RAP AS AN ART

It is true that rap means so many things to so many different people. Yet, there is one person whom rap is a poetry, one person who shows us how deep the rap music actually is. That person can be no one other than Tupac Umaru Shakur. Before you understand Tupac’s poetry you have to also understand the hip hop lifestyle which influenced his choice of words, style and format. When you carefully listen to tupac’s work you will learn a lot about him. One tool a poet may use when writing a poem is asking big questions. He wasn’t just a music icon but also a fighter for the oppressed voice in the ghettos and projects around the world but his lyrics and poetry spread across the globe. Some of us will argue if hip hop music should be considered as poetry or not. We can analyze all going through his lyrics. One of Tupac's songs, which is famous and whose lyrics mean actually more than it seems: "KEEP YA HEAD UP" Forgive but don't forget, girl keep your head up And when he tells you you ain't nuttin don't believe him And if he can't learn to love you you should leave him Cause sista you don't need him And I ain't tryin to gas ya up, I just call em how I see em You know it makes me unhappy (what's that) When brothas make babies, and leave a young mother to be a pappy And since we all came from a woman Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman I wonder why we take from our women Why we rape our women, do we hate our women? I think it's time to kill for our women Time to heal our women, be real to our women And if we don't we'll have a race of babies That will hate the ladies, that make the babies And since a man can't make one He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one So will the real men get up I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up With these lyrics, Tupac calls to all women. He makes a call to the women telling they should not forget what has been to them but forgive and stand up knowing tthat they have the power, not believing in men when they say they are nothing, but knowing to leave them if they are not loved in the real meaning. Women, they don't need a man to live, to survive. It makes the rapper sad that men are rude to the woman eventhough women are the one who create the generations. All of us come from a woman and learn from women, are raised up by women. So why all these having been done to our women? Tupac goes forward, he believes in the questioning of the reason why we act like this to our women; we hate them, even we rape them. While a man has no ability to do what a women can do, why do they feel like they have the right to be unreal to women? Ladies, they must have been fed up. However, they should keep their head up by knowing how precious they are. These lyrics have a rhyme,have a thyme, have a main idea. So why don't we never consider it as an art? Like a poem. It is obvious that in a poem the street language isn't used. Indeed a similar poem with the main idea will never mention "rapping our women" for it's not very artistic at all. Yet, the truth is that not everyone is into poems. There are people who find poems boring or hard to understand. And so on. At this point, who will call to them, to the ones whom poem isn't everything at all? Rap music, of course. There are so many ghettos where people enjoy rap music. In fact, not only them, there are so many other people living in the cities, many who live for music, whose souls are moved with music. Therefore, here it is, Tupac can tell them the reality of women with his music, with his lyrics and people who admire him will have the same point of view. In that case, whom to underestimate the power of rap music? Who to deny the fact that a hiphop song can be artistic and meaningful like a poem? Nowadays, in some places of the world the value of Tupac is understood. Not all around the world maybe but for example in United States, some of the universities have lectures giving information about him. One class at the University of California at Berkeley studies Tupac as an ideal example of one of the "great writers and social commentators". Since his death, 14 documentaries have been produced about his life and death. Even, one of them "Tupac:Ressurection" was nominated for an Academy Award. Well, those lyrics belongs to Tupach Shakur, who is considered as a real legend. He had more than 100 songs released when he was alive and over 150 unreleased after his death. With all of his songs, he has made a strong impact not only on his fans, but other hip hop singers too. Many of the famous rap and hip hop singers tell that they are deeply influenced by Tupac, like 50 Cent, Jay-z, Lloyd Banks and so on. Each of them has a bit of Tupac in their songs which mean that they can try to reach people with a similar way he did, with telling the community about the reality in an artistic and musical way, both.