Understanding hip-hop is more than listening to the music.
I was riding back from a meet-up last night in Acapulco as someone said "it's time for Tupac" and started blasting that Thug Life music. Then I could feel a negative connotation in regards to Thug Life about to come up in conversation. That's when it occurred to me that no one in the van realized that T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. is actually an acronym that stands for something much greater than what appears on the surface of the name.
Like most of Tupac's work, the term thug life is used to mislead the causal listener into thinking the meaning behind it is something other than what it is (usually the more obvious version that appears on the surface of the words). This is a loose way of using Fulcanelli's Phonetic Cabala, (also known as the green language of light and the language of the birds, which i will explain further in a future post), to steer away non-conscious readers from learning the secret messages read in between the lines of the lyrics. This is so that the information reveals something deeper for ONLY those that care enough to take the time and energy to understand it, or are even capable of understanding it.
T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. - stands for THE HATE WE GIVE LITTLE INFANTS FUCKS EVERYONE
Now if you were previously unaware of this, you can now see the importance of this message and how it relates to improving the human condition of interaction between people. If we show our youth the aspects and importance of love, they will hold a much greater capacity for love throughout their lives. But all the negativity and hate that is experienced by a lot of our youth in this world is creating a complex of negative trends and emotions that they will carry with them as they grow. This is also true for the strong ones, but those youths will rise above it and become a force of change so the cycle does not repeat. Tupac Shakur was one of those strong youths.
I could go into detail about lyrics in several of his songs that have a greater underlying meaning, but for the purposes of this article, i will focus on the next song that came on in the van during last night's discussion, Brenda's Got a Baby, off of Tupac's 1991 debut album 2Pacalypse Now. ::click play below for video::
This particular track is more strait forward and less cryptic, and for a good reason. Tupac wrote this song because of a newspaper article he read about the situation eventually described in the song. He said that the story was originally a fairly big article, but day by day, he would watch that story get smaller and smaller in the newspaper. He said this is due to people not "giving a fuck" about important issues like this because it doesn't affect their lives directly, when in reality it does. Tupac wanted to make sure that Brenda's TRUE story was brought to light in a greater way to make everyone recognize the importance of not ignoring these kind of situations because the consequences are catastrophic for the individual and the family. Brenda needed help, and she didn't get it from the father, her family, or her community. Only Tupac decided to act, but by then it was too late for Brenda. Tupac was even asked to leave this track off of his first album by his record label at the time Interscope Records, due to it being a "marketing nightmare". Tupac refused to release the album without it, so Interscope decided to allow the track to be published on the album.
The song describes how Brenda was molested by her cousin at 12 years old, which resulted in her pregnancy. She did everything she could to hide her pregnancy from her parents, but eventually had the baby by herself on a bathroom floor. Scared and alone, she placed her baby in a dumpster, but as she tried to walk away, she could not bring herself to leave the child there, so she took it back and tried to raise it on her own without any support from ANYONE.. She first turned to prostitution which kept her in a home for a short time. She then turned to dealing crack, but with no protection, she was eventually robbed, then murdered.
Brenda's family kicked her out on the street at 12 years old with a new born baby. That would only happen in America and countries with similar types of moral standards (kick the bird out of the nest mentality). Down here in Mexico, the homeless population is ZERO, because family is much more important to Mexicans, and they would certainly not throw their child out of their house with a baby and no where else to go.
The real question is, who is and what happened to Brenda's baby?
::Back to riding in the van last night::
So after this was all explained to my newly found brethren, it was brought up that like Thug Life, Hip-Hop itself is also an acronym.
H.I.P-H.O.P. - stands for: Higher Infinite Power-Healing Our People
So to all my fellow emcees, future emcees, poets, bards, and vocalists of all kinds, remember what H.I.P.P-H.O.P. TRULY stands for, and take it to heart every time your pen hits the pad. If you consider yourself a member of the hip-hop community, constantly ask yourself, are these lyrics of higher infinite power that heals our people, or another way to hit-'em-up. We don't have to let history repeat itself. Be the better Human, and rise up. Peace.