‘A lot of people – Black, white, Mexican, young or old, fat or skinny – have a problem being true to they self. They have a problem looking into the mirror and looking directly into their own souls. The reason I can sell six million records, the reason why I can go to jail and come out without a scratch, the reason I can walk around, the reason I am who I am today is because I can look directly into my face and find my soul’ – Tupac Shakur (Feig, 2016).
In my adolescence, what I lacked in direction I exponentially made up for in imagination and ambition. I may have not understood from a young age what I aspired to be, but there is no question I had robust ideas about who wanted to be. Additionally, what I lacked aesthetically was compensated for by an insatiable hunger for intellectual pursuits and stimulation. Whoever I was manifesting was going to be an embodiment of all the same things I’ve grown to admire and respect about the late Tupac Amaru Shakur. More than a musical prodigy, what I revere most about this man is his multifaceted talent. The fact that he was far from one dimensional and that he was raw, gritty, fearless, bold and audaciously unapologetic about who he was to his very soul.
As NPR (2016) illustrates, with Tupac ‘You get vulnerability, you get an exploration of manhood from different angles, even admitting all of his many mistakes … And so those things, that kind of honesty — which is so rare for a lot of people — made him someone who became a touchstone for folks’ lives. And that’s why they responded to him, and still do.’ While it is unfathomable that anyone could replicate the enigmatic being Tupac was, that doesn’t discount that his legacy sustains through the many lives he impacted through his vast body of artistic work and his uninhibited rhetoric of wisdom.
I was only 9 years-old when Tupac departed this broken ass world and advanced to a realm more worthy of his gifts, however, in less than a decade he was able to enrapture my own creative sensibilities. If I didn’t know shit about what I aspired to, I knew whatever the fuck it was had to be prolific as everything my role model embodied and produced. Ike Okwerekwu (2019) describes that Tupac ‘lived with a strong sense of purpose’ and challenged others to force themselves to think outside of the confines of the boxes society constricts each one of us to. While my approach to life subsequent to the influence of Tupac is seemingly, if not completely, unorthodox, I am indebted to him for the guidance he’s provided me posthumously as my personally appointed ‘thug angel.’
If I was ever remiss of a claim to fame, it cannot be said that I possessed any shortcomings of dexterity with composition or the ability to morph mere pen and paper into a personal magic wand and scriptural manifesto. Raised an avid reader and living in a unique ‘have yet have not’ circumstance, I learned that traveling was only a book, a story, a poem away and even if you lacked superficial assets, a well-educated mind was exponentially more valuable than any material possession. Coming from a pedigree that was not founded upon formal education and academic status climbing, imposed a ravenous hunger to conquer territory which historically eluded my ancestors. My privilege did not come from wealth, rather, it came from sheer tenacity and relentless ambition to survive which I saw mirrored in the man Tupac projected. In his own words ‘I’m 100 percent original, and that’s what got me here. My rap music is more understandable, slower. It tells a story. You can write a book on each of my thoughts’ (AZ Quotes, n.d.). Thus, I took careful note of his heirlooms of wisdom and made it my focus to nurture my “ambitionz az a ‘writer.’”
As demure as I may personify, I can assure you that I ain’t one to be fucked with, and that’s largely because I can’t afford the cost of failure or being hoodwinked. I know what it is to settle and to not have options and as Tupac said in 1994 ‘Instead of me always getting shut out… Instead of defenseless, having power’ (Blank on Blank, n.d.). I grew up in a world absent of immediate academic role models. Nobody directly involved in raising and mentoring me had earned academic accolades beyond public primary education. Additionally, I never possessed the ingenuity of my familial predecessors to undertake entrepreneurial pursuits that made my grandfather a man of prominence and financial stability. The greatest risk I had the foresight to undertake was the ceaseless investment in my formal education. Again, a right and privilege fought for and not easily garnered. Merely dreaming about attending Georgetown University was a daring endeavor on my part, but actually having the balls to apply and gain admission was unconscionable considering my pedigree.
Being a mixed kid in white America is not for the faint of heart and it’s a bitch growing up around peers that can benefit from the privilege of nepotism while you have to scrape, claw and fight for your seat at the table. In most cases, however, you realize you’re not a welcome dinner guest and thus are encumbered with the burden of crafting your own seat and ultimately carpentering your own motherfuckin’ table. It’s a bitch. It’s tiring. But it’s life and, again, this shit ain’t for the faint of heart! While I’m accustomed to being overlooked and often silenced, I’m also adept at constantly being challenged and being audacious enough to clear any hurdles society has tried to place in front of me. I am far from an athlete, but life has had me competing in mental Olympics since I could process analytical thought.
