For Myself & Others: The Bob and Tupac We Remember Are Gone
By Bomani Jones, AOL BlackVoices columnist
During the month of Bob Marley's birthday, the first thing to come to my mind is Tupac.
On Feb. 6, Marley would have turned 60. He died almost 24 years ago, but pieces of him live through his music and the endless stream of items with his likeness that are hawked in stores and flea markets across the globe. Incontrovertibly brilliant, he was the first global superstar to emerge from a third world country, and his direct songs strike chords in an amazing range of people. But the Marley that gets sold -- the one with a huge smile and/or a huge spliff between his lips -- is an incomplete portrait of the Marley that lived. The Bob Marley that lived was a revolutionary, one whose smiles could not mask the anger he felt about the living conditions of poor people in Jamaica and Africa. The smiling stoner he's evolved into isn't quite the man heard on his records.
It's that reconstruction that comes to mind when I see what happens with Tupac Shakur's image more than eight years after his death. Just like Marley, the Pac of today doesn't quite resemble the Pac of his life. Like Bob, he was too complex to be encapsulated by a poster, too compelling to properly discuss in one sentence or paragraph. His image has become compressed, though. A man of many dimensions has been turned into a reckless, misunderstood child, one whose heart was simply obscured by his penchant for embarrassing public behavior. That's the underlying theme of almost all of his post-Makaveli releases, and it was definitely the idea that the documentary 'Tupac: Resurrection' tried to illustrate.
Pac wasn't that simple, so no explanation could ever be that easy. Pac's personality was the collision of so many things -- the ashes of the civil rights movement, the restlessness that can be attributed to a nomadic childhood, and the strange defense mechanisms spawned by coping with poverty and unstable parental influence. Even with those factors, his behavior was frequently indefensible. Nothing made his assault of Allen Hughes okay, nothing made spitting at TV cameras cool, and sexual assault is too foul for words. For those things, absolution would be difficult.
All of these things were part of a nuanced mosaic. What we now see about Tupac, though, is often boring, and little of it shows why he was so captivating and polarizing. The image of Bob Marley in the public landscape similarly mutes so much of what made him legendary. Unfortunately, nuance is often difficult to comprehend and hard to sell.
My objections to the stream of posthumous Tupac records are not about their quantity or quality. Records left in the vaults are often fascinating, and some of what's been released is good. What is bothersome is that they seem to remodel Tupac in a way that could make someone born after Pac's death wonder what the big deal is about him. Similarly, someone who's only been bombarded by Marley's 'One Love/People Get Ready' might wonder why his fans are so obsessive. Pac's passion, filtered through a unique blend of vulnerability and defensiveness, still comes through in every track. But what is released seems selective, perhaps designed to create an image that would make it easier to move more T-shirts.
Not everything about Tupac Shakur was palatable or justifiable. Were that the case, few of us would have taken so much time trying to figure him out. A Tupac that's easy to deal with wouldn't be worth the time it took Michael Eric Dyson to write 'Holla If You Hear Me.' That Pac was forthright with the things that most of us try to hide made him so interesting and allowed the world to live vicariously through his madness. It's that madness, the same madness that sometimes turned me off from Pac, that's become absent in this reconstructed Tupac. It's that madness that, inexplicably, I miss.
Luckily, I've got memories of Pac to remind me why we still care about him. Those who can't remember his life aren't so fortunate, and the same can be said for those that simply see Marley as a marijuana enthusiast. So if you say happy birthday to Bob, it might be a good idea to remember Tupac, also.
Feb. 18, 2005