THE REINVENTION OF

2PacMARTIN LUTHER KING JR. MAYNARD JACKSON. TUPAC SHAKUR? THE LATE RAPPER’S PAPERS

FIND A HOME—AND ESTEEMED COMPANY—AT THE ATLANTA UNIVERSITY CENTER.

by BETSY RILEY / photographs by JOE MARTINEZ

it’s not every day that a university archive throws a block party—laid-back coeds in shred-ded jeans simultaneously rocking the Wobble dance and chatting on cell phones. But on September 13, the Robert W. Woodruff Library at the Atlanta University Center had something to celebrate. On the fi fteenth anniversary of rapper Tupac Shakur’s murder, the library introduced a landmark collection of his life’s work: thirty boxes’ worth of handwritten lyrics, correspondence, notebooks, fan mail, and memorabilia, all catalogued for scholarly research. ¶ The bequest is from his family, who—from aunt Gloria Cox to sister Sekyiwa Shakur—drove over from their homes in Stone Mountain to honor the occasion. Morehouse, Clark Atlanta, and Spelman students recited Tupac’s poetry from the library’s granite steps. “My sister and I wanted

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people to know how broad he was. I am just amazed that [AUC] would want to do it,” says Gloria, shaking her graying dreadlocks in disbelief. “They gave [the papers] the dig-nity we wanted them to have.” Tupac has been called the Bob Marley of rap, the Elvis of hip-hop. And yes, some fans steadfastly believe he is still alive. Per-haps that is because his company, Amaru Entertainment, has issued four feature films and ten albums—much of the mate-rial previously unreleased—since his death in 1996, adding to four motion pictures and five albums produced during his lifetime. A remarkable canon for an artist who lived to be only twenty-fi ve before being gunned down in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting. Tupac has sold more than 75 million records. Eminem, the only rap artist to sell more, told XXL magazine, “Tupac showed me how to incorporate emotion into song. Whether he was pissed off, happy, sad, whatever . . . he had the ability to let you know exactly how he was feeling. At the time, nobody was really bringing that type of emotional intensity into rap. And nobody’s really done it like him since.” “Tupac depicted poverty and sadness in such a real way. People responded to the way he talked about struggle,” says Court-ney Chartier, assistant head archivist at AUC, who also helped preserve the papers

of Martin Luther King Jr. She believes musi-cal history has not been as well documented as other aspects of culture and hopes this collection will spur new appreciation for hip-hop’s signifi cance. Last year Tupac’s single “Dear Mama” became one of only four rap pieces selected

by the Library of Congress for its National Recording Registry project. The registry explained, “In this moving and eloquent homage to both his own mother and all mothers struggling to maintain a family in the face of addiction, poverty, and soci-etal indifference, Tupac Shakur unflinch-ingly forgives his mother who, despite a cocaine habit, ‘never kept a secret, always stayed real.’” (Afeni, who eventually beat her addiction through Alcoholics Anony-mous, was a deliberate mother—forcing

Tupac to read entire editions of the New York Times as punishment. She now divides her time between Sausalito, California, and an organic farm in her native North Carolina.) The Los Angeles Times wrote that the Library of Congress honor signified a “growing revisionism” toward Tupac,

whose lyrics were often accused of being violent or even misogynist during his life-time. Dan Quayle infamously pronounced that his music had “no place in our society.” In 2009, however, the Vatican chose Tupac’s posthumous song “Changes” as one of twelve songs for a Myspace playlist—all of which, according to the Vatican, reached “the heart of good-minded people.” “Changes” mourns the death of Huey P. Newton, cofounder of the Black Panthers, who was murdered during a drug deal. Afeni herself was one of the Panther 21, who were jailed on 189 felony charges, including bomb threats and conspiracy. Temporarily out on bail, she became preg-nant by a fellow Panther. Then, serving as her own defense attorney, she was acquit-ted on all counts and released shortly before Tupac’s birth in East Harlem on June 16, 1971. With an absentee father, Tupac’s male role models were militant activists, espe-cially his stepfather Mutulu Shakur. When Tupac was ten years old, Mutulu, Sekyiwa’s father, was involved in an armed robbery of a Brink’s truck and landed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list before being sent to prison. Afeni lost her paralegal job and then her apartment; she would drop her children off at museums and theaters while she looked for work. When Tupac was twelve, she enrolled him in Harlem’s 127th Street Repertory Ensemble, where he landed his fi rst role: Travis in Raisin in the Sun. He and Sekyiwa would spend whole days there while Afeni worked. “The arts saved us and kept us off the streets,” says Sekyiwa.

