


2Pac was unable to be in the music video as he was in prison serving a four and a half years in prison. The music video features Afeni Shakur herself, who re-enacts her reconciliation with a lookalike of Tupac Shakur. Pac just came through and just dropped it and blessed it with them vocals.” 2Pac’s record producer Tony Pizarro spoke about “Dear Mama” in Jake Brown’s 2005 book “Tupac Shakur: 2Pac in the Studio (The Studio Years 189-1996): “Pac used to make references to ‘Dear Mama’ in a lot of different songs and I’d always be like ‘You know that’s a songs in itself.’ And one day he was like ‘I got somethin’ for that.’ And he was like ‘Man, you have In My Wildest Dreams by the Crusaders’ and I was like ‘Yeah.’ He was like ‘Yeah, I got something for that.’ So I got the track ready. At age 17, 2Pac was kicked out of his home by his mother and they did not have contact until years later when her son was a well-known musician.
#Tupac lyrics dear mama crack
Afeni was also absent during 2Pac’s adolescence when she became addicted to crack cocaine. Afeni Shakur (2Pac’s mother) was an active member of the Black Panther party in New York, and was often absent during his childhood, choosing activism over him. In “Dear Mama”, 2Pac discusses his childhood poverty and his mother’s addiction to crack cocaine, but also emphaises his love and respect for his mother, so they supersede the hard times and bad memories. It is a tribute to his mother and the lead single from his third studio album: “Me Against the World”. In 2010, "Dear Mama" became the third rap song to be included to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.“Dear Mama” is deemed to be the best of its genre, created by infamous hip-hop artist 2Pac in 1995. Tupac raps the verses and the chorus is sung by Reggie Green and Sweet Franklin. "Dear Mama" samples two songs: the slow and reflective "In All My Wildest Dreams" (1978), by pianist, composer, and jazz artist Joe Sample, and "Sadie" (1974), a song in memory of mothers by the R&B group the Spinners. Tupac addresses the struggles that his mother faced and admires how she cared for him and his sister throughout it all. "Dear Mama" is an autobiographical song and a tribute to his mother. Shakur died in 1996 at the age of twenty-five when he was shot while in a car at a stoplight in Las Vegas, Nevada. Before his career took off, he made ends meet by selling drugs, a part of his life addressed in many of his songs. Tupac attended the Baltimore School of the Performing Arts before leaving home at age seventeen and moving to Oakland, California. In 1986 she moved the family to Baltimore, Maryland, in search of better job opportunities. His father left the family when Tupac was five, after which his mother, Afeni Shakur, worked hard as a single parent to raise him and his half-sister in the face of many difficulties, including drug addiction and poverty. Tupac Shakur was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1971. Rights have not been secured to reprint the words for this song. The official video may be viewed on YouTube. Available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.įor more information on Tupak Shakur, visit his official website. "Dear Mama" recorded by Tupac Shakur on Greatest Hits, © 1998. Listen to "In All My Wildest Dreams" and "Sadie." Do you think Tupac sampled these songs for any particular reasons? What does Tupac do now, as an adult, to show his mother his gratitude?

According to the lyrics, what challenges did Tupac and his family face when he was growing up?Īccording to the lyrics, how did Tupac's mother help him deal with these challenges? Why do you think Tupac wrote the song like this? With the title "Dear Mama," the song takes the form of a letter.

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