Latest / DISGRACELAND / Tupac Shakur Pt. 1: 1960s Radicalism Gives Way to Socially Conscious Rap, a Charismatic Screen Star, and Deadly Violence

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Tupac Shakur Pt. 1: 1960s Radicalism Gives Way to Socially Conscious Rap, a Charismatic Screen Star, and Deadly Violence · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Tupac Shakur are insane. He shot two police officers and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: got away with it, settled out of court after a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: six-year-old boy died from a bullet shot from his gun.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: He himself survived two bullets to the head. He famously
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: brawled with the Notorious B.I.G. and partnered with the Notorious
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Blood street gang record label boss Suge Knight. Tupac Shakur
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: repped a new hybrid style of rap that was at
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: once socially conscious and at the same time violent and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: representative of the streets he came up on. Raised by
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: his mother, the former Black Panther and 60s radical. As
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: a boy, he showed natural talent as an actor, attended
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the Baltimore School for the Arts, and later went on
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: to display his immense acting talent and charisma in two
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: critically acclaimed performances in his first two films. And in
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: addition to making great movies, Tupac Amaru Shakur also made
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: great music. That music you heard at the top of
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: loop from my Mellotron called Mellow Street Charisma MK1. I
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: played you that loop because I can't afford the rights
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: to want ads by Honeycomb. And why would I play
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: you that specific slice of deliciously soulful lipstick on the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: collar cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: number one song in America on June 16th, 1971. And
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: that was the day Tupac Shakur came into this life,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: a life he would spend the rest of his short
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: years trying to survive. On this episode, Lipstick Cheese, Radical
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Street Charisma, Too Many Bullets, and Tupac Shakur. I'm Jake Brennan,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and this is Disgraceland. The thing about five-star hotels, this
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: one anyway, was that it was a bitch to get
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: your music to play. She decided against the Bluetooth connection.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: It was taking too long. So she just let the
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: music blast from her iPhone while she got ready. Her
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: 80s hip-hop playlist was blaring N.W.A. 's Fuck the Police.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: She loved this song. How could she not? It reminded
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: her of 92. People thought 2014 was fucked up. Ferguson,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Tamir Rice, I Can't Breathe. 92, Los Angeles, Rodney King,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the riots. It was a mess. The shower in the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: hotel suite blasted, and so did Dre's beat. Her husband
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: would be happy to hear it when he emerged to
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: dry off. He was there back then, in L.A., right
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: in the eye of the hurricane on April 29, 1992.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: It was before he really knew Dre, or should. He
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: was recording in Atwater Village when the news hit. He
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: jumped in his Honda shitbox and raced to South Central.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: She knew this because her husband told this story every
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: chance he got. She didn't fault him for it. She
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: would do the same if she witnessed that kind of history.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: She had her own jaw-dropping stories. It was in part
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: why they worked so well as a team. She came
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: from a totally different background than he, and they both
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: appreciated that about the other. Though it hadn't always been
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: that way. Back in 95, when they first hooked up,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the difference in their backgrounds was what broke them up.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: He was black. She was white. He thought his fans
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: wouldn't accept it. She was too proud to act like
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: she cared. And so they went their separate ways. But
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: both knew that one day they'd link back up. And
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: she was beyond thankful they had. And tonight, she was
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: beyond proud of her husband. He'd earned this. But 92.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: 92 was an entirely different situation. Tupac Shakur looked around. Chaos.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: South Central Los Angeles on fire. He was on the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: corner of Crenshaw and 28th, and the looters were out
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: in full force. He himself had just taken part in
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the looting of Tempo Records. He had filled his arms
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: with CDs and was back at the car, about to
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: dive back in and follow the action wherever it took him.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: But then he was recognized. He would have been lying
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: if he said he was upset when they started asking
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: him for autographs. He wasn't yet the star he'd become,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: but he could feel himself rising in stature in the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: music world, and this confirmed what he had already accepted
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: as fact. that he was the most talented MC working
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: at the time. To be recognized out here, though, among
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: his people, in the middle of what was clearly a
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: monumental historic event, it felt special. It felt almost too perfect.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Even though he wasn't from LA, these felt like his people.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: From that moment on, Tupac Shakur felt an even stronger
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: obligation to complete the path he was on, to continue
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to rise up out of the situation he was born into.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: to make something of himself, and to make damn sure
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: that he survived and delivered on the promises made by
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: his mother back in the more turbulent 1960s. But that
