Tupac Shakur’s Life Reflected In The Words of Author Kevin Powell On The 25th Anniversary of Pac’s Death
I wrote this poem to honor, first, Tupac Shakur, on the passing of his life.
I was there in Las Vegas the day he died, and it is a day I shall never forget, as it remains
one of the saddest periods of my entire time on this earth. I had written three cover stories
on Tupac for VIBE magazine, he had asked me to be Alex Haley to his Malcolm X.
Little did I know, but perhaps he knew—
I was literally in my hotel room watching HBO, watching Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X”
movie, ironically; and just at that very moment when Malcolm, as played by Denzel Washington, was heading to the Audubon Ballroom in New York City to meet his fate, I got a call from a fellow journalist saying “Tupac is dead. We have to go to the hospital.” I did not cry in that moment, but I would be in shock for a very long time. That
is why this poem about Tupac Shakur.
But as the poetry came to me I kept hearing The Notorious B.I.G.’s voice as well,
which is why it is entitled “Tupac and Biggie.” Because Biggie’s death shocked me too.
And like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., or The Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney, in many ways it is impossible to separate ‘Pac and Biggie, both of whom I knew. They were friends, then they were not. They
were killed six months apart. Both their murders remain unsolved.
But I likewise wrote this poem, as a Black male, to try to make sense of what
we have to go through in America, in this world, the things thrown
at us from all angles, the things we internalize and do to ourselves, to each other, too.
I wrote this poem for fallen soldiers like Tupac and Biggie, and for so many of us
we have lost young, in their prime. Yes, this poem is for the brothers who ain’t here,
but it is also for us brothers who still are—
Tupac and Biggie
i heard his name first
juiced for freedom
like digital underground
railroads and
the sonic blasts
of brendas having babies
was that a movie or
was that life and soundcloud as art
homies can call
but what do black
boys do when we are
trapped in concrete
boxes forever ever
forever ever
fear is a prison
but so is fame too
but what is fame
is the only bus ticket
you got to make it
from the cradle
to the grave
made me think of
revolutions won
and revolutions lost
of assata’s great expectations
of black panthers
dead and gone
while panther cubs
leak tears made of
napalm and the muscular
tails of charcoal-grey ‘hood rats
made me think of
apartheid
winnie and nelson mandela
of run jesse run
of nations of islam
and new africas
blowin’ in the wind
say his name
tupac amaru shakur
shining serpent
who is thankful
to be alive in spite of
absent father
imprisoned stepfather
crack cocaine
police raids
and political movements
from one ghetto
to the next
hip-hop
started out in the park
created by black and
brown boys looking
for frederick douglass
the north star
and the perfect
beat
they called him
mc new york in baltimore
a motherless and fatherless
child in the bay area
tupac
who contorted and coiled his voice into
an ebonics symphony
of urban american patois
breakdancing to the malnourished imaginations
of king’s and kennedy’s poor people’s campaigns
tupac
america’s most wanted
political rabble-rouser with a drum beat
beats like the invisible hands of motherlands
come
and motherlands gone
but hip-hop also is the
west indies
and latinx folks too
hip-hop is
son of jamaican immigrants
jamaica where they toasted
and blew out massive sound systems
jamaica where marcus garvey first
painted it black
the fleshless self-esteem
of ex-slaves asking jah
for a boat ride that drops-kicks them in
an un-colonized and an un-gentrified heaven
jamaica that gave us a founding father
of hip-hop kool herc
and half of brooklyn
where brooklyn at
it is right here biggie smalls
cool-posing on an onion-scented street corner
in a tight yoruba prayer circle
they call a cypher
as shorttallfatskinnydamaged bodies
rhyme and shine the shoes of the blues
of palecoconutyellowredbrownjetblack boys
who considered suicide when
rainbows became coalitions
of the haves and the have nots
biggie
the greatest storyteller
never to win a pulitzer
biggie
who contorted and coiled his voice into
an ebonics symphony
of brooklyn patois
breakdancing to the malnourished imaginations
of king’s and kennedy’s poor people’s campaigns
where brooklyn at
it is right here the notorious b.i.g.
because even gangsters trademark
their names into the history books
of godfathers and macks and superflys
where brooklyn at
right there
where grandmaster flowers
and big daddy kane and stetsasonic
and sawed-off shotguns
and crack vials and crippled
public schools wheel-chaired the way
for you
biggie
so that you could
battle royale rhymes
like mario puzo
dry-humping bloody mobsters
and scandalous politicians
and greasy-haired preachers
like don corleone
cupping your chin
the way the devil would cup
death itself
the way bootsy collins would cup and drink
the wet, sultry licks of his guitar
just means you tupac you biggie
trade war stories
the way trump trades war stories
with fascist mirrors at the white house
means you all
got soul
like iceberg slim had sold his soul
where brooklyn at
right next to harlem and east harlem
tupac the places you were born and lived
like baltimore and marin city
and the sunny pot-holed gutters of los angeles
and atlanta
where they birth and bury kings
and call it racial progress
where brooklyn at
in that one time you and biggie
swapped eye sockets and took photos
as friends
together
apart
two black boys about to be their
generation’s elvis and buddy holly
their generation’s john lennon
and marvin gaye
big yeah like biggie big
peace in the beginning
but then who shot ya
became the soundtrack
for the dirty half dozens
in green camouflaged armor
crooked finger-pointing
contests that turned into
your coast versus my coast
even though ain’t nobody own
either coast
but we know they like to
be slave masters and overseers
and loose black boys on each other
like stink-breathed barking dogs
leaping at and gut-bombing marchers
in john coltrane’s alabama
except we marching to jail and cemeteries
not toward the moon or the stars or the sun
it is black boys against each other
as poison is poured over
our dream-y american gumbo
hit ‘em up
dis you dis your wife dis your life
dis your career
volcano anger stove-boiled by years
of trauma and dear
mamas addicted
to white lines and hypnotic needles
frozen in the medieval times of warriors
as political prisoners
like mutulu like mutulu like mutulu
hypnotized
we eat and swallow ourselves
and each other
the way we eat and swallow watermelon seeds
grow
ride
die
for death
atop death row SUVs
we join elvis in vegas and los angeles
hang lynch mob ropes around our necks like
they are electric kool-aid acid tests
until we are gunned down
in cars
the way elvis sat on that toilet bowl
waiting for his soul
to flush him into
graceland forever ever
born again six months apart
two dead black boys joined at the lips
of hip-hop’s smithsonian institution
gone
because they value you more
dead
than alive
gemini twins that you both are
black boys ain’t ‘spose to live long
we ‘spose to live hard fast short painful
the way they rolled up the torture of jesus
and smoked him on the crucifix
until his humiliation
dripped dripped dripped
an old negro spiritual
into the resurrected earth
of the unbelievable
and our eyes slap box with the white jesus
as we wait for this or that black jesus
named makaveli or big poppa
eyesfacesskins don’t lie
they are permanent graffiti murals
for the brothers who ain’t here
these photos of them
permanent graffiti murals
black white
in living color
teardrops
lonely teardrops
jesus-walking
like raindrops
shaped like bullet shells
sculpted by the sawdust hands of the lawd
the fears I we still carry
around all these years later
like prison chains about our tattooed wrists
wondering where all those
bullets came from
wondering why
we they would kill
black boys who only
want to be
free
Friday, June 1, 2018
10:56AM
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