Ten Years Later: Tupac Remembered

Larger than life
10 years after his death, Tupac Shakur's legacy continues to grow
David Menconi, Staff Writer

Back in July, Comedy Central aired a "Lost Episode" skit by comedian Dave Chappelle called "Tupac Lives." A satire on the stream of "new" Tupac songs that continue to surface a decade after his death, "Tupac Lives" is set in a nightclub. The DJ throws on the new Tupac bootleg, and Chappelle and the rest of the crowd dance, enjoying the beat.

But then the dancers begin to notice that the lyrics (voiced by Chappelle in a passable Tupac imitation) are "ahead of their time" -- references to Blackberry pagers, Eminem and "Grand Theft Auto," all of which came along years after Tupac Shakur died. Then the lyrics zero in on how the people in the club are dressed ("The girl in the miniskirt has bad taste 'cause her shirt don't match") and behave, even anticipating a skip of the record.

"Thug life," it declares. "Hey, Chappelle, that ain't your wife!"

The skit is funny, but also unnerving because it seems so true. Tupac died 10 years ago Wednesday, at age 25, after being shot in a car on the Las Vegas strip, a murder that has never been solved. But it's as if he never left.

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"Tupac was never the best rapper in terms of flow or lyrics," says Mark Anthony Neal, an author and associate professor of black popular culture in Duke University's African and African-American studies program. "But what enabled him to transcend everybody else in the room was that he had a sense of performance. When Tupac was onstage, in the broad sense, he always knew how to live up to the hype of the crowd -- even if it was being wheeled out of the hospital the first time he was shot. He had that flair for the dramatic, which speaks to his real talent: as an actor."

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"Biggie and Tupac were very different people, but what they had in common was an integrity about their art," says Duke professor Neal. "I'm not saying there aren't hip-hop artists in 2006 with integrity. But it's not expected in the context of the record industry. A lot of artists never even have to answer to those questions."

Even though it's comparatively muted, the positive side of Tupac's legacy lives on, too. Consider Brandon Hudson, a Tupac fan who graduated from Duke in May. He's also a hip-hop artist, but his full-time job now is with the social-service group Americorps. Hudson is spending a year working for a low-income school district outside Sacramento, Calif.

"Tupac had all the potential to make a positive impact on American culture," Hudson says. "Whatever he could've been, hip-hop has missed the positive potential he might have brought to it. One of my favorite lyrics of his is from 'The Ghetto Gospel': 'If I upset you, don't stress/Never forget that God isn't finished with me yet.' I think that kind of sums him up very well."

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Also check out David Menconi's blog On the Beat