Tupac: Resurrection

Tupac: I got shot.

I always felt like I'd be shot.

Somebody was trying to do me some harm

because a lot of people don't like me.

But I didn't think it was gonna happen at that particular moment.

I'm surprised, but I'm happy.

I believe that, you know, this is all in god's hands.

And I'm very appreciative to god for everything I've gotten to do.

But also, about death, we look at death from the selfish side, like:

"That guy died. Oh, it's so sad." Why is it sad?

He's away from all of this bad stuff that's here on earth.

I mean, at the worst, he's just somewhere quiet, no nothing.

At best, he's an angel... Or he's a spirit somewhere.

What is so bad about that?

Throughout my life, I just wanted to be like an angel for god,

do something where I could be of some help.

And I can do that. I mean, I'm an artist.

It's not like I have to tell the truth. I have to tell a story

and reach you and get some kind of feeling from you.

And then try to get the moral across.

So this is my story.

A story about ambition, violence, redemption and love.

In my life, I was different things for different people.

What's up, nigga?

Don't fuck around with real gs quick to snatch your ugly ass

- off the streets - So fuck peace

I let them niggas know it's on for life

so let the West Side ride tonight

bad boy murdered on wax and killed

- fuck with me you'll get your... - Caps peeled

yeah, my niggas say...

Some people say I was a thug and a gangsta.

Other people remember me as a poet and a born leader.

But I'm saying to you measure a man by his actions fully,

through his whole life, from the beginning to the end.

Everybody's past is what made their future.

It's, like, about destiny.

Speak, drums tell the real story

my mother was a black panther,

and she was really involved in the movement.

Crowd: Power! Man: Power!

Man: Power to the people! Crowd: Power to the people!

You know, just black people bettering themselves and things like that.

She had a high position in the panther party, which was unheard of,

because there was sexism, even in the panthers.

All of my roots to the struggle are real deep.

I was named after this inca chief from south America

whose name was Tupac amaru. And I think the tribal breakdown

means, like, intelligent warrior, something like that. He's a deep dude.

If I go to south America, they're gonna love me.

My stepfather at the time, mutulu shakur,

he was also, like, a well-known revolutionary.

And then my godfather, Geronimo Pratt,

had a top official rank position with the panthers on the west coast.

You can jail a revolutionary, but you can't jail a revolution.

I think that my mother, like Fred Hampton, Mark Clark,

Harriet tubman, they felt like they were laying tracks

for a generation to come.

Come in, little brothers, sisters.

Y'all sit down and get something to eat.

There was always white people around helping out.

But still, you know, there's racism.

So when the panthers hit, the government panicked.

And they felt like the panthers were detrimental to American society.

Remember, this country had a man named j. Edgar hoover,

whose job it was to destroy

the credibility of any black man coming up.

That's what they did to the panthers.

Power to the people.

The government raided every panther's house, especially the ones

who they felt like could do the most damage as an orator.

So they just burst in and put a gun to my mother's head and said:

"Don't move. You're under arrest."

They treated her like less than human.

My mother was pregnant with me while she was in prison.

She was her own attorney, never been to law school.

She was facing 300 and something odd years.

One black woman, pregnant, beat the case.

That just goes to show you the strength of a black woman

and the strength of the oppressed.

And a month after she got out of prison, she gave birth to me.

So I was cultivated in prison. My embryo was in prison.

When I was a little baby, I remember that one moment of calm peace,

and three minutes after that, it was on.

I rebelled against my mother because she was in the movement

and we never spent time together. She was speaking and going to colleges.

I used to feel like she cared more about the people than her people.

And then after that was over, it was more time spent with me,

and we were like, "you're my mother." She was like, "you're my son."

Then she was really close with me and really strict, almost.

My mother is totally brilliant, totally understanding and caring.

And she's human. I mean, she'll be wrong a lot, but we can talk about it.

She taught me how to be community-oriented,

and to analyze society.

Me and my sister grew up good, and we have good minds and everything.

But we just didn't have money.

Poverty is...

It's no joke. If there was no money and everything depended

on your moral standards and the way you treated people,

we'd be millionaires. We'd be rich.

But, since it's not like that, then we're stone-broke.

