Tupac as an American Icon

Tupac Shakur

Tupac was a leading American icon because he crossed cultural, racial, and economic barriers. From the child in the suburb to the former vice president of the United States, everyone recognized Tupac's iconic status. He had many traits that would make him stand out above the rest, and that is what made him the best. His traits are routed in his name because he was named after an Inca Indian revolutionary Tupac Amaru, which means "shining serpent", and Shakur is Arabic for "thankful to God." (http://www.2paczone.com/tupac/) These are traits that he portrays in his songs.

Regardless of what anybody said, he would not let any authority figure dictate the way he spoke. Tupac is considered an outlaw of mythology in today’s American society since he crossed cultural and economic barriers. In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle said Tupac's 2Pacalypse Now "has no place in our society." (http://www.2paczone.com/tupac/) This statement did not hold him back in any way from continuing his fight as a soldier in the ghetto by spreading his controversial lyrical rhymes in the albums that followed. He was a bad boy poet who had great love for his mother and spoke to a generation of whites, browns, and blacks alike in a way that everyone felt his warm wrath. Tupac new he was an outlaw because he was in several music groups such as Thug Life, Outlaw Immortalz, and Outlawz he also wrote Life of an Outlaw.

Even though he was a black minority, he was able to make tons of money by speaking his mind in a radical way. He is a rag’s to riches story coming from the Brooklyn, New York. His father abandoning him only made his character stronger in a way that it created a certain hate that he was able to put forth in his songs. He sold drugs to make ends meet but was able to make a real career out of rapping and later in some movies. He was so good that while he was in jail, for sexual abuse, his 1995 album, Me Against the World, debuted at No. 1. It went double platinum in 7 months. (http://rap.about.com/library/bl2pacpage.htm) Shortly after he got out of jail he produce the first ever double CD album “All Eyez on Me”.

He is a Dionysus and a Frontier’s man in our memories. Dionysus was a Greek god of orgies and fertility which relates directly to Tupac because he loved the fast life of sex, drugs, and violence.