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: was not an easy proposition. Not when he carried the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: baggage Tupac Amaru Shakur did. The baggage of growing fame
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and success. By the time of the riots, Tupac had
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: completed and released his debut solo album, Tupacalypse Now, his
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: first recording since coming up with the Digital Underground with
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a series of featured verses in 91. Tupacalypse Now was
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: typical of any artist's first album. It chronicled where Tupac
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Shakur came from. Tupac had written and rapped about his
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: life as a teenager-slash-young adult in Marin City, California. a
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: neighborhood that consisted largely of other African Americans living in
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: public housing. His mother, Afeni, was back on the East
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Coast battling a serious crack addiction, and Tupac was living
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: with an alcoholic ex-Black Panther friend of the family. Tupac
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: survived Marin City by adapting to the ways of the street,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and this meant standing his ground when challenged physically and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: speaking out against injustices he saw threatening his community. On
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Tupacalypse Now, you can hear the paranoia induced by police
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: brutality on Trapped and the trauma of teen pregnancy on
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Brenda's Got a Baby. Tupac knew his community, and he
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: was an accepted and protected member of that community. They
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: were his, and he was theirs. When he turned 20,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: it was clear that rapping was his main priority.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: It was a.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Vehicle to not only survive the streets, but to escape them.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: When Tupac started giving interviews as an artist, he occasionally
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: spouted off from what was fast becoming known as his
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: legendary big ma. And in doing so, he betrayed the
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: very place that made him, Marin City. In an interview
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: promoting his debut, Tupac referred to Marin City as a
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: quote-unquote jungle. He then went on to gripe about how
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: he wasn't given respect when he was coming up because
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: he didn't have any money or women, but that now
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: that was changing with his growing success. Tupac went on
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: to claim that he'd got love with the kind of
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: love you would give a dog or a neighborhood crack fiend,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: claiming that they only liked him because he was at
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the bottom. When word got back to the hood, Marin
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: City was not pleased. Tupac felt the sting and perhaps
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: some fear. He had to make it right. So it
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: was decided that Tupac Shakur would perform at Marin City's
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: annual street festival for free. A give back to the community.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: He had the best of intentions and then the whole
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: plan went to shit. Get out from under the car
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: with your hands up. Tupac heard the cop barking from
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: three feet away. He lay there on the cement under
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the automobile and clinched his eyes closed, hoping the cop
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: would just go away. Hoping the sirens would stop screaming.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Hoping the echo from the shot would fade from his ears.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I said, get out from under the motherfucking car with
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: your hands up. It was no use. The cop wasn't
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: going anywhere, and Tupac didn't want a chance getting shot himself.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: He crawled out from under the car and onto the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: street with his hands up. A street that had quickly
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: become a crime scene. He could hear the helicopters, but
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: couldn't yet see them. Then, he tasted the blood in
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: his mouth from the police officer's fist. It came out
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: of nowhere, and was much harder than the punch he'd
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: taken minutes before. The punch that set the whole melee off. Tupac,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: like most everyone else in attendance at Marin City's 50th
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: annual community festival on August 22nd, 1992, didn't have any
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: clue what set the whole thing off. It all happened
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: so fast. He and his crew showed up to perform
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: as was the plan, and some neighborhood roughnecks got in
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: his grill for what he didn't really know. And these days,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it was all some version of the same thing. Who
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: the fuck did he think he was? Too good for
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the hood? A jungle? Fuck you, Tupac. We're still living here.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And then someone hit him. Most likely some young blood
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: trying to make a name in the neighborhood. Take a
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: swing at the rap star, prove himself. And then, there
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: was the shot. Tupac knew who fired the shot. It
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: was his gun, after all. He brought it to the festival.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: It was registered in his name. A. 380 Colt automatic handgun. First,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the punch. And then the gun fell out of his hand.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: A bullet blasted off into the crowd. Someone then picked
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: up Tupac's gun and allegedly stabbed him. firing over the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: heads of Tupac's attackers. 100 yards away, six-year-old Kaid Walker-Teal
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: was pedaling by on his bicycle. The bullet from Tupac's
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: gun blasted right through the boy's forehead, killing him instantly. Tupac,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: his half-brother, and some of his crew were arrested in
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: connection with the shooting but quickly let go, and Tupac
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: was free to pursue his career. However, he was later
