Having relative unknowns document Tupac’s meteoric rise and abrupt end is risky, but Pearce demonstrates his impact.
There’s a Tupac Shakur–sized hole in the middle of this compelling oral history about the revered rapper and actor and his legacy—and that’s by design.
Pearce, a music writer and editor at the New Yorker, wanted to use only new interviews for the project, which means that the words of the late rapper and Juice actor don’t appear much in a book about him, aside from the occasional footnote. For various other reasons, his family and inner circle don’t say much either. Conspicuously missing are conversations with his Black Panther mother Afeni Shakur or Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight. Instead, we hear from people who know parts of Shakur’s story, including teachers, friends from early in his career, and reporters and authors. Their insights are more about Shakur the man rather than 2Pac the myth: his quick temper and heartfelt apologies, loyalty and paranoia, and well-documented work ethic. But they pale in comparison to Shakur’s work and the way he has previously described his life and art with his own charismatic delivery. As Pearce writes in the author’s note, “it quickly became a balancing act: Where to provide insight versus where to provide clarity?” The success of that balancing act will depend on the reader. Shakur fans looking for new details about how their hero approached his biggest albums and movie roles won’t find much new here. However, Pearce’s interviews provide interesting background on the East Coast–West Coast rap rivalry and offer more clarity about who may have killed Shakur in Las Vegas in 1996 at age 25—even though no formal charges have ever been filed. Those are the times when this book feels like essential Tupac reading rather than a nice supplement.
Having relative unknowns document Tupac’s meteoric rise and abrupt end is risky, but Pearce demonstrates his impact.Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982170-46-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2021
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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