I can't always have what I want or things that I think I need.

Poverty, if I hated anything, it would be that.

You and me were born and raised in Harlem.

And every time you put it down, you're not only putting us down,

but mama and papa.

Tupac: My real father was a black panther,

but when I was growing up, I never knew who my father was for sure.

My stepfather was a gangster, a straight-up street hustler.

My mom had a kid, he didn't even care.

He's like, "that's my son," took care of me, gave me money.

He was a criminal too, out doing his thing.

So he only came, brought me money and then left.

It's okay to go to Harlem

and celebrate your birthday with your friends,

but I don't think we would really fit in.

I hate saying this because whites love hearing blacks talk about this.

I know for a fact that, had I had a father,

I'd have had some discipline, I'd have had more confidence.

Your mother cannot calm you down the way a man can.

Your mother can't reassure you the way a man can.

My mother couldn't show me where my manhood was.

You need a man to teach you how to be a man.

When I was young, I was quiet, withdrawn.

I read a lot. I wrote poetry. I kept a diary.

I watched TV all the time. I stayed in front of the television.

And I could see all these people out there in this pretend world.

And I knew I could be part of it if I pretended too.

The way Arnold looked on diff'rent strokes,

I used to like the lifestyle, the way he used to live.

So early on, I just watched and emulated.

I thought if I can be an actor and act like those characters,

I could have some of their joy.

Oh, thank you, Mr. d!

If I could act like I had a big family, I wouldn't feel as lonely.

My first acting job was at the Apollo theater

when Jesse Jackson was running for president in 1984.

It was a fundraiser, and I was a little kid.

Travis, from raisin in the sun. When the curtain went up,

I just caught that bug that everybody talks about.

I was like, "whoa, this is it."

It was better than sex and anything, money, everything. It was like, "whoa,

"I want this."

We moved out of New York because my mother lost her job.

We were, like, stranded.

So we moved to Baltimore...

Which was total ignorance town to me.

I mean, Baltimore has the highest rate

of blacks killing blacks in the country.

Then I auditioned for the Baltimore school of performing arts.

Then I started to have good-luck times.

Parents are the same no matter time nor place

they don't understand that us kids are gonna make some mistakes

so to you, all the kids all across the land, there's no need to argue

parents just don't understand

I spent three years in Baltimore, high-school years. I made friends,

like Jon Cole and Jada pinkett.

You should've seen this girl's bodily dimensions

I honked my horn to get her attention she said, "was that for me?"

I said, "yeah" she said, "why?"

I said, "come on and take a ride with a hell of a guy”

Tupac: I loved my classes. We were exposed to everything.

You know, theater, ballet...

Listening to different types of music,

songs that became a soundtrack to my life.

But in my homeboys' high school, it's not like that.

They don't have trips to go see this Broadway play,

they don't read things we read. They didn't know when I was like:

"Yo, Shakespeare's dope." They don't have the same experiences we had.

Then I started thinking the art school I went to

was mostly for white kids and rich minorities.

I started going, "I would have been totally different

"had I not been exposed to this."

I was living in the ghetto. We didn't have lights and electricity.

- We was about to get evicted. - We want home!

We want heat! We want lights!

We want something to do for our children!

I thought, "we're not being taught to deal with the world as it is."

The rich should live like the poor,

the poor should live like the rich. They should change every week.

The president stirred up a hornets' nest earlier this week

when he suggested the problems of the hungry

came about because they were uninformed about where to go for help.

How could Reagan live in a white house, which has a lot of rooms,

and there be homelessness? And he's talking about helping.

I don't believe that there is anyone

that is going hungry in America simply by reason

of denial or lack of ability to feed them.

It is by people not knowing where or how to get this help.

Tupac: Why can't he take people off the street

and put them in his white house?

Then he'll have people from the streets to help him with his ideas.

Not helpless! Homeless! Not helpless!

Tupac: They haven't been homeless forever. They've done things in society.

The white house would be tainted because he doesn't want to get dirty.

Tupac: Growing up in America, I loved my childhood,

but I hated growing up poor.

We live in hell. We live in the gutter. We live in a war zone.

We've got us stacked up 80-deep in one building.

When you get out your house, you're strapped to protect yourself.