Tupac’s sister Sekyiwa Shakur at the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, a

Stone Mountain nonprofi t that oper-ates youth performing arts camps

“FOR A WOMAN IT AIN’T EASY . . . A POOR SINGLE MOTHER ON WELFARE, TELL ME HOW YA DID IT/THERE’S NO WAY I CAN PAY YOU BACK/BUT THE PLAN IS TO SHOW YOU THAT I UNDERSTAND, YOU ARE APPRECIATED.” —“Dear Mama” by Tupac Shakur

The Shakurs moved in with relatives in Baltimore to make a fresh start. Tupac was accepted at the prestigious Baltimore School for the Arts, where he fell in love with Shakespeare’s Othello and the musical Les Miserables and befriended actress Jada Pinkett Smith. But before he could gradu-

ate, the family moved to Marin City, Cali-fornia. There, Tupac met Shock G, leader of Digital Underground, who hired him as a roadie. He recorded with the Oakland-based group before his solo debut, 2Paca-lypse Now, went gold two years later. Tupac was often arrested, on charges

ranging from shooting off-duty police offi -cers (in Atlanta to give a concert, he got into a road rage incident at Fourteenth and Juniper streets) to sexual assault. The for-mer charges were dropped (the offi cer had also fired at Tupac), and his conviction on the latter, for which he was imprisoned for

PREVIOUS SPREAD Tupac kept poems, business plans, video treatments, T-shirt designs, and lyrics—such as this

early version of “Nothin but Love”—in countless notebooks. The photograph of Tupac is a postcard advertising his post-humous documentary at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Tupac: Resurrection went on to earn an Oscar nomination. THIS PAGE “Me Against the World,” the title track of his third solo album, was released while Tupac was serving time for sexual assault. It was one of several songs in

which Tupac predicted his own death. Ironically, the record made Tupac the fi rst artist to reach the top of the Billboard

200 chart while behind bars.

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eight months, was on appeal when he died. He survived being shot fi ve times during a robbery at a Midtown Manhattan recording studio in 1994. Just this summer, a hit man named Dexter Isaac, already imprisoned for life, confessed to the attack—reigniting controversy over the incident that sparked the East Coast–West Coast hip-hop rivalry. That confl ict ended in the fatal shootings of Tupac—following a Las Vegas fi ght featur-ing his friend Mike Tyson—and Brooklyn’s Notorious B.I.G. Despite his outlaw persona, Tupac was more idealist than revolutionary. “I didn’t create thug life,” Tupac famously said. “I diagnosed it.” Urged by Mutulu, he com-

posed a twenty-six-point code for what he called “Thug Life,” then persuaded rival members of the Bloods and the Crips to jointly swear to standards such as respect-ing the elderly and not selling drugs in schools—though the code stopped short of not selling them at all. In Baltimore, Tupac once organized a protest to halt demolition of a community center, enlisting the support of the mayor, whose son was a classmate. After “the Rec” was bulldozed anyway, Tupac vowed to his sister that one day he’d build a “thug mansion” where every child could belong and feel safe. (“Thugz Man-sion” was later his fi rst posthumous single.) Part of that dream, at least, has been real-

ized. The Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation quietly operates out of a converted movie theater and former paint shop on Memorial Drive in Stone Mountain. Founded in 1997, it provides summer performing arts camps and after-school programs for children ages seven to eighteen. No auditions are required to participate. “It takes the competition part of the theatrical world out of it,” says Seky-iwa, who has been a sort of extra mom to more than 600 of “Pac’s Kids.” For the first nine years, the programs were free, supported largely by royalties from Tupac’s work. However, as the foun-dation has expanded its facilities, it now charges an inexpensive tuition and offers

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scholarships. The center has conducted cul-tural exchange programs and hosted con-ferences and special events. It’s currently raising funds to build a theater in 16,000 square feet of adjoining space. Next door, the 6.2-acre Peace Garden—free to the public—serves as a sort of mecca for fans from all over the world. Overzeal-ous devotees occasionally try to camp out or immerse themselves in the shal-low, cross-shaped fountain at the base of Tupac’s statue. The center is based in metro Atlanta because, late in his life, the California rap-per started hanging out here—drawn by the burgeoning hip-hop scene, the univer-

sities (former Pan-ther friends are now professors), and, not least, Freaknik. Sekyiwa also jokes, “The strippers of Atlanta loved Tupac. They may be who keeps his memory alive.” He had his own room in a house he bought for Afeni in Stone Mountain, and soon their entire clan relocated nearby. The family got to know AUC archivists while collaborating on a secondary school and college curriculum and decided to share their keepsakes, most of which were sitting in storage. “It was very hard to do,” says

Sekyiwa. “I still go [to the library] and think, ‘No, he gave this to me.’”

B a c k o n t h e steps of the library, Sekyiwa addresses

students rallying around Tupac’s old battle cries—holding two fi ngers aloft for “2Pac” and for peace. “Thank you guys for accepting him and accepting his papers here,” she says, choking back tears. “We thank you so much. It’s usually the stu-dents who move the country. Don’t stop. Don’t give up. I thank you guys for giving a damn.” ■

LEFT “So Sorry” later evolved into “Papa’z Song.” Though sometimes

criticized for his attitude toward females, Tupac could show deep sympathy for the women in his life. Not only was he close

to his mother, sister, and aunt, but he also had friendships with Jada Pinkett Smith, Jasmine Guy, and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes of Atlanta-based TLC. The AUC collec-

tion includes a portrait of Tupac painted by Lopes. On the back, she outlined a ten-year plan of her life goals, signed by both her and Tupac in 1992. Lopes

died barely ten years later. The last goal she’d proposed to Tupac was to “have

you.” MIDDLE Tupac’s plans to develop a restaurant RIGHT Tupac wrote “The Rose That Grew from Concrete” as a teenager during a series of Bay Area workshops

conducted for at-risk youth by Leila Steinberg, who became his fi rst manager. It was the titular piece from a collection

of poems published after his death.

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