by stillmatic » Dec 6th, '10, 09:00
One thing people fail to realize about Tupac is how intelligent he really was.
On Tupac Resurrection, it talks about how Tupac drew his audience in with sensationalism, how he recognized how to connect with the youth, and that was by talking about things that really related to them and emphasized these things by blowing them up and at times of proportion to get their attention. After that, it was his plan, that once he had their attention and had influence over them, to educate them, to go down another path, to show them viable alternatives. Of course, before he could do that, he was killed.
Quincy Jones said it best.
"Tupac died at 25. If Malcolm X died at 25 he would have been a street hustler, named Detroit Red. If Martin Luther King died at 25 he would've been known as a local baptist preacher. And if I had died at 25 I would've been known as a struggling musician. Only a sliver of my life's potential." --Quincy Jones
The New York Times - "Lloyd Banks may have stealthily become the most important rapper in New York".