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Book Review: Only God Can Judge Me · Hip-Hop Now Podcast

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  Speaker 1: Coming up on this week's episode of Hip Hop Now podcast,
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  Speaker 1: It's a book review, Tupo, Let's get it. Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: This is a bonus episode, so first and foremost salutations.
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  Speaker 1: those good things. But most importantly, shared with people you
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  Speaker 1: the business. You saw the cover, you saw the title
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  Speaker 1: of everything we're here to talk about. We don't do
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  Speaker 1: this that often, and this was supposed to go down
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  Speaker 1: another way, but it's going to go down this way. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: It is a book review of the brand new book
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  Speaker 1: just released by Jeff Pearlman. Only God can judge me
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  Speaker 1: making the many lives of Tupac's shakoor right new book. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I know you might say to yourself again, another pot book.
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  Speaker 1: Come on, what are we doing? Well, we are being
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  Speaker 1: fair and square. So let me tell you the gist
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  Speaker 1: of how this book review came about and obviously give
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  Speaker 1: you my review of the book. The author, Jeff Pearlman,
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  Speaker 1: reached out to me via social media and was like,
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  Speaker 1: I think you would dig this book, right. So we
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  Speaker 1: went a little back and forth between you know, getting
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  Speaker 1: the advance copy and all that good stuff, but he
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  Speaker 1: looked out so I read it and here we are right.
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  Speaker 1: So I do appreciate that when it comes to authors, right,
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  Speaker 1: because I feel like, along with all the music that
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  Speaker 1: we consume and articles and videos about hip hop this
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  Speaker 1: game in general, we need to read, y'all. Reading is
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  Speaker 1: not the same as watching a video about somebody talking
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  Speaker 1: about a book, right. Reading is a very deep, intimate
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  Speaker 1: experience like you experienced when you got the headphones on
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  Speaker 1: and you zone and out listening to some Tupac you
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  Speaker 1: know as a big fan. Now really quick, you know
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  Speaker 1: there is some quote unquote controversy around this book, because
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  Speaker 1: it was one of the questions I had first when
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  Speaker 1: I did a little research when he reached out to me.
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  Speaker 1: What makes a author, best selling author who was primarily
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  Speaker 1: written about sports now want to write about hip hop
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  Speaker 1: and Tupac in particular. That probably was my biggest question,
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  Speaker 1: like where's the interest? Because there's a lot in this
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  Speaker 1: book that is really good, and then there's some things
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  Speaker 1: that you know, I can see upset and fans, And
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  Speaker 1: I think the title of the book is fitting for
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  Speaker 1: a number of reasons. We know only God can judge
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  Speaker 1: me as the Tupac song kind of like Tupac's mantra.
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  Speaker 1: But also when you're writing about someone, a biography about
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  Speaker 1: someone who's not here to say that's true or that's
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  Speaker 1: not true or whatever, or defend themselves if they had
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  Speaker 1: to defend themselves, or even not necessarily authorized, but co
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  Speaker 1: sign in some cases or whatever it may be. We
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  Speaker 1: know that doesn't mean certain things are true versus certain
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  Speaker 1: things not being true. We can really only deal with
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  Speaker 1: what we have. And again, Tupac is not here. And
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  Speaker 1: that's not to say that if Tupac refuted something in here,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't mean it didn't happen. But it helps to
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  Speaker 1: have the person around to cosign that. But when you
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  Speaker 1: don't have the person around to do a biography and
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  Speaker 1: talk to them and question them, what you do is
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  Speaker 1: you do a series of interviews. From what I understand,
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Pearlman did an insane amount of interviews. And it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't just you know, oh, let me ask the dude.
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  Speaker 1: Let me ask the mailman if you liked Tupac. And
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  Speaker 1: you know what story can he tell me? Now? It's family.
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  Speaker 1: He got a ton of you know, we got a
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  Speaker 1: ton from people who are very close who seldomly talk
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  Speaker 1: about Tupac. So again, I'm not trying to prove an
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  Speaker 1: any of the information correct or incorrect, or even the
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  Speaker 1: motivations of the author. I'm just saying these are the questions, right,
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  Speaker 1: and they have the questions I had going into the book,
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  Speaker 1: especially about an author who's written mostly about sports. I'm
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  Speaker 1: a big sports fan, so I have heard of him.