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: sued by the boy's parents and eventually settled out of court,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: paying out an estimated $ 300, 000 to avoid trial and quite
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: possibly jail, a place Tupac Shakur had spent his earliest
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: days in and a place he would eventually become all
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: too familiar with. Afeni Shakur sat in her jail cell
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: awaiting trial. She was five months pregnant, and she knew
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: in her heart that she would give birth to a
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: black prince. She was given one egg a day and
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a glass of milk for protein, an accommodation made only
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: because she was pregnant. She could smell the grass wafting
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: down the hall from another inmate's cell, and the smell
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: turned her stomach, made it hard to eat, but it
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: brought her back. Back to the Bronx, back to her
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: days in the Disciples. One of the first female street
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: gangs and one of the city's most fearsome. And the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: pot used to soothe her, mellow her out. Along with
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: fellow members of the Disciples, she would hang on the stoop,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: smoke joints, drop acid, and freak out to sly in
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix records. But then Bobby
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Seale came calling, and her whole world changed. Bobby co-founded
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: the Black Panthers, a revolutionary group inspired by Malcolm X's
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: by-any-means-necessary edict and organized to loudly protest the injustices Black
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Americans faced in the 1960s. The Black Panthers demanded total
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: liberation from the oppressive hand of white capitalist America through
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: what they called ultra-democracy, which was basically just a clever
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: way of saying that the Panthers weren't trucking with any
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Jr. peaceful protest jive. They were in
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: it to take what was rightfully theirs, again, by any
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: means necessary. The doctrine Bobby Seale drafted with Panther co-founder
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Huey P. Newton, entitled What We Want Now, laid it
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: out simple. Number one, freedom, the power to determine the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: destiny of the Black community. Two, full employment for their people.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And three, the end to the robbery by the white
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: men of the Black community. Four, decent housing. Five, education
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: that exposes the true nature of, quote-unquote, this decadent American society.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: The sixth point called for the exemption of all Black
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: men from military service, this during the time of the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Vietnam War. Number seven, an immediate end to police brutality
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and murder of Black people. Eight, freedom for all Black
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: men held in federal, state, county, and city prison and jails. Nine,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the calling for Blacks to be tried and judged only
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: by Blacks in court. And finally, the tenth point demanded land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: and peace. All of which sounded better to Afeni than
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: sitting on the stoop smoking grass, listening to Sly Stone,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and showing up at her job as one of the
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: first female postal carriers in Manhattan. So she turned to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the revolutionaries. Violent revolutionary. The Black Panthers were not, by
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: any stretch, part of the peaceful hippy-dippy counterculture of the 1960s.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: They had justifiable beef over real injustices perpetrated upon Black Americans.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: But the violence they perpetrated justified the FBI's categorization of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: them as a domestic terrorist organization. That said, the FBI...
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: went way beyond the long arm of the law in
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: combating the Panthers, and there is a real case to
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: be made that the FBI aided and abetted Chicago PD
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: in the murder of Panther Fred Hampton. The FBI was
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: not averse to exploiting, rat-fucking, and trumping up any and
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: all charges and accusations against the Black Panthers, and there
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: were many. Multiple shootouts with police that ended with dead
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and wounded on both sides. The conviction of Panthers co-founder
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Huey Newton in 1967 for the shooting death of an
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Oakland police officer. The arrest of Bobby Seale as a
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: member of the Chicago 7 for his part in organizing
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: the violent anti-war protests at the 68th Democratic National Convention.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: The Black Panthers were tried for the murder of member
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Alex Rackley and suspected of torturing and murdering Black Panther
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: accountant Betty Van Patter, both for being suspected FBI informants.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: In Los Angeles, the Black Panthers were active participants during
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the violent Watts riots. And as mentioned, in Chicago, police
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: raided the home of Fred Hampton on trumped-up charges that
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: he was stockpiling illegal weaponry. He was mysteriously drugged earlier
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: in the evening before the raid, and then eventually shot
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and killed by police. Hampton's death robbed the Panthers of
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: one of its most charismatic speakers and further radicalized the party.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: In the late 60s, the Black Panthers' violent revolutionary acts,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: however justified they may have been, were so prominent in
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: the eyes of the public that California's Republican governor, Ronald Reagan,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: was able to use the organization as a boogeyman to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: drum up support to pass strict gun control laws in
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: his state. A Republican passing gun control laws. Athene heard
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Bobby Seale laying out his Panther rap on a Manhattan
