"Baby Don't Cry (Keep Your Head Up)"

Still I Rise

    Whatever our feelings are about the rap music industry, particularly after the Don Imus firing and the impact of rap music on "old borderline bigot white men" on the radio, no one can deny the gifted artistry of Tupac Shakur. Like most of us his mind was shaped by his environment, an environment where most of you reading this could not spend a day, an environment where most rapes , robberies and murders go unsolved, where drugs are openly sold and prostitutes freely "strut their stuff", a neighborhood where you never really feel safe and there is no one to protect you from "home invasion" by never to be rehabilitated "crack addicts", who give birth to children that are brain damaged and totally beyond "ritalin" in the same class room with your child. Multiply that hundreds of thousands of times and you get a glimpse of many young rappers world, a world in their minds you can only escape through sports, music or selling drugs. Though in their videos they surround themselves with "big booty" women in "thongs", who they refer to as "bitches" and "hos" they have momas, aunts, sisters and grandmothers whom they love and respect.

      If you have never really listened to "hard core" rap the posthumously recorded Tupac Shakur album "Still I Rise" will give you a feel for what I think is a genuine art form reflecting a genuine reality for millions of people. Listen to learn and understand and maybe even help. Look at the two "you-tube videos" and get a glimpse of Tupac's  and other rappers world. It will make you grateful for your own.

     But still they rise! But still they keep their heads up!

tags: good vibrations  tupac shakur  outlawz  rap music  

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