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  Speaker 1: I haven't read any of his books, but that's not
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  Speaker 1: because of interest. That's just because I don't read a
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  Speaker 1: lot of books to begin with. I kind of read
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  Speaker 1: the books that I'm most interested in. But that aside
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  Speaker 1: two of the things that you've probably seen on social
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  Speaker 1: media on the internet hip hop sites that reported it
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  Speaker 1: because they read the book. There are two things that
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  Speaker 1: are like standouts, and one of them, even though I
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  Speaker 1: knew going into the book about it, the introduction to
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  Speaker 1: this book is fantastic right now. You may have seen
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  Speaker 1: and heard about them, basically finding Brenda's baby from the
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  Speaker 1: song Brenda's Got a Baby, you know, And the short
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  Speaker 1: form part of that story is Tupac read about this
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  Speaker 1: real life story in the paper and wrote a song
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  Speaker 1: about it. But Jeff Perlman and a couple of people
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  Speaker 1: you know who he knows found the actual baby, who
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  Speaker 1: is not a baby anymore obviously, and I think he's
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  Speaker 1: done some interviews and stuff like that. But what was
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  Speaker 1: compelling about it from an introduction standpoint was the fact
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  Speaker 1: that I never thought to want to know much or
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  Speaker 1: the intimate details about what happened. But knowing that that
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  Speaker 1: song was one of the things that captured my attention
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  Speaker 1: as a fan of hip hop back in the days
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  Speaker 1: and Tupac, And when I read this introduction, which gives
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  Speaker 1: you full details on what occurred in real life, and
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  Speaker 1: then you look at how Tupac interpreted that story. And
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  Speaker 1: her name isn't Brenda, by the way, but he's telling
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  Speaker 1: the story about a real story. It just was so
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  Speaker 1: dope to read something about a hip hop classic record
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  Speaker 1: that I've admired for decades, You know what I'm saying.
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  Speaker 1: I never really asked to like, oh, where bring the
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  Speaker 1: baby at? I didn't know what happened. I didn't know
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  Speaker 1: if the baby was alive or not. So that's one
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  Speaker 1: of the things I like about the introduction to this book,
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  Speaker 1: because it hooked me in as a hip hop fan,
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  Speaker 1: as a fan of artists, even as a fan of journalism. Right,
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  Speaker 1: some great journalism to do that also. But the other
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  Speaker 1: thing in the book, and I'll give my overall review
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  Speaker 1: of the book, but the other standout thing that you
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  Speaker 1: may or may not have seen in the book that
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  Speaker 1: some people are talking about. Some people hate the fact
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  Speaker 1: that it's out there, or don't believe it, even though
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  Speaker 1: you know, to his journalistic credit, you know, this isn't
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  Speaker 1: a story being made up out of thin air. This
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  Speaker 1: is coming from people very close to the situation. But
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  Speaker 1: Tupac in high school, he went to a performance arts
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  Speaker 1: high school in Baltimore, and if you know any performance
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  Speaker 1: of arts high school, including the one in New York,
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  Speaker 1: that they're real expressive and artsy, and from from people
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  Speaker 1: who I've known who have told me, I don't know
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  Speaker 1: first and I don't know, you know, they they're so
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  Speaker 1: expressive that they start, you know, sometimes they are all
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  Speaker 1: touching each other and maybe it's maybe it's not sexual touching.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it is in some cases and others is just
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  Speaker 1: who they are. I think that's fine. That's what y'all do,
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  Speaker 1: and that's cool, you know, because I'm not going to
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  Speaker 1: say we ain't get great artists out of those environments
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  Speaker 1: or whatever. But they said in the book that Tupac
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  Speaker 1: was dressing weird in some cases, expressing expressing himself in
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  Speaker 1: a way that some people wouldn't find to be very
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  Speaker 1: masculine the way they know Tupac right, So of course
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  Speaker 1: that sets some people off. But also kissing a boy
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  Speaker 1: on a dare, right, and Uh, I guess the guy
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  Speaker 1: who he kissed was also interviewed and UH basically was
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  Speaker 1: saying like it wasn't like no passionate kiss. But then
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  Speaker 1: he kind of goes on to say how he feelt
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  Speaker 1: like they had a connection. But again when I said
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  Speaker 1: about perception from UH, you know, multiple people different stories
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  Speaker 1: in this. In this instance, like we don't get to
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  Speaker 1: hear Tupac say, yo, we was we was wild right,
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  Speaker 1: or yo, that didn't happen, or it was just a
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  Speaker 1: dare and we were drunk, it was nothing more than that.
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  Speaker 1: We don't have poc to say that. And this guy's
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  Speaker 1: kind of given his interpretation of the situation. Now hip
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  Speaker 1: hop is homophobic. I did a whole podcast on it.
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  Speaker 1: It just is right. So whether this is true, whether
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  Speaker 1: that guy's instincts when it came to him and Pok
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  Speaker 1: in high school were there, whether people who knew him
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  Speaker 1: wanted to categorize him as heterosexual will also bisexual. We
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  Speaker 1: don't know anybody who knows. They know right, without a
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  Speaker 1: doubt they would know. So my opinion on it, who cares? Honestly?
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  Speaker 1: Who cares? I don't I think again, Pok's not here
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  Speaker 1: to refute anything. And at the same time, there's parts
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  Speaker 1: of me that believes some of it because of the
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  Speaker 1: fact I know people who've gone to you know, art
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  Speaker 1: design type high schools and say that some not all,
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  Speaker 1: some people are just like that because it's just, you know,
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  Speaker 1: they all expressive and everything is an extension of their expression.
