Ok, check this.
Tupac is the highest selling Hip-Hop Artist ever, he's sold nearly 39,000,000 Albums to date. This guy was alive in the public eye for 3-4 years.
In 3-4 years he did over 6 movies... he was crossing over the culture to the mainstream. We're talking back when it wasn't normal to have a lead man in hip-hop doing movies.
He was a poet, not just in the lyrical sense, he actually wrote deep poetry and has a book published of his work. If you want to pick it up, it's "The Rose that Grew From Concrete".
He was raised by Black Panthers, Hustlers and Drug Dealers... maybe that's why he didn't see it fit to lobby for change with the California Legislature. He was a victim of falling through the system... he didn't believe in the system.
He lead rallies to clean up the neighborhoods and give people hope. He connected with the masses through Hip-Hop. You say he's not the man Martin Luther King was, I tend to agree, however King was in the public eye for 15 years... give Tupac an extra decade in the publics eye and he would still be here, fighting for the cause he strongly believed in while alive.
That cause was his "THUGLIFE" that many people miss interpret. He wanted to give the people the hope that even though they lacked financial backing, geographical advantage, quality of education and other priviledges of life that many of take for granted, they can still grow up to be somebody important, not the Thug, Hoodlum or Statistic that the system profiles them to be.
Tupac felt that the simple defeatest attitude that was being dumped down on the poverty stricken societies of America through propaganda and cultural segregation was the problem at hand... this was the War worth fighting for in his eyes, not the War on Drugs or the Wars in the middle east. Maybe he didn't feal the need to speak Spanish to a Latin American culture, because he was lobbying for the poor and hungry... the American Poverty Culture.
The Tupac that the majority of the people saw, was the Tupac the media fed you in small doses. It's the media that branded him a Rapist, a Cop Killer and a threat to America's Youth. The people who see that, then hear the songs like "Hit 'Em Up" and listen for the violent lyrics. I suppose they don't take that extra step to listen to songs like "Changes"... one of his Post-Humous hits that really defines Tupac's message to me.
If only the naysayers took the time to wiegh out the facts in comparison to what the other Visionary's of our modern age have accomplished, and then you realize the time frame in which this Visionary was alloted to work in, you can only appreciate what he had done and wonder what more he would have done if he wasn't taken from us so prematurely.
This was a 25 year old man, that attempted to spark a change in a world the only way he knew how. He was a victim of his own Vice, he had flaws and they were majorly televised in our time of mass media.
All of the past visionaries that help mold are society have both the lack of mass media exploit and the value of time on their sides. We don't know the extent of Tupac's reach quite yet, but there's no telling what may come of these classes, songs, poetry and movies being released in his name sake.
In my opinion, the music was only one tenth of what comprised Tupac the man, unfortunately most people haven't been priviledged to appreciate the rest of this man's legacy.
I could go on much longer about this, but I already know the value of this man's life and if you are not willing to look further into the story yourself, I might be fighting a lost cause.
See Tupac Resurection if you get the chance.
FUCK THE SYSTEM.