WORDS FOR MY COMRADES

Still he rises.

“Crucial to understanding Tupac Shakur,” writes Van Nguyen, “is knowing that he grew up in the rubble of 1960s radicalism.” The music journalist and cultural critic’s narrative moves confidently within the many strands underlying familiar aspects of the rapper’s rise, backed by research and candid interviews. He starts with his mother, Afeni, and her involvement in Black political activism: “As a Black Panther, Afeni’s life had structure and purpose.” She was acquitted in a New York case against a group known as the “Panther 21,” but Tupac’s early years were colored by the Panthers’ fracturing into violent splinter groups, culminating in his stepfather’s involvement in a deadly robbery. As a youth, particularly when attending the Baltimore School for the Arts, his talents were evident, leading to early connections in the hip-hop scene. Van Nguyen argues that quick celebrity obscured these radical roots in favor of a self-conceived “Thug Life”; by 1993, “Tupac’s life was in an increasingly violent spiral,” his “increasing propensity for violence…a difficult thing to understand,” though the connections to his own murder remain evident. Final chapters examine Shakur’s afterlife as “hip-hop’s most recognizable icon,” ubiquitous in the Black Lives Matter movement and conflict zones from Libya to Sierra Leone, as well as the conspiracies linking his killing to Biggie Smalls’ murder and police corruption. Van Nguyen documents the uneven legacy of Shakur’s posthumous releases, controlled by Afeni, who “threw everything into raising her son as a chosen child destined for leadership.” What would have become of Shakur had he lived? “It’s entirely possible that a middle-aged Tupac would have been softened, centrist, less serious,” he writes. “But I think it more probable that like many of his surviving Panther forebears who never lost sight of, or faith in, a better tomorrow, he would have continued to use his voice to stand with the masses, the downtrodden.”

Fresh interpretations of a foundational hip-hop narrative.