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: street corner, and she quickly signed on with the group.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Soon after, she hooked up with fellow Panther, Mumba Shakur,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: and they laid next to each other in bed on
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the morning of April.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: 2nd, 1969.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: The raid came quick and from out of nowhere. Five
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: NYPD officers barreled into the living space, guns drawn, screaming
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: for everyone to get on the floor with their hands up.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: The cops were pissed. A few months earlier, their station
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: house was bombed, and then shots were fired on the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: exiting officers. The assailants fled, but left one of their
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: own behind to answer questions, a Black Panther by the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: name of Joan Byrd, a friend of Afini. She was
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: dragged into the station house and beaten senseless by the cops.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Joan Byrd sang, and the cops put a tail on
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: her and her associates. And when they thought there was
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: enough contraband for an arrest, they raided the Panther's home
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: where Afini and Lumumba slept. And they turned up ten guns,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: some brass pipe, the supposed makings of a pipe bomb,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and a book entitled Urban Guerrilla Warfare. Afeni and Lumumba
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Shakur were arrested on charges connected not only to the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: bombing of the Bronx police station house, but also in
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: a larger conspiracy, alleging the Black Panthers planned to bomb
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: other police stations and department stores frequented by white, middle-class shoppers.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Afeni was looking at 312 years in prison if convicted.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Bail was set at 100 grand. Sixty of it was
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: raised by the labor movement who supported the Panthers' cause,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and the rest was provided in real estate collateral put
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: up by her local church. Afeni Shakur was out on bail.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: And during that time, two things happened. One, she got pregnant. Two,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the house of the judge hearing her case was bombed.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Her bail was revoked. Off to jail she went, with
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: a baby in her belly. Surviving the woman's house of
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: detention would not be easy. The conditions were, as Afini
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Shakur argued in her own defense in court, inhuman. Female
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: prisoners were denied toilet paper and hot water and provided
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: with inedible food. But the baby in her belly would
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: help her survive. If it weren't for him, there would
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: be no real food. No one egg a day. No
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: glass of milk. No survival. We'll be right back after
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: this word, word, word. Afeni Shakur was eventually acquitted on
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: all charges connected with the alleged Black Panther bombing of
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the Bronx police station house. After the birth of her son,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Tupac Amuro Shakur, named after an 18th century Peruvian revolutionary,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Afeni's marriage to Lumumba Shakur quickly fell apart. Lumumba learned
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: he was not Tupac's biological father. Fellow Panther, Billy Garland, was.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: But neither man would play a real role in Tupac's life.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Shortly after his birth in June of 1971, he and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: his mother relocated to Baltimore alone. By the time the
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: 1980s rolled around, Baltimore was still the same crime-ridden story
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Afeni had seen in ghettos elsewhere in the country throughout
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: her early adulthood. Gun-saturated streets, collapsing neighborhoods, a sky-high murder rate.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: And now the inner city had the added element of
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the crack epidemic. It wasn't long before Afeni Shakur became
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: addicted to the new drug herself. Tupac made his way
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: through middle school and then his first couple of years
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of high school, and at that time, his mother was
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: fully addicted to crack cocaine. While Tupac was accepted to
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the prestigious Baltimore School for the Arts, his mother could
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: barely hold down a job. Addiction aside, that revolutionary fire
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: still burned in her belly, and much of the family's
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: extended network of support was made up of other former
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: members of the Black Panthers or the Black Liberation Army.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Young Tupac was exposed to the harshness of the streets
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: by day, and the radical liberation ideology of the movement
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: by night. But in between, he excelled at the arts
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: in his new high school. Despite having to be up
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: way too early to make it to school in time,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Tupac was a night owl. More often than not, the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: electricity bill went unpaid and there were no lights in
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the So when the weather wasn't too harsh, Tupac would
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: sit out on the street curb under the streetlights reading
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Malcolm X's autobiography. The book would go on to be
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: as influential on Tupac as anything else in his formative years.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: You can hear that influence all over Pac's debut album,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Tupacalypse Now, an album filled with social commentary from a
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: different kind of street poet, a modern-day Gil Scott Heron
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: with leading man good looks and charisma, and with none
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: of the typical vapid frontman trappings. Tupac was educated not
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: only in the ways of the street, but also in
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the progressive and sometimes radical teachings of the prophets of
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: rage who came before him. On Soulja's story, Tupac reps
