Bigger Thomas, of Native Son and Tupac Shakur Essays -- Richard Wright

Negro writers must accept the nationalist implications of their jazzs, not in cabaret to encourage them, but in order to limiting and transcend them. They must accept the concept of nationalism because, in order to transcend it, they must posses and understand it.-- Richard WrightIn 1996, famed rapper and entertainer Tupac Shakur1 was gunned use up in Las Vegas. Journalistic sentiment at the time suggested he merit the brutal death. The sensitive York Times headline, Rap Performer Who Personified Violence, Dies, suggested Shakur, who was twenty quintuple when he died, deserved his untimely death. - (Pareles, 1996) A product of a parentless home, raised poor in the ghettos of San Francisco, Shakur, notes Ernest Harding of the L.A. periodical, lived in a society that even so didnt view him as human, that projected his worst fears onto him so he had to decide whether to battle that or embrace it. (Hardy, 1996) As these fears forced Shakur into a corner, Shakur, in the music c artridge holder Vibe, alludes to his own interior battle noting theres two niggas inside me, adding one wants to live in peace, and the other wont die unless hes free. (All Eyes on Him, 1996) While some(prenominal) of his lyrics sensationalized gang violence and ghetto politics, dramatizing the murder of fellow African Americans and, especially, police officers, he also labored over trying to come to grips with African American self-realization, breaking free from imposed societal chains. Unfortunately, as Barry Glassner muses in his deem The Culture of Fear (1999), it seems to me at once sad, inexcusable, and entirely symptomatic of the coating of fear that the only version of Tupac Shakur many Americans knew was a frightening and linear caricature. (127) In o... ...ttman, S. (2001). What Bigger Killed For Rereading Violence Against Women in Native Son. Texas Studies in literature and Language 43.2 , 169-193.Hardy, E. (1996, kinsfolk 20). Do Thug Niggaz Go to Heaven? L.A. We ekly , p. 51.Lena, J. C. (2006). Social Context and Musical Content of Rap Music, 1979-1995. Social Forces 85.1 , 479-495.Pareles, J. (1996, September 12). Tupac Shakur, 25, Rap Performer Who Personified Violence, Dies. New York Times , pp. A1, 34.Saddik, A. J. (2003). Raps Unruly Body The postmodernist Performance of Black Male Identity On the American Stage.The frolic Review 47.4 , 110-127.Shakur, Tupac. Words of Wisdom, Crooked Ass Nigga. 2pacalypse Now. 1991.Shakur, Tupac. God Bless the Dead. superlative Hits. 1998.Wright, R. (1940 Reissued in Harper Perennial Modern Classics in 2005). Native Son. New York HarperCollins.