Charlie Braxton: There’s no way to fully understand Tupac, one of the most brilliant talents of his generation, without understanding his mother, Afeni Shakur, a leader of the Black Panther Party in New York.
But as the documentary illustrates, the acquittal didn’t stop the FBI from harassing her. Some have blamed the mother’s well-known addiction to crack cocaine on. Whatever the particulars, her addiction destabilized her household and made virtual nomads of Tupac and his sister, Sekyiwa, who were often in search of safe places to stay.
Would we have gotten such a brilliant portrayal of Bishop in 1992’s “Juice” if Tupac, the actor playing the role of the street kid who dives deeper into crime, hadn’t had faced those temptations? Would he have recorded 1991’s “Brenda’s Got a Baby?” He reportedly based that songabout a 12-year-old who, after hiding a pregnancy caused by a cousin, dumped the newborn in the trash. There’s no condemnation of the girl in his song, only for the society that created her environment.
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