Tupac Shakur : Keeping it Real vs Keeping It Right

First of all, I want to salute Prof. Ryan on his exceptional, in-depth article, which examined the two tales of Tupac. Prior to reading this thought-provoking piece, I was not aware of how socially concious Tupac was prior to be incarcerated. Up until this point, I was under the impression that he blinded these two personas (activist and gangster) throughout the course of his career. What I came to know was that he actually morphed into the gangsta rapper, which he's commonly remembered for being today.

The ‘real’ vs ‘right’ argument . . . which is more important?

Clearly, what sets Tupac apart from the vast amount of rappers that have picked up the mic were his "keeping it right" lyrics. Only a few emcees dedicated their careers to making socially-uplifting music, and among them, Tupac was by far the most charismatic. He did it in such a way where he didn't speak down to his listeners, but rather he encouraged them to aspire for goodness, as Prof. Ryan pointed out in the following lyrics to "Keep Ya Head Up":

I think it's time to kill for our women //Time to heal our women, be real to our women.

In all honesty, would we really be disecting Tupac's bars if all he did was "keeping it real", like every other rapper hungry for just a record deal? The answer is absolutely not. Tupac continues to mean something to us because he had the courage and decency to defend black folk, talk heart-to-heart with black folk, and show black folk a better way to live. This type of good can't be transmitted in "keeping it real" lyrics.

How did the media shape Tupac’s legacy?

The media has tried to make us forget all the goodness we cherished so much about Tupac. They have worked night and day to etch in the minds of young people that Tupac was a gangta for life, and that this is what they should strive to immulate. If they could do away with his earlier work, they would, but fortunately that's next to impossible. We shouldn't expect the media to paint a decent picture of our freedom fighter because to them he was a major terrorist. It is up to folks, who truly respect him for his valiant attempts to uplift his people, to keep his real legacy, or rather his right legacy, alive.