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  Speaker 1: So do with that what you will. But I will
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  Speaker 1: say this about book. I liked the book. I feel
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  Speaker 1: like what I got from it was a deeper connection
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  Speaker 1: to Tupac. Now. I know you may say, well, how
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  Speaker 1: much connection you need. Tupac wasn't absolutely shy about his
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  Speaker 1: life and his feelings and his motivations, and that is true.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like I know Tupac strictly through his music,
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  Speaker 1: but also through various interviews he's done across the years,
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  Speaker 1: even an exhibit that I visited in LA about two
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  Speaker 1: years ago about Tupac which did which taught me a
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  Speaker 1: lot more about him on a deeper level, just based
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  Speaker 1: off of what was there, from his Rohm books to
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  Speaker 1: the write ups about his mother and the Black Panthers
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  Speaker 1: and being pregnant with Pac all the way through to
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  Speaker 1: his untimely death. Right. So, I feel like I know Tupac,
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  Speaker 1: but I think the amount of interviews in journalism as
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  Speaker 1: far as like what Jeff Pearlman was able to get
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  Speaker 1: from these interviews and present, I feel like you learn
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  Speaker 1: a little bit more about pop. Now, I will say this,
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  Speaker 1: if you've read a million Tupac books, you probably have
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  Speaker 1: a different perception of what's here. That's because, honestly, that's
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  Speaker 1: what is going to come down to. I have not
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  Speaker 1: This is the only Tupac biography I've ever read, and
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  Speaker 1: I don't read many, and that's that's why I write,
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  Speaker 1: because I always I'm one of those people. I'm like,
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  Speaker 1: I listen to the music watch interviews. Now that I
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  Speaker 1: went to an exhibit, I know Pac, but there's always
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  Speaker 1: a layer that's much deeper that you don't know. And lastly,
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  Speaker 1: I'll say this just about the start of the book, right,
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  Speaker 1: So the introduction did a lot to get me into
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  Speaker 1: the book, but it was about Tupac, but it wasn't right.
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  Speaker 1: But it had me interesting just because of the connection
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  Speaker 1: with that record. But having the first couple of chapters
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  Speaker 1: dig deeply into the life of a Phoenie Shakur, Tupac's mother,
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  Speaker 1: I thought was excellent, mainly because what I've known about
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  Speaker 1: a Phoenix Shakur is always mother was a black panther,
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  Speaker 1: as father was a black panther, and you know, at
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  Speaker 1: some point she was on drugs, and like I know,
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  Speaker 1: again through the music, through the stories of Tupac, I
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  Speaker 1: felt like I knew a Phoenix Chakor. But this brought
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  Speaker 1: me down to a ground level of knowing her in
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  Speaker 1: a way that's relatable. And I'm not saying that to
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  Speaker 1: say like, oh, yeah, you know, my mother did the
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  Speaker 1: same thing she did not, But there are stories like
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  Speaker 1: that in the neighborhood that we can relate to, whether
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  Speaker 1: it's a relative or whether it's somebody else's parent or
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  Speaker 1: mother or whatever. And you see the struggle and seeing
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  Speaker 1: a Phoenix Chakor struggle early on, but also fight and
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  Speaker 1: sort of have a reputation for fighting for the rights,
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  Speaker 1: fighting for civil rights of black people, even defending herself
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  Speaker 1: in court. You see where Tupac gets his spirit from.
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  Speaker 1: We've heard about it, but I think the detail here,
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  Speaker 1: at least for me, was a nice setup getting into
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  Speaker 1: who Tupac was. It was a perfect setup. So what
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  Speaker 1: I'll say to you is, if you feel like you
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  Speaker 1: know everything about Tupac. You've read all the books, watch
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  Speaker 1: all the vido documentaries, got all the albums, listen to whatever.
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  Speaker 1: This book might not even move you, right if you
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  Speaker 1: have a basic knowledge of Tupac. I feel like it's
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  Speaker 1: a decent starter for somebody who maybe you didn't get
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  Speaker 1: into the music, but maybe this will help you. And
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  Speaker 1: for anybody who's never been interested in Tupac. Why are
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  Speaker 1: you watching this video anyway? You know what I'm saying.
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  Speaker 1: So there you have it. That's my review on Jeff
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  Speaker 1: Pearlman's Only God can judge me the Many Lives of
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  Speaker 1: Tupac's Kor Do you have the book? Do you plan
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  Speaker 1: to read the book? Yes? Or no? Leave your comments
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  Speaker 1: in a comments section below and let me know why.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not about arguing with anybody, but I am interested
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  Speaker 1: in knowing those who are interested in the book versus
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  Speaker 1: those who will not read it, because that's been going around.
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  Speaker 1: Also tell me why subscribe to the channel twenty five
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  Speaker 1: go right back into the show until next time, y'all.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not a critic, I'm a fan base.