Tupac Shakur (1971 – 1996)
American rapper and actor.
If your not cheering for me, for what I'm doing, don't cheer for me. Don't cheer cause you think I'm cute, you know what I'm saying, screw that. Cheer for me for what I'm doing, for what I stand for, and when I go to jail you should cheer louder.
America is the biggest gang in the world.
The same crime element that white people are scared of black people are scared of. While they waiting for legislation to pass, we next door to the killer. All them killers they let out, they're in that building. Just because we black, we get along with the killers? What is that? We need protection too.
It's like a battle tryin to find the right words to say at the right time.
Prison kills your spirit, straight up, it kills your spirit, there is no creativity, there's none of that.
But in my homeboys' high school, it's not like that. They don't have trips to go see this Broadway play, they don't read things we read. They didn't know when I was like: "Yo, Shakespeare's dope."
Remember, this country had a man named J. Edgar Hoover, whose job it was to destroy the credibility of any black man coming up.
I have no patience for anybody that doubts me, none at all.
I gotta big mouth, I can't help it, I talk from my heart, I'm real you know what I'm sayin whatever comes comes. But my controverse problems, It's not my fault, I try to find my way in the world you know, I try to be somebody instead of just, make money off of everybody. You know what im saying, so I go down paths that haven't been traveled before and I usually mess up, but I learn, you know what I'm saying, I come back stronger, I'm not talking ignorant, you know what I'm saying. So obviously put thought into what I do. So I think my mouth, my controverse, I have not been out of the paper since I joined Digital Underground, I've been in all, you know what I'm saying, my name has not been not uttered, you know what I'm saying, and that's good for me because I don't wanna be forgotten. If I'm forgotten then that means I'm comfortable and that means I think everything is okay.
Measure a man by his actions fully, through his whole life, from the beginning to the end.
Watch people, because you can fake for a long time, but one day you're gonna show your self to be a phony.
The only thing that can kill me is death, that's the only thing that can ever stop me, is death, and even then my music will live forever.
Keep ya head up. Do what you gotta do. And then, inside of you, I will be reborn.
It says, 'I'm a victim for real. Everything I talk is for real. I really got my ass beat. I really don't like them... I really don't like crooked police.
No matter what these people say about me, my music does not glorify any image, my music is spiritual if you listen to it. It's all about emotion, it's all about life.
To dance with the naked [blow-up] doll, that was me! That's what I mean by I'm real, I'm truly hardcore, because I needed the money and I had to work. So if he told me that for me to get paid I had to go out there in bikini briefs and hop on top of this [blow-up] doll and that's how I gotta get paid, and I was homeless at the time, that's what I had to do. But What I did was not let him pimp me, you know what I'm saying. It wasn't like I just did that because that was my order. As soon as I got the check's to say what was on my mind, I said what was on my mind. And we have a platinum record now, you know what I'm saying.
What I want you to take seriously is what we have to do for the youth.
When I was a little baby, I remember that one moment of calm peace, and three minutes after that, it was on.
Measure a man by his actions fully, from the beginning to the end. Don't take a piece out of my life or a song out of my music and say this is what I'm about, because you know better than that.
Fear is stronger than love, remember that. Fear is stronger than love, all that love I gave didn't mean nothing when it came to fear.