The Death of Tupac Shakur's Ghost
"One pac, two pac, three pac, four..."
So I'm mixing it up with Gotty and the TSS crew the other week when someone points out not only that it's Tupac's anniversary; but it's Tupac's anniversary and no one seems to care.
It's been 12 years and now 12 days since Mr. Shakur departed. And I gotta say, for the first time i forgot. In fact, I think we all forgot.
Has it been a case of collective memory loss, an increasingly-cluttered landscape? Or has it been something more substantial setting in? Could it be that we're getting over someone dying as if it's an everyday occurrence? or at least a more common occurrence than we want to admit to?
Idolatry’s a funny thing.
It’s all consuming till it’s not. Worship’s as much about the worshipper’s needs as the worshiped. We don’t need Pac anymore. Black folks are bigger than hiphop and hiphop is so mainstream that Pac’s not the boogieman anymore. The 'Pac posters in the bedroom don’t scare suburban moms anymore. The bandanas and baggy jeans are in Wal-Mart now. Tattoos stand for nothing. (Long live the tramp stamp.) Thuglife’s just a theme for tired frat parties and hipster reminiscing.
The rest of this stuff is just marketing plans to break new artists and filler for Viacom.
Pac’s like George Mikan—the first guy that dunked in the NBA. We praised him; but after a while, people started wondering he was dunking because he was great or because nobody else tried it before or was around to stop him. Now that everybody dunks, who cares about George Mikan?
Like way too many artists, Pac got nominated for a position he was incapable of of handling–messiah. He wasn’t gonna change the world or wash away our society's sins. He was just an artist. Arguably one of the best pure writers of his generation. But he wasn’t gonna fix the stuff he rapped about just by rapping about it.
I think this year is the beginning of the beginning of his reign in that regard.
Pac had his run–he’ll always have some fans. But the "PacChrist" is no more. Hiphop’s gone Catholic—we got a whole pantheon of idols and saints to worship: Like Hovito. And Ye. And Dre. And Alicia. And Em. And (pre-wigged-out) L-Boogie. And Big L. And Pun. And Biggie. And Nas...
Oh yeah, and Obama.
