Tupac Shakur. Depending on your view, is either one of the greatest emcees of this generation, an average rapper with a passion, or one of the most overhyped and talentless rappers ever to grace a mic. Now I have to admit, I am a huge Tupac fan and I solely believe that Tupac is one of the greatest (not the greatest, that spot belongs to KRS one and KRS one only) rappers of all time.

Anyways, this review is part of Madtheorys 3’rd annual Hip-Hop Appreciation Week Write Off. The purpose of this 6th Annual Hip-hop Appreciation Week is to continue decriminalizing Hip-Hop’s public image and promote the unity of Hip-Hop Culture. This Year’s theme is “RESPONSIBILITY.”

Responsibility. The dictionary describes Responsibility as:

1. Authority, Importance, and power, among many more.

Now to me there is only one artist whose WORK embodies those above statements, and that my friends is Tupac. Hitting the hip hop scene with his classic debut album 2pacalypse now. Tupac immediately created waves with this gangsta rap document that put him in the notorious, high-speed lane to stardom. After that Tupac released a further 4 albums, and stared in a number of films before his untimely death in 1996, and those are:

Thug life
Me against the world
All eyez on me and
Strictly for my N.I.G.G.A.Z

And the song in question, ‘Keep Ya Head Up,’ is off the later. Strictly for my N.I.G.G.A.Z. Filled with passion and emotion, strictly for my N.I.G.G.A.Z is one of Tupac’s greatest (Me against the world is Tupacs best for the record.) Now, what I now need to do now before I actual review the song is to justify my reason for picking Tupac as my subject.

Now I will be the first to admit that Tupac is hardly the first name that springs to mind when you think of Responsibility in hip hop, but while Tupacs work often embodied the theme of responsibility (changes, dear Mama) Tupac's sense of social justice and personal responsibility often went overlooked. (In other words, Tupac’s personal life often over shadowed his very meaningful work.)

Now originally I was planning on reviewing Tupacs greatest hits, but being it’s a double disk and that I’ve had to revise and do exams all week, I decided against it. (Due to the fact that I probably wouldn’t finish it till next week, when the write off finishes)

Anyway, before I finally decided on reviewing keep ya head, I tossed around many ideas. First off I was going to do a piece or review associated with KRS one but bigd99999 and sun_tzu beat me to it :) (Both excellent pieces make sure you check them out.) Another idea that I also seriously considered was duo Dead Prez, but after writing down a list of names and reasons, Tupac was at the top of that list.

Anyways, ‘Keep Ya Head Up’ was released in 1993 and off Tupacs second LP ‘strictly for my N.I.G.G.A.Z.’ Released to generally good reviews and critical acclaim, ‘Keep Ya Head Up’ is one of my all time favourite Tupac songs. Using a sample of ‘Be Alright’ by R. Troutman, and an interpolation of ‘Ohh Child’ by S. Vincent, Keep Ya Head Up is a near prefect track production wise.

Opening up to the sound of a funky guitar loop, the track soon meshes into a hard, awesome baseline, excellent beat, and funky guitar and xylophone loops. In the first verse Tupac talks about woman, and how we should respect and love them. (Something you wouldn’t hear many emcees promoting) And he generally does kick some good lines, and some do hit home pretty hard. Example:

Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice/
I say the darker the flesh, then the deeper the roots/
I give a holla to my sisters on welfare/
Tupac cares, and don’t nobody else care/
And uhh, I know they like to beat you down a lot/
When you come around the block, brothers clown a lot/
But please don’t cry, dry your eyes never let/
Forgive but don’t forget girl, keep your head up/

And

And since we all came from a woman/
Got our name from woman and our game from a woman/
I wonder why we take from our woman/
Why we rape our woman, do we hate our woman/
I think its time to kill for our woman/
Time to heal our woman, be real to our woman/

So after around 1.24 into the track, an absolutely awesome chorus that really suits the subject content kicks in and runs roughly for about 20 seconds, before Tupac kicks a excellent second verse which has references to his mother, and the changes we need to make to the world as a general. Example:

Aiyyo, I remember Malvin Gaye, used to sing ta me/
He had me feeling like black was the thing to be/
And suddenly the ghetto didn’t seem so tough/
And though we had it rough, we always had enough/

And

You know its funny when it rains it pours/
They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor

So by now we’re roughly 3.00 into the track and again, the excellent chorus (a sample of Ohh Child) kicks in before Tupac kicks a good, and the final verse of the track. Example:

You can’t complain you was dealt this/
Hell of a hand without a man, feeling helpless/
Because there’s too many things fro you to deal with/
Dying inside, but outside you’re looking fearless/
While tears, is rolling down your cheeks/
Yo Steady hoping things don’t all down this week/
Cause if it did, you couldn’t take it, and don’t blame me/
I was given this world I didn’t make it/


THE CONCLUSION:

So in conclusion, ‘Keep Ya Head Up’ is a classic track that I never tire of listening to. The excellent beat and great use of samples really add an emotion and sense of responsibility that you don’t really find in many Tupac tracks. So in conclusion I recommend this single to anybody who only knows Tupac as the gun totting gangster manic that he was hyped up to be during ‘The Deathrow Era.’ But for those that want to see a responsible side of Tupac, and generally hear some classic Tupac tracks I recommend these Tupac releases:

Me Against The World
Tupacs best album by far this contains classic tracks such as, Me against the world, Dear Mama, and Old Skool.

Strictly for my N.I.G.G.A.Z:
An album packed full of passion and emotion strictly for my N.I.G.G.A.Z displays a side of Tupac not generally recognized. Contains the songs ‘Keep ya head up’ and ‘I get around.’

2pacalypse now:
Tupacs classic debut album introduced the world to a young, raw, and fresh Tupac. Contains classic tracks such as ‘Trapped’ and ‘Brenda’s got a Baby.’

Hope you enjoyed this review, and hopefully it was worthy entry into medtheorys 3’rd annual Hip-Hop Appreciation week write off. If you have any questions or disagree with anything I wrote, feel free to leave a comment or email me.

Thanks for reading :)

Dont forget to check out the other participants in this Write-Off:

bigd99999, anthony06511, Boffie, brotherman, cletta1201, ekidd911, heirograffiti, madtheory, matthos, mrjulius, PacManY2J, paulyoungotti, roheblius, konspirator01, sadgit, speeddemon531, sun_tzu, youngchinq




Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving

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