure” would be number one, but I’m okay with this result. It’s a powerful album, and there’s something that I can take away from every song. It’s intensely political without being in the dead prez or Immortal Technique vein of things. Mike is just talking about what he believes and what he knows. It’s real life rap, like Tupac used to kick, and I appreciate that. I feel like if I can’t apply your revolutionary or progressive or conservative or whichever philosophy to my real life, then it’s worthless. It’s not even hot air, because hot air actually has a use. Theory doesn’t do me any good.

“Burn” is a joint off Killer Mike’s Pl3dge. It’s sort of a sequel to “Pressure,” like how “Pressure” was sort of a sequel to “Bad Day/Worst Day.” If I had to use a song to pin down how I feel about a lot of stuff going down in America over the past few years… it’d probably be this joint.

The Damon Albarn Appreciation Society is an ongoing series of observations, conversations, and thoughts about music. Here’s the second:

Let’s talk about The 7 Day Theory, even though everyone just calls it Makaveli. It’s twelve tracks long, just shy of a full hour, and his best record.

1) “Intro/Bomb First (My Second Reply)” – I learned recently that Tupac would record his vocals three times and layer all of those on the track. This was so that if he missed a word in one take, he’d probably get it on the second, and maybe do it better on the third. I don’t know the term for this (“wall of sound”?), but it makes Makaveli sound very full and very, very messy. It’s overflowing with Tupac, basically. You can sometimes hear the differing takes floating below the final track, like ghosts.

You can even hear it on this intro. The church bells, the news report, heartbeat, and the dense background noise all stack up. It’s intense, and what really blows my mind is the transition from introduction to the actual song around 1:20. Everything builds to a crescendo before dropping out in favor of the church bells, and then the song comes in. The heartbeat becomes part of the beat, becoming a more traditional drumbeat, and then a gunshot heralds the arrival of Makaveli the Don. Tupac’s flow is fast, but he puts so much emphasis on every word that you can’t help but keep up.

2) “Hail Mary” – The church bells make a return, providing continuity between “Bomb First” and “Hail Mary.” This time, they stick around, and are accompanied by light keys.

There aren’t many rap songs with a better first two bars than “Hail Mary.” “I ain’t a killer but don’t push me/ Revenge is like the sweetest joy next to gettin pussy” is top 5 dead or alive material, and when you consider that “Hail Mary” is about being damned, it takes on new meaning. This isn’t about killing your enemies and glorying in your victory. It’s about being hopeless because you stepped on a path and you couldn’t get off it if you tried. It’s not a prayer so much as a confessional, and the lines between traditional Catholicism and the black family twist and blur over the course of Tupac’s verses.

When he says, “Institutionalized, I lived my life a product made to crumble/ But too hardened for a smile, we’re too crazy to be humble, we balling” he’s talking about how playing a role can remove you from happiness. It’s the price of fame–you get what you want, but you can’t even enjoy it. You revel in it, and you ball out of control, but you can’t smile any more.

The Outlawz go in on this, but Young Noble almost steals the song. “Peep the whole scene and whatever’s goin on around me/ Brain kinda cloudy, smoked out feelin rowdy/ Ready to wet the party up, and whoever in that motherfucker” The flow is on point, and he’s just the personification of what Tupac is talking about. He’s lost and he knows it.

3) “Toss it Up” – Tupac took a sex song that was intended for a K-Ci & Jojo album, added another verse dissing Dr. Dre and an outro manhandling Puffy, and put it on Makaveli. That same trio had rocked “How Do U Want It” earlier, and what’s funny is that he did the same thing there. He dissed Bob Dole and C Delores Tucker in verse two and talked about his demons in verse three, and bam, out.

But really, that was Tupac. He could spit something grimy over a smooth beat, and it would all work. Something for the thugs and something for the ladies, all in one song. It shouldn’t work, but it’s that “understandable smooth shit that murderers move with.” You want to know where 50 and Ja Rule got their style from? This song right here.

4) “To Live & Die in L.A.” – This is one of four love songs on Makaveli, and the first of two dedicated to inanimate objects. But really, “To Live & Die In LA” is like Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince’s “Summertime.” It’s just a smooth joint you put on at a cookout or when chilling and reminisce. It’s about belonging somewhere, loving your people, and repping for your home.

What I like is that Tupac isn’t even from LA. He was born in Harlem, lived in Baltimore, moved to Marin City as a kid, repped the Bay Area for years, and then he made his way south as an adult. LA is his adopted home, but it’s clear he loves it anyway. That’s a good feeling, I think.

5) “Blasphemy” – There are a lot of references to God and religion throughout this album, from the provocative cover art down to “Hail Mary” and “Blasphemy.” It’s usually pitched from a position of mistrust or confusion. He constantly blurs the line between God and a father, absentee or present, and rather than being a comfort, religion is something that’s unknowable and scary.

Tupac often dealt with fatalist themes, and this song just might be the peak of it. If you turn this one up, you can hear Tupac harmonizing in the background, just below the bass. It sounds sad,

6) “Life of an Outlaw” – “The shit you heard ain’t do me justice–got a death wish, bitch!”

The reason why Tupac clicked with so many people probably comes down to a few things. He wasn’t the most lyrical rapper, and Biggie definitely wins on that front, but Tupac was a guy who used charisma, rhythm, and emotion to pull you in. Tupac understood the importance of playing a role and acting in rap music. He could mix something deeply personal with something that was straight up false, and it would still come off true.

