New Tupac Album to Drop, Some Things Will Never Change

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Well, Death Row Records has done it again. After declaring bankruptcy earlier this year the label is back in action, and another Tupac album is anticipated for 2010. How does this still work? That 13 years after his death people are still clamoring for his albums? For starters, Tupac, for better and worse, shaped today’s hip-hop. And because Tupac—while he had lots of issues—was honest and prescient in his lyrics, so much so that his songs continue to tell the story of the day 13 years after his death. In fact, my one-year-old niece is a Tupac fan. She listens to Tupac (“Ooo ooo child, things are gonna get easier…”) right alongside Free to Be You and Me, and I’m glad that when she understands the line in Changes, “We ain’t ready to see a black President,” she’ll wonder what he meant. But unfortunately the rest of his classic ballad still holds true today, right down to the war on poverty and the war in the Middle East.

Maybe if Tupac were still alive he’d have gotten sucked into The Surreal Life or I’m a Celebrity… or some other awful reality show, which would mean he likely wouldn’t be the Tupac people still admire, the rapper who made his life (and through creative Dr. Dre marketing, his death) about injustice and candor.

Got any favorite Tupac lines? “They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor”; “Do what you gotta do, but know you got to change/ Try to find a way to make it out of the game”; “Time to heal our women, be real to our women / And if we don’t we’ll have a race of babies / That will hate the ladies, that make the babies/ And since a man can’t make one / He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one.”

Lyricize in the comments.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate