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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: Tupac Shakur

  • Friday Throwback – Try Me

    When you mention the name Jasmine Guy, most people who remember her will remember her from the NBC sitcom A Different World which was the vehicle that was supposed to blast Lisa Bonet into superstardom. Lisa was soon gone (as was Marisa Tomei, who played Maggie) and the show started to grow around a few characters, and Whitley’s was one of them.

    But what most people don’t know (or forgot) is that Guy also recorded an album. It came out in 1990 and got decent radio play in the Bay Area. Three of the singles placed in the top 20 of the R&B charts, including this one.

    – Did anyone else expect her to sing in her Whitley Gilbert voice?

    – And shouldn’t Dwayne Wayne have made a cameo?

    – I don’t remember her being very tall, but they are trying to make her look leggy.

    – You can tell this is the early 90s because of the dude in the cross colors shirt, the overalls, and the dudes dressed like Boyz II Men from the Motownphilly video.

    – Also, more running man than one video can handle.

    – “You got a little taste, now, back to the bass.”

    Thanks to BMG, I remember getting this as one of my free CDs. I remember the album being ok, though Guy isn’t the greatest singer. But she had this sultriness that played out well in song form.

    Guy was also a friend of Tupac Shakur and even wrote a book with Afeni Shakur (Pac’s mom) in 2005.

  • Dear Alicia: Are Those Keys Wound A Little Too Tight?

    Probably Alecia Keys

    So, folks are buzzing about some comments made by Alicia Keys in her interview featured in the latest issue of “Blender” magazine.

    (You can find a portion of the interview here:http://www.blender.com/AliciaKeysUnlocked/articles/22761.aspx)

    At any rate, here are a couple of Alicia’s quotes:

    “Gangsta rap was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other”.

    She also says that the East Coast/West Coast rivalry that eventually claimed the lives of The Notorious B.I.G and 2Pac was perpetuated by the government and the media “to stop another black leader from existing”.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350916,00.html

    While it might be easy to dismiss her remarks out of hand, there are truths hidden in each of her statements.

    Gangsta rap (as with hip-hop in general) initially gave a much-needed public voice to disenfranchised black youth. Once artists like N.W.A. started seeing dollar signs, they went from being the disenfranchised black youth to exploiting disenfranchised black youth. Compare “Straight Outta Compton” with “Niggaz4life”. Both are based on reality, but the two realities are completely different. One is the viewpoint of the kid on the street trying to make people listen, the latter is the viewpoint of a superstar entertainer whose removed himself from that street and is now revelling in his spoils. As my friend Bryan (who I don’t always agree with, but usually makes valid points) has stated (and I paraphrase here), at some point it went from education to exploitation. And the majority of it is willful self-exploitation. Gangsta rappers are selling out their own. Soulless artists like 50 Cent, Fat Joe, Rick Ross, Lil’ Wayne and others promote violence, drug addiction and even gang ties (in how many interviews has Wayne admitted to being Blood-affiliated?), and something tells me that there’s no all-seeing “The Man”-type person behind the scenes pushing them to say what they say. And even if we’re gonna blame the suits behind the record companies for promoting this stuff, L.A. Reid is just as guilty as Jimmy Iovine, you know what I’m saying? At any rate, gangsta rap might not be an actually thought-out ploy to say “Hey, let’s release this music and watch the niggers shoot each other silly”, the artists are definitely complicit in the acts of violence that threaten urban communities, and the “cool” factor of selling drugs, violence, etc.

    The second statement is a little less easy to explain away. While she gains points right away for suggesting the obvious (that the Big/Pac donnybrook was media-perpetuated), she loses major points by using the phrases “Notorious B.I.G” and “black leader” in the same sentence. While Tupac was undoubtedly charismatic, political and intelligent (before he became Suge Knight’s bitch), Biggie had no political opinions or aspirations whatsoever. While it’s tempting to say that Tupac would have matured into a black leader (he certainly had the skill set to), I think lumping Biggie in there is a bit laughable (hey, I love the man’s rhymes, but I didn’t listen to them to gain any profound social or political insight).

    I think Alicia’s a little misguided (and certainly stands at risk of losing a substantial amount of her fan base), but I wouldn’t say her comments are entirely off-base. There’s a little bit of truth in every wacky statement, isn’t there?

  • Biggie & Tupac: The Plot Thickens Again

    Chuck Phillips of the L.A. Times is at it again.
    The man who, several years ago, implicated The Notorious B.I.G. in Tupac Shakur’s murder has come forth with a new story: saying that Biggie and Sean “Puffy” Combs were part of a set up that led to Shakur being robbed of his jewelry and shot in the lobby of a New York recording studio back in 1994. Allegedly, B.I.G. and Puffy were among the conspirators behind the robbery based on Shakur’s refusal to join Bad Boy Records, the label Combs owns and B.I.G recorded for.
    As a lifelong hip-hop fan, a fan of both artists, and someone who was upset enough about the murders and the pervasive aura of violence that seemed to surround hip-hop back then that I temporarily took a breather from ingesting hip-hop as a whole, this report upsets me, but I’m not naive enough to think that there could potentially be some truth in what Phillips has allegedly dug up.
    Of course, this means I have to share my thoughts on the murders of the two rappers and the whole manufactured “East Coast/West Coast” rivalry that may have played a part in them.
    Let’s face facts: Tupac was killed on the Las Vegas strip directly after a Mike Tyson fight, while in the passenger seat of a car. Is it possible that no one witnessed his murder? Not really. Biggie was gunned down six months TO THE DAY later while in the passenger seat of an SUV that was leaving a widely attended music industry party. Is it possible that no one witnessed his murder? (especially when there were numerous people in the vehicle with him). No, not really. Someone knows something. The events were too widely seen and the time frames were too coincidental, and I’m betting that the two people that know the most are Death Row Records chairman Suge Knight and Sean “Puffy” Combs.
    I’m no “JFK”-style conspiracy theorist, but is it possible that Knight and Combs may have planned the murders of their biggest artists in concert? For all the talk about the two being bitter rivals, they were spotted together at a Prince concert (of all places) last year. Knight is quite obviously evil, and Combs doesn’t seem to possess much of a conscience, so I wouldn’t put it past them.
    The alleged involvement of Jimmy “Henchmen” Rosemond, a former associate of both Tupac and Biggie (who now manages The Game) complicates things. Rosemond’s close associate, a gentleman by the name of “Haitian Jack”, was allegedly the person who REALLY sexually assaulted the young lady who went on to charge Tupac with rape (remember, ‘Pac didn’t go to jail for actually sexually assaulting someone, he went to jail for being an accessory to the assault). Rosemond was allegedly in the studio with B.I.G and Puffy when Tupac was assaulted, robbed, and shot.
    All this adds up to one hell of a tangled web that won’t be completely unwoven until someone spills their guts, which likely won’t happen until either Combs or Knight (or both) passes away.