Changes- Tupac Shakur Influences on Society

“We talk a lot about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., but it’s time to be like them, as strong as them. They were mortal men like us and every one of us can be like them. I don’t want to be a role model. I just want to be someone who says, this is who I am, this is what I do. I say what’s on my mind.” --Tupac Amaru Shakur (T.I.P). This quote was spoken by one of hip-hop’s most legendary idols, Tupac Shakur. Tupac has become an integral icon of the hip-hop culture and will live on eternally through his dynamic lyrics and poems. Most of Tupac’s raps concerned growing up around violence and hardships in ghettos, and racial inequality in the United States. He experienced many of these factors growing up, especially race related issues. For instance, on October 1991, Tupac was stopped by two officers for allegedly jaywalking. When he responded with a profanity, he was choked and beaten severely (All eyez on me). Tupac’s lyrics always went deep into the meaning of many political and social subjects including violence, and that is what sparked the initial response of his song, “Changes”. The purpose of this song was to state how everyone knows that racial violence and issues on the streets would never change. It shows how people have to succumb to the fact that there will always be poverty, racism, police brutality and violence in the world. This is reiterated by the lyric, “Some things will never change”. This song went straight to number one on the charts in many countries in Europe and around the world. This resulted in Tupac gaining a broader and more receptive audience to his controversial lyrics. So imagine if Tupac had used a different method to get his message across, for example, just writing the lyrics without music or creating a photo collage. Not only would the audience change but the message would also be effected by the difference in mediums. Transmediation refers to the process of “responding to cultural texts in a range of sign systems—art,

Cited: “Changes”. 2paclegacy. 2008. 27 July 2008.     Semali, Ladislaus M. “Transmediation as a metaphor for new literacies in multimedia classrooms”. Reading Online. 2001 December. 27 July 2008.     “Tupac Amaru Shakur”. All eyez on me. 2005. 27 July 2008.