Education & Career

Tupac May Not Be Inappropriate To Study In Schools...

Now, Tupac may not have been a great role model considering his lifestyle, and his behaviour, I understand that. When I tell people I like Tupac, they laugh and ask me questions such as: "are you going to be a rapper?" "Are you going to be a gangster?" That's when I roll my eyes, get and get annoyed at these people's lack of understanding.

Firstly, I don't look up to Tupac as a role model, for reasons I mentioned above. And I don't want to be a rapper or a gangster. I admire some of the lyrics Tupac wrote. How he could cover several issues, with a few lines in just 4-5 minutes. He even talked about a black president which would have been unimaginable to certain people at the time he wrote that.

For the parents who are going to complain now, and would march up to the schools and throw a fuss about the school letting their children studying such inappropriate content, if Tupac was to be studied let me stop you right there.

I understand a lot of parents may not agree with the violence. Yet Shakespeare is still studied in schools. Plays such as Macbeth are studied in school. The whole basis of that is killing. Macbeth kills the king of Scotland (his leader), hires murderers to kill his best friend, hires murderers to kill Macduff's wife and all of Macduff's children, his wife commits suicide, at the beginning of the play he's slicing a man from his groin to the head, and in the end he gets killed and his head gets put on a stick, and then gets displayed.

Tupac uses sexist terms. So does Shakespeare. Why is that Lady Macbeth has to unsex herself, so she can become 'evil'? Because in Shakespearean times they believed women could not be evil so in order to make the play make sense to the audience of that time period. My point is we don't get easily offended by Shakespeare's choice, to have Lady M. unsex herself, we explore why he did so. Why can't people do the same with Tupac, explore what causes him to use vulgar sexist terms? I'm not condoning Tupac's use of sexist or vulgar terms, nor am I condoning Shakespeare, but most people can see why Shakespeare would write such things about women, so why can't we at least try and see why about Tupac.

People get less offended over Shakespeare because a lot of people do not understand old English, therefore Shakespearean text sounds like poetry to them. But if we today spoke old English and understood it like we understand modern English would we be easily offended by it with our mindset today?

I'm not saying don't study Shakespeare. Shakespeare was a fantastic writer in his own right, and his work does need to be recognised. But many would agree Tupac was also a fantastic writer if you ignore the vulgarness, and the style of music for a second and just read the meaning, to some of his songs for example "changes" you will understand where I'm coming from. Plus, wouldn't it be more beneficial for students to study something in a language in which they understand? That way discussing issues such as the profanities he uses and analysing the lyrics would be much beneficial.

Now let's view Tupac as a role model. A bad one, I agree at that. And you may not want him to have an influence on your children, and that is understandable. BUT many poets we study are also bad influences, Percy Shelley for example, he was expelled from Oxford, Lord Byron was claimed to be: "mad and dangerous to know" and had numerous affairs. Shelley's poem could be perceived as manipulating a lover to partake in sexual activity.

We've studied Of Mice and Men, which had use of the n-word, multiple times.

Yes, Tupac's songs have vulgar language, so do texts we study in school. So why are the writers I mentioned above studied in school? Not because of who they were but because of what they wrote. Tupac covered many controversial topics in his songs, which would generate discussion in the classroom about issues today, and I believe children, would enjoy studying Tupac more because they wouldn't have to learn to understand the language, they would just understand it and get straight on with analysing. It could make children more aware issues which are happening today, rather than what happened in the past. It could make children ask questions, and search for answers.

When I say, children, I mean people aged 14-18.

I suggest people stop being such snowflakes, and looked beyond the style of music, the man's background and the profanities used in the song and discussed: Why did he choose to write in the style of rap? Why did he use such profanities? Why was his background the way it was? People may become open-minded, and who knows some actual change in society could occur.

Tupac May Not Be Inappropriate To Study In Schools...

Thank you for reading this MyTake! I felt the need to write this as I just started listening to Tupac's music. I don't like all of his songs, only the ones with meaning. I've never really been into rap, and I didn't consider it to be my "thing" but my dad used to listen to Tupac and I thought back to one of my parents' evenings which he went to, and the teacher advised me to read newspapers to increase my vocabulary range, and my dad said to my teacher: "That's what Tupac did." And then my teacher and my dad got into a huge discussion about Tupac. My dad is a "no nonsense" kind of guy, and he can't stand rappers today, so him listening to Tupac made me curious as to why. To me, Tupac was always stereotyped as a "thug" and he was to an extent, but I couldn't understand why my dad would listen to him until I listened to him myself. The songs I listened to had meaning, I listened to "changes", "dear mama" "only God can judge me" and a few others. I looked listened beyond the profanities and heard meaning, and possibly somebody crying for help. I had to share what I'd heard and my thoughts with my best friend, and when I did, she laughed. And that triggered me. It's not her fault, Tupac has also always been portrayed to her as a 'thug', so she must've thought only thugs and wannabe thugs listen to his music. Because that's what society turned it into. And I'm the nerdy, shy type and she probably saw me as trying to be a wannabe thug by listening to his music. But I explained to her, I wasn't listening to the profanities or style, I was listening to the message. She then apologised for laughing and told me: "fair enough". My best friend laughing at my new interest, made me wonder, does anyone actually hear the message, or do they only hear the stereotype?

Thanks for reading. :)

Tupac May Not Be Inappropriate To Study In Schools...
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