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the stand-your-ground edict of the Black Panthers. The lyrics are
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: a dare, a violent escalation of the Panthers and Malcolm
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: X's famous line that it's criminal to teach a man
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: not to defend himself when he's the constant victim of
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: brutal attacks. On the fifth track, I Just Don't Give
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: a Fuck Tupac names his personal inspiration, his mother. His mother, Malcolm,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, they all diagnosed systems of oppression
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and called for an armed and potentially violent response to
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the plague of police brutality. But filtered through the lens
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: of Tupac's own street experience, seeing his mother fall from
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: radical activist to crack addict, these lessons went from rallying
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: cries to visceral, from the gut lyrical declarations not about
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: political principle but about inner rage boiling over her. And
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: that rage was widespread, and Tupac's music connected. One Tupac
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: fan shot a Texas State Trooper to death and cited
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the lyrics to Soulja's story as an inspiration. And on
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the single Trapped, Tupac lays it out bluntly. Released on
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: September 25, 1991, Trapped was the first single from Tupacalypse Now.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: One month later, Oakland, California. Trapped is a hit. Tupac
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Shakur was ahead. He was feeling himself as he crossed
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: 17th and Broadway. He had ignored the do not walk
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: sign and was jaywalking. Two white cops caught the move
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and quickly rolled up on him. The fuck you think
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: it is you're doing? Tupac told me he wasn't doing anything.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: He was just crossing the street. The cops got into
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: it with him. He was jaywalking. Who did he think
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: he was? That sort of thing. Tupac was shocked, angry.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: The cops wanted to see his ID. When they got
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: their hands on it, they ridiculed his name. Black prints
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: my ass more like a clowny cartoon character that fell
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: off some off-brand cereal box. Tupac grew more agitated. He
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: couldn't let the police lights go. He shouted back, Give
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: me my citation and let me on my way. This
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: is jaywalking, not murder. This is Oakland, not South Africa.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Ain't no need for this type of harassment. And that
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: sealed it. Tupac never saw it coming. A hard fist
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: from one of the officers to his face. It knocked
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: him down. and the two cops pounced and rained down punches,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: burying Tupac's face into the pavement. He woke up in
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: cuffs en route to the police station, and he was
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: arrested for resisting arrest. The bust and Tupac's subsequent suit
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: against the Oakland PD for harassment made national news. Tupac
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: was gunning for $ 10 million in damages. He went on
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: television and did an interview on Live from L.A. with
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Tonya Hart. He played the part he had now been
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: cast in by the media and by authorities. He stated that,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: in my album, the number one enemy is the police,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the crooked police officer. His case against the Oakland PD
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: dragged on, and the headlines continued. United States Vice President
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Dan Quayle claimed that Tupac's record should be pulled from
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: stores for inciting violence. Civil rights activist C. Dolores Tucker
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: called out Tupac and other rappers for their lyrics that
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: she claimed were misogynistic, pornographic films. The heat was on,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: both on Tupac Shakur and on the Oakland PD. So eventually,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: a settlement was reached for $ 42, 000. Nearly all of it
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: went to pay Tupac's lawyer. Tupac, in an effort to
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: express the horrific reality young black men were trying to survive,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: became a casualty of that reality. Trapped, detailed police harassment
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: that he himself had never actually experienced. He later said
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: that the details in that song were relayed to him
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: by friends who had gone through those traumatic experiences with
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: crooked cops. The wicked irony was that now, after having
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: shown a light on those injustices, Tupac himself was now
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: experiencing those injustices. And the shitstorm had swirled up, marked
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Tupac with authorities and with the rest of mainstream America
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: as a bad man, a menace, a thug. But the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: hard truth was he had had no criminal record until
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: he had made and released an actual record. The experience
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: changed Tupac. He would never be the same. Janet Jackson
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't going to do the love scene unless Tupac got
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: the AIDS test. It was that simple. Tupac was offended,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: but nonetheless, he was ever the opportunist. I'll get the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: AIDS test, he said, but Janet and I are going
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: to have to fuck for real if I do. John Singleton,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: director of 1993's Poetic Justice, starring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: did not find the comment humorous. Neither did Janet Jackson.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: She'd done a scene earlier with a Tribe Called Quest
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Q-tip and caught a cold from making out with him
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: in front of the cameras. By the time they started
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: filming in 1992, Tupac Shakur's bad boy reputation preceded him.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Janet wasn't down to catch the bug from some street
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: thug thespian starring opposite her. It didn't matter how important