It wasn’t about faking, or exploiting a lifestyle you didn’t belong to. It was more like he wanted to represent every aspect of black culture so that he could reach as many people as possible. So he had the songs dedicated to death obsession, screwing women, loving women, guns, and black power. He talked about pain and fame in equal parts, and it worked. Everybody loved him, “from the hood to the burbs.” Tupac, to an extent more than probably any other rapper, represented us. He ran up and down the spectrum of black experiences in his songs, and he did it in a way that everybody kept the volume knob turned all the way up.

7) “Just Like Daddy” – Love song number two, and the only one that’s just a straight up traditional joint. This is Tupac and the Outlawz in a “Dear Mama” mode. It’s sweet and protective, but also apologetic. There’s this strain of guilt that runs through Tupac’s library, and it tends to go hand-in-hand with loyalty.

It’s about sticking by your people, especially through the rough times. It’s about knowing better, but falling short, and getting another chance to do things right. Tupac’s verse is about a woman sticking by her man while he’s in jail and him promising to stick by her.

The sweetness is all in the chorus. Do people still call into radio shows to dedicate songs to their girls? This is more “Summertime” music.

8) “Krazy” – One of the illest, and most true, lines on 36 Chambers came from Deck on “CREAM.” “Though I don’t know why I chose to smoke sess/ I guess that’s the time when I’m not depressed/ But I’m still depressed, and I ask what’s it worth?/ Ready to give up so I seek the Old Earth/ Who explained working hard may help you maintain/ to learn to overcome the heartaches and pain.”

It’s a verse that I think represents a lot of what I feel like it’s like to be black in America. Tupac’s “Krazy,” then, takes those six bars and blows them out into a full-blown song. Every single line is rings true, from trying to escape from real life with drugs or drink, trying to do right by your mom, and, no matter what, feeling like you don’t belong. Bad Azz drops the best verse of his career…

“Krazy” is one of the most melancholy songs I know. It’s just about getting by. Life goes on.

9) “White Man’z World” – Love song number three, this time to his people.

On “Bomb First,” Tupac talks about how he’s down to “murder motherfuckers lyrically, and I’m not gon’ cry.” When he’s talking about love, black people, or his family, he cries. He says, “Dear sister, got me twisted up in prison, I miss ya/ Cryin lookin at my niece’s and my newphew’s picture.” On “Krazy,” he mentions crying for weeks after getting a letter from his sister Sekyiwa.

Crying doesn’t really fit the media narrative of Tupac. You’d think he was Alpha Male Plus if you judged him by the papers. To them, he was the guy who came through and wrecked New York nearly singlehandedly, in between preying on women and running wild in the streets. But no, that really wasn’t it. This song alone puts the lie to it. Tupac was raised by Black Panthers. He knows what he’s talking about, and there’s been a strong pro-Black theme running through most of his albums.

This is another one of those songs that’s both universal and personal. That second verse is lethal.

“Proud to be black, but why we act like we don’t love ourselves?/ Don’t look around busta (you sucka) check yourselves!/ Know what it means to be black, whether a man or girl/ We still struggling, in this white man’s world.”

10) “Me and My Girlfriend” – Love song number four, this time to his pistol.

This one is just an eternal banger, from Lady of Rage to the hook to the concept.

This is where the layered vocals come back in a big way. If you turn this one up loud with some good earphones, you can hear the vocal tracks slipping and sliding up against each other, particularly on the chorus. You can hear these alternate Tupacs behind every line, sometimes synchronized, sometimes off just a little bit, and sometimes just emphasizing a single word.

It makes “Me and My Girlfriend” sound like a ghost story, like Tupac is haunting his own song. It makes a song that’s just dope into something that’s real, real creepy. There’s a reverb (or reverse?) effect around some of the lines and chorus, too, which only adds to the effect. Tupac’s earnest personification of the gun as the only girl he loves and the implications of the hold it has over him is powerful stuff.

What’s more is the fact that, alongside guilt, the idea of being trapped is something that has been deep inside Tupac’s lyrics, ever since the beginning.

11) “Hold Ya Head” – This pro-black joint is like “Krazy,” but even more obvious in its meaning. It’s also another price of fame song, as Tupac relates how going hard at all times and making money cost him friends and happiness. He knows that people would lock him up forever if they could, but he also knows that he couldn’t stop if he wanted to.

It’s as much an encouragement and advice to others as a message to himself. His advice at the end, about how no matter how hard it gets, you need to do whatever you need to do to hold your head, are all things he did himself.

12) “Against All Odds” – “Hit ‘Em Up” was nice, but “Against All Odds” is the nail in the coffin. Mobb Deep, Jay-Z, and everyone else are treated as less than potholes in Tupac’s path in “Against All Odds”. He’s left the buckshot blast of hate that was “Hit ‘Em Up” behind in favor of something new: “Plan, plot, strategize, and bomb first.” It’s an updating of his THUG LIFE (The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody) and NIGGA (Never Ignorant, Getting Goals Accomplished) credos. You think it through first, and then you destroy whatever stands in your way.

This song puts every major figure in New York on blast in a such an amazing way that its only competition is “Ether” or “Takeover”, and those are a distant, distant second and third. This is just a straight up, no frills diss song–“this is why you’re wack.” He calls Nas out on biting Rakim’s style before dissing and dismissing Mobb Deep in two lines. He creates what is hands down the best line in a diss song ever when he says that De La Soul is “looking like Larry Holmes, flabby and sick.”

Makaveli began with church bells and ends with the sounds of war. There’s something meaningful lurking behind that, isn’t there? I don’t know.

Today’s Tupac Shakur‘s birthday. I was, and remain, a huge fan of him and his music. He definitely had an effect on me growing up, both in musical content, personal philosophy, and even just how he carried himself.

He was killed in Las Vegas on 09/13/96. From 1998 to 2006, I made it a point to skip school on that day. I’m a little older now, though, and I think I’d rather celebrate his life than his death. RIP.