Changes
CHANGES—AN ANALYSIS OF TUPAC
Historians and cultural critics trace the post-modernist hip hop movement which pioneered sampling and graffiti art to the 1970′s, New York, a movement rooted in the black nationalism of the black panthers post civil rights movement (Price, 2006). Hip Hop has become a dominant global youth culture with music, art, fashion, films and Tupac an icon within this culture a “Black Elvis”. Hip Hop has many different sub genres such as conscious, gangsta, party rap and with emcees in the different genres according to their subject matter. The paper will explore Changes a conscious rap song that was recorded by Tupac in 1992, at a time when African Americans were affected by the beating of Rodney King by Police Officers, which led to the Los Angeles Riots of 1992 (Johnson, 2009). The environment was politically charged and conducive for a song chronicling that moment in history. What is interesting is that the song was posthumously released in 1998 on Tupac’s Greatest Hits album, two years after Tupac died of gunshots wounds on the 13th of September 1996 (Scott, 1997). Tupac Shakur’s music is characterized by hard hitting hip hop beats sampled from different music genres and lyrics that criticize, the capitalist system that divides America into the haves and have-nots. The collective identity in Tupac’s music is identified in the struggle of the lower classes to find political, economic, social discourse in a capitalist society by chronicling from the perspective of a young black male growing up in post civil rights America. His work vocalizes the thoughts of the masses trapped within a modern slavery system (poverty and discrimination). The writers credited on the album sleeve are Shakur, T., Evans, D., & Hornsby, B.; Changes sampled the beat and part of the chorus from Bruce Hornsby’s ” The way it is”(1986) and appropriated it into a Hip Hop political anthem. This part of the paper will delve into the psyche of the artist and explore the
Historians and cultural critics trace the post-modernist hip hop movement which pioneered sampling and graffiti art to the 1970′s, New York, a movement rooted in the black nationalism of the black panthers post civil rights movement (Price, 2006). Hip Hop has become a dominant global youth culture with music, art, fashion, films and Tupac an icon within this culture a “Black Elvis”. Hip Hop has many different sub genres such as conscious, gangsta, party rap and with emcees in the different genres according to their subject matter. The paper will explore Changes a conscious rap song that was recorded by Tupac in 1992, at a time when African Americans were affected by the beating of Rodney King by Police Officers, which led to the Los Angeles Riots of 1992 (Johnson, 2009). The environment was politically charged and conducive for a song chronicling that moment in history. What is interesting is that the song was posthumously released in 1998 on Tupac’s Greatest Hits album, two years after Tupac died of gunshots wounds on the 13th of September 1996 (Scott, 1997). Tupac Shakur’s music is characterized by hard hitting hip hop beats sampled from different music genres and lyrics that criticize, the capitalist system that divides America into the haves and have-nots. The collective identity in Tupac’s music is identified in the struggle of the lower classes to find political, economic, social discourse in a capitalist society by chronicling from the perspective of a young black male growing up in post civil rights America. His work vocalizes the thoughts of the masses trapped within a modern slavery system (poverty and discrimination). The writers credited on the album sleeve are Shakur, T., Evans, D., & Hornsby, B.; Changes sampled the beat and part of the chorus from Bruce Hornsby’s ” The way it is”(1986) and appropriated it into a Hip Hop political anthem. This part of the paper will delve into the psyche of the artist and explore the