You've been gone for such a long time yet I feel like I'm only starting to get to know the real you. I often contemplate how I would have felt if I had met you before your death, if I had the to privilege to be around when you walked the rough streets through your struggle.
You constantly mention your pain and sometimes I wish so hard that I could have warned you of what was to come, off how things were to end. Was there ever a chance that somehow you wouldn't have met your death and still awed us with your presence?
Never will there be another Pac: no other rapper will ever compare.
You weren't perfect, far from it, but who is? I wish sometimes for a miracle -- a miracle in a dream that takes me back in time to warn you -- to maybe embrace you and tell you that you will one day be a legend and that you are never alone.
Growing up I only knew you were this legend who was often; reckless, angry and out of control. That people loved to talk about you, to assume too much. I was too young to know the real you or what you really represented. Well then things moved on as we all do -- the past few years I might have heard a song here and there and often thought of a future with you in it. Over time though I found that although I loved your music I knew next to nothing about you. I then knew that that had to change.
So, I started researching about you, peeling away those layers day by day and finding things beyond my imagination. The experience was WONDERFUL -- the most lovely thing I discovered was that you were a poet. Something that made me admire you even more and made listen to your songs with a new caution and pay attention to your lyrics which all seemed to contain a story, a lesson. Sure, not all, but many.
Now when I listened I saw the lost child -- the boy wanting to be loved and the poet who was witty and intelligent despite others perceptions. Your songs seem to touch me in a way no other artist ever has, just your lyrics are enough to make me sad and angry and tearful.
I think we perceived him as a thug, but inside? He was a young man trying to find a place in the world, trying to find a true friend and his issues with paranoia and lack of trust became overwhelming for him. Throughout his life he had people who betrayed his trust -- the ones most close to him. This would have a huge impact on how he mentioned he had no friends later in life. He talked about black people being treated unequally and how he felt that one day the day would come where he hoped for a black president, for him to walk alongside another and not be looked down on. I think inside he knew he wouldn't be alive to see that day.
He was changing the hip hop industry and this created enemies and kept him alert and angry at all times. His life was in danger and he knew it, but he wasn't the kind of man to hide, so he spoke through his music. People say he would often speak of death, to be rid of all the pain and suffering because sometimes it was much to bear. However, no amount and money can get rid of the past. Tupac mentions in his songs the suffering and hardship he dealt with growing up and it seems he was never really able to rid himself off the bad memories that stayed with him until his death. The sad thing is that it's mentioned just before he died that people said he was changing. He was, it seemed, becoming calmer and trying to move forward from his awful past. His last song "I ain't mad acha" shows us this is true. It gives a positive but sad message -- he talks about how a lot of his friends have drifted away, how people he knows are changing -- it shows a vulnerable side to him, the side that doesn't want to be alone -- the side that isn't talked about and was never in the headlines.
He was doing movies and was working on a charity's before his death, he was, and still is, such an inspiration to young people out there who are living rough and going through hardships. He is the epitome of a person who can came from a bleak life and become someone -- made a change and even became a legend. I listen to his songs everyday to keep his memory alive but also because like a lot of other Tupac fans I feel connected with him through his music. He was a poet and a genius who will always be in our hearts :)
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