Lately I’ve been telling people that had it not been for Tupac I would not be a Hoya. While to some that’s an outlandish claim, I mean that shit wholeheartedly. My father is a bonafide OG. By having me at such a young age (he had only just turned twenty-one), he incidentally raised me on hip-hop and that consumption at such an impressionable stage accounts for much of my foundation for being. Honestly, he did me a tremendous favor as without it, despite my multiracial background, I stood a great chance of being uncultured. As Vikas Shah Mbe (2015) shares ‘It’s important to remember that hip-hop is not just about music. It’s a unique era of culture where fashion, art, music and language became deeply pitted with metaphors that became consistent, ubiquitous and global. Hip-hop is unplanned – but a reflection of shared truths in communities… This is a mode of expression, a rebellion, communication through the hijacking and transformation of elements of cultures – creating something new, owned by the generation from who it was manifest.’ Hip-hop was as unplanned as my birth and as unforeseen as the intellectual marriage I would forge to Tupac.
Growing up so vastly insecure led me to seek solace in anything that represented what I felt and how I saw myself inwardly but couldn’t express outwardly. Intellectual and artistic inclinations aside, Tupac and I are wildly different people but the bravado he wasn’t afraid to exercise any and everywhere is what I bring to the table to get it together in my professional life and to make an impression when I’m in the classroom. I’ve cultivated a knack for weaving race and equity into any topic of discussion (I don’t care if it’s a physics class, trust, I’mma find a way!) but my most lethal asset is my ingenuity with words. I can’t think within or be confined to a box both because society was never ready for mothafuckas like me and, if it’s anything I learned from Tupac, that’s no way to live or excel.
I dubbed myself ‘MACkaveli’ as a nickname when I worked for MAC Cosmetics one day when a co-worker and I were finding creative ways to pay homage to our hip-hop idols and incorporating the brand name. What started off as an innocent game created an identity I’ve assumed as a model and as a writer. Tupac understood being multidimensional better than anyone, professing ‘everybody’s at war with different things… I’m at war with my own heart at times’ (Good Reads, n.d.) and took full ownership of that vulnerability. I’ve been able to learn from that raw demeanor and own every part of myself, even the shit I despise the most, because I know there’s power in anything you can learn to overcome. Even the worst parts of yourself can be manipulated into something useful, and the ability to accept that shit prevents anyone from weaponizing you against you. By embracing this understanding of self, I’ve been able to utilize my own vulnerability to my advantage and take risks that can’t be pursued when you’re hell bent on being ‘pretty’ and ‘perfect’ all the time. (Ugly ducks be winning!)
As Tupac languished in poetry, I’ve always dealt with a sense of yearning for acceptance and respect without compromise to who I am in my truest essence (Shakur, 1999). It’s a hard ass undertaking to be authentic in a world that claims to celebrate diversity yet demands submission into uniformity. What I have formerly loathed within myself, I’ve ultimately come to embrace because I realize it’s my flaws and own audaciousness that’s garnered me a seat at the table mothafuckas never dreamed I’d get the invite to. Having internal discourse used to provoke a sense of inadequacy until I studied how Tupac had manifested his own into a catalogue of lyrics and dialogue that perpetuated his eternal patron sainthood as the voice and prophet for the weary and restless. I was able to be introspective and recognize this discourse is a superpower because it constantly keeps me working, keeps me on my toes, and prevents me from buying in to any notion that I’ve reached a plateau in which I can afford any complacency and believe I’ve reached my personal epitome. It’s because of him, that ‘I have no fear, I have only ambition and I want mine’ (AZ Quotes, n.d.). It’s because of him that I can ‘live and learn twice as fast as those who accept simplicity’ (Shakur, 1999). And it’s because of him that I can do things my way and dare to be a Hoya.
-Tatiana ‘Mackaveli’ Manaea
References:
A.Z. Quotes. (n.d). Tupac Shakur Quotes About Writing. Retrieved from: https://www.azquotes.com/author/13384-Tupac_Shakur/tag/writing
Blank on Blank. (n.d.). Tupac Shakur on Life and Death. Retrieed from: https://blankonblank.org/interviews/tupac-shakur-on-life-and-death/
Feig, Z. (2016, September 13). 10 Most Important Tupac Quotes. Hot New Hip Hop. Retrieved from: https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/10-important-tupac-quotes-news.24061.html
Good Reads. (n.d.). Quotes by Tupac Shakur. Retrieved from: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/313140-everybody-s-at-war-with-different-things-i-m-at-war-with-my
Mbe, V.S. (2015, November 3). The Role of Hip Hop in Culture. Thought Economics. Retrieved from: https://thoughteconomics.com/the-role-of-hip-hop-in-culture/
NPR. (2016, September 13). Tupac Shakur’s Legacy, 20 Years On. Retrieved from: https://www.npr.org/2016/09/13/493671606/tupac-shakurs-legacy-20-years-on
Okwerekwu, I. (2019, April 30). Tupac: The Greatest Inspirational Hip Hop Artist. Medium. Retrieved from: https://medium.com/music-for-inspiration/tupac-the-greatest-inspirational-hip-hop-artist-7118f02747ed
Shakur, T. (1999). The Rose That Grew From Concrete. Pocket Books.
My Ambitions Az a HOYA 