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: the film was or how good-looking or talented he was.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: And by 1992, Tupac Shakur's talent both behind the mic
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: and in front of the camera was as obvious as
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: his good looks. That year, the film Juice put Tupac
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: on Hollywood's radar, with Entertainment Weekly describing his striking performance
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: in the film and Variety describing him as a real find.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: So when NWA's Ice Cube turned down the role of
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Lucky in Poetic Justice, John Singleton could have done worse
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: than his second choice, Tupac Shakur. Opposite Janet Jackson, he
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: dazzled on the screen. The role was the exact opposite
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: of the role of Bishop that he played in Juice,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the hard, psychotic street character. With Poetic Justice's Lucky, Tupac
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: played the lovable romantic lead. He showed range in a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: deep well of acting talent, perhaps even more talent in
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: front of the cameras and behind the mic, and the
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: result was undeniable. Poetic Justice debuted at number one at
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the box office, and even critics mixed on the movie
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: praised Tupac's performance. And with his on-screen success and burgeoning
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: recording career, Tupac Shakur was afforded two things– a bigger
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: platform from which to spout off whatever fresh outrage he'd experienced,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and the burning hot spotlight of celebrity. Tupac Shakur either
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: didn't realize or didn't care that being a celebrity is
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: like being in a secret club. You don't bite the
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: hand that feeds, you don't criticize fellow celebrities, and you
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: certainly don't tear down those who came before you and
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: help pave the way, no matter what your beef is.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: And Tupac had beef. On a press tour for Juice,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: a film directed by Ernest R. Dickerson, Spike Lee's longtime cinematographer,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Tupac blamed Spike Lee for not showing up on set
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: as a failure of solidarity. Okay. He then roped in
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall, claiming they didn't give enough
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: back to the streets. And then, prior to dating Kadada Jones,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Tupac publicly shit-talked her dad, the unfuckwithable icon Quincy Jones,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: saying that all he does is stick his dick in
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: white bitches and make fucked-up kids. This prompted his other daughter,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: 17-year-old Rashida Jones, to write an open letter to The
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Source magazine, calling Tupac ignorant and disrespectful of his own people.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: She wasn't wrong. Word got around. Tupac had no respect.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: He was nothing more than a thug. A thug with
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: a big fucking mouth. To Tupac, he was just speaking
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: his mind. He didn't understand the backlash, the rebuke from
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the Jones family stung. And the sting, the spotlight, the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: feeling of no matter what he said or did, he'd
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: catch shit from someone. His co-stars, his role models, his
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: former neighbors, cops, whoever. It all came to a head
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: on Halloween in 1993. Tupac rolled into the Atlanta hotel
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: parking lot after the show in his BMW 750. The
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: party was about to start. The show he'd just played. Crushed.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Time to celebrate. Weed. Girls. Champagne. Lots of sex. The
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: kind of sex Tupac increasingly got off on. Group sex.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: But there in the parking lot, two white dudes tooling
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: up a black guy, beating on him viciously. Tupac, after
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: wheeling his beamer to a full stop and with a
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: caravan of his crew and touring entourage pulling up behind him,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: jumped out of his car and immediately came to the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: defense of the defenseless black man getting pummeled. The fuck
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: you doing? Knock that shit off. He's one man. One
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: of the white guys immediately pulled a pistol and pointed
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: it straight at Tupac's sternum and barked out a series
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of racist directives informing Tupac to get the fuck out
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: of there and mind his own business. Tupac kept his cool.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: He lifted up his shirt, exposing his abdomen with his
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: new tattoo. It read, Thugla. In old English letters. Black. Bold.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Just like he was. Staring down the white dude's gun,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: he shouted back at them. Thug life, motherfuckers. Go ahead
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: and shoot. The white dude with the gun didn't know
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: what to do. Tupac turned and walked back to his car.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: The beating continued behind him. Tupac reached below the driver's
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: seat and pulled his own gun. He calmly walked to
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the other side of the car, faced the two dudes
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: beating on the black guy, got down on one knee,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: took aim, and fired off three shots. One shot ripped
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: through one dude's abdomen. The other dude caught the second
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: bullet in the ass, and the third shot missed. The
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: black dude took his beating and split. Tupac had stood up.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: fought back against the racism and violence, and he had
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: survived the moment by any means necessary. He didn't know
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: it at the time, but those two white dudes were
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: off-duty cops. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're
• 31:28
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• 31:32
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• 31:40
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• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Rock and roll up. He's a bad, bad man.