I Just Got Woke. Tupac’s Murder Was No Joke.
At the Annual Whitehouse Correspondents’ Association Dinner in 2011, President Barak Obama sought a small measure of revenge against Donald Trump, who was in the audience. Trump had waged a relentless and ultimately successful “birther” campain to force Obama to produce his birth certificate to prove he was born in the United States. Obama joked that “no one is happier… than ‘the Donald’ to put this birth certificate matter to rest. And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. Like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened at Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”
I thought of that joke as I watched media reports last night about the charging, after 27 years, of Duane “Keefe” Davis” as the “shot-caller” who orchestrated the drive-by shooting of ganster rapper Tupac Shakur and Death Row Records head Suge Knight, both West Coast rap stars embroiled in a violent feud with their East Coast rivals in the ‘90s. The other rap mogul Obama mentioned, Biggie Smalls, was an East Coast guy believed to have been murdered for his supposed killing of Tupac and Suge.
Keefe Davis, police said on the news last night, was the uncle of a kid who got the shit kicked out of him by Tupak and his crew after an altercation in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas right after Mike Tyson knocked out Bruce Seldon in the still-early stage of the first round in their September 1996 heavyweight championship fight. Police said that after that incident, Davis and his nephew pulled up next to Tupak and Suge in their BMW on the Las Vegas Stip. Davis then handed his nephew a gun and gave him the order to shoot them both.
Davis apparently had hinted about what had happened over the years since, and even written a book in which he alluded to it. It became a part of rap lore. It became the butt of a joke by the first and only Black president of the United States. But somehow, the iron-clad identification of the murderers by authorities has brought this tragedy home to me in a profound way. Tupac Shakur, a young Black man of staggering talent and charisma, is dead. Suge Knight survived and is serving a 28-year sentence at the RJ Donovan Correction Facility in San Diego. Biggie Smalls is dead. Thousands of less famous Black guys get shot in the U.S. every year — many of them in gang-related shootings.
For the record, I am in no place, nor do I have any standing, to speak with authority on the subject of rap or hip-hop. I’m just a 72-year-old white Jewish dude who takes a keen interest in our popular culture, music, arts, entertainment and social issues. And in that capacity, I’ve asked myself, how many rap and hip-hop songs do I have in my my iPhone’s music library, songs by both Black men and women singing of blood feuds and drug-dealing and “hos” and bitches earning riches from pedaling raunch? Guilty as charged. A lot.
Have I gotten a cheap thrill or two from watching videos of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion twerking in their lingerie in WAP? Guilty again.
How many times have I laughed at comedies featuring Black actors playing ganstas, waving around Glocks and pointing them sideways at their prey? Yup, I’ve done that a few times, too.
But none of this is a joke. And I ask myself, how long can I keep suspending disbelief that, as cool and catchy and infectious as rap and hip-hop culture clearly is, it carries risks that have been devastating to too many. I understand the appeal and have fallen under its spell myself. It’s given us Hamilton, after all. But it’s also created a lucrative industry that glorifies and promotes extreme violence, excessive materialism, hypersexualization and exploitation of women and poor values.
I wish there were a way to throw the bathwater away and save the baby. But I’m not sure what it would be. I’m reminded of the scene in Boys n the Hood where Furious Styles, the tough-minded father played by Lawrence Fishburne, implores his son Tre, played by Cuba Gooding, to “be responsible” and not get sucked into the gang life of drive-by shootings and prison. “Your my only son,” he tells Tre, “and I’m not gonna lose you to no bullshit, you hear?”
I imagine some universal Furious Styles delivering that message to all sons and daughters, so that they don’t end up like Tupak and Suge and Biggie and so many others. Because that’s no joke.
