On May 12th, 2009, I received the following email in
which Heath Lee objected to the way in which Tupac was characterized in
this Field Note. This is
what Mr. Lee sent to me:
"I'm a Junior Psychology student
at ______ University. I was reading through Into the Abyss
and came across this statement concerning gang culture: “He
also shared his frustration and disgust with the fact that Ice T
(the gangster rapper) is a documented gang member." Gangster rap not
only glorifies being a gangster, Ice T is living proof that
gangsters are glorified and can even become popular
recording artists. 2 Pac, of course, would be another example of
this, but gang banging resulted in his premature death."
I'm also a big Tupac Shakur fan and have studied a great deal about
Tupac. To the point now, yes there is some evidence that Tupac was a
member of the Bloods but he wasn’t a “gang banger” he repeatedly
said that he was NOT a “gangster rapper," you would know this if you
were to watch the extras in his documentary Resurrection. He is
being questioned while in jail I believe, and they ask him about
gangster rap, he says he has never had a song that was gangster rap.
I'm not saying that he was not a member of a gang, I'm not saying
that him being a member of a gang didn’t lead to his premature
death, and I'm not saying he was perfect. But it just struck a nerve
when u put him in the same category as Ice T. Seriously that’s very
demeaning to him and his memory, Tupac was 5 times the man that Ice
T could ever be, sure he did a lot of things that weren’t good and
that I don’t agree with, but he also did a lot of things to try and
help people, like holding the TRUC PICNIC where he got members of
the Bloods and Crips to sign the Code of Thug Life. He also started
Joshua’s Dream Corporation and Euphanasia which were to help the
community.
I
don’t know if you know anything about Tupac other than he was a
rapper, if not I ask you to please research him a little. Like I
said, he was in no way perfect, but I'm sure you will find out that
he was in no way the same type of person that Ice T is. Tupac was
way more than just a rapper, he said himself that he didn’t want to
rap for much longer, he wanted to do something that would help
change the world, little did he know that he did help change the
world through his music alone. He was a poet and a fallen angel!
I replied to the writer indicating that the quote to
which he is referring was not mine but from one of my interview
subjects.