Saturday, September 10, 2005

Died a Prophet yet a Slave

It was so frustrating watching Tupac Resurrection for the first time today. As I was listening to his monologue and interviews that were beautifully added to the flick, I always knew he was great at what he was; an entertainer. However, as a fellow Gemini & artist, for the first time I was able to feel his pain and hurt. This brotha was a classically trained artist early on in life yet was well aware that he had so much more to learn. He learned ballet, and musical theatre and things that your average "thug" from the streets would have never embrace in public. He was finally starting to realize that his final deal with the devil was a bad mistake. He was bailed out of jail and owed so much money to Death Row, he was literally a slave. His slave master made sure that his name was bringing DR lots of money, yet like other black entertainers such as Little Richards, Frankie Lymon & TLC he wasn't seeing a dime of the $$$$.

Tupac would have been 34 years old this year. He could have gone back to school, got his degree and have been a multidiscipline art instructor or even a college professor with the wealth of knowledge he possessed. Instead he died a prophet yet a slave at 25 years of age. What a loss to my industry.!

7 comments:

Beatty said...

I'm not big into rap, I have a select few that I like alot and Tupac was my favorite. Good blog.

Anonymous said...

Could you imagine how he would be going off on this situation! My goodness. I also think that he would have mellowed slightly as he got older as we see with a lot of artists similar to him (Chuck D., etc.)

Trina Slade-Burks said...

Oh I know. He would have mellowed but this stuff here would have pissed him off. Kanye would have had nothin' on brotha man.

Unknown said...

I agree with Beatty. This was a great post. A lot of young artists are focused on their craft. They fail to see they are in a business, and they end up in debt, and not owning the rights to theil lyrics. The Beatles fell into this category as well.

Trina Slade-Burks said...

Thank you Stacy:)

Anonymous said...

This is so deep!

Anonymous said...

Hi Diz,

This is 'knadeen' from Jamaica forum. I love Tupac so I couldn't resist commenting on this. I grew up with Tupac, we're a year apart. Like Bob Marley, I believe Tupac was a true artist, and we'll never see one like in for another 100 years. I think the new cats in the rap industry are talented, however, they're not artists. They're great business people who market themselves well. Tupac will live on with us for many years to come just like Bob Marley.