Review of Tupac: Resurrection (2003) by Aslum K — 10 Nov 2005

I can't put into words how much I love 2Pac.

So to avoid getting overly sentimental, let's talk about this film. Tupac: Resurrection is a documentary culled together from clips and interviews with the late rapper, who was murdered in 1996 after a Mike Tyson fight amid a feud with another rival in Hip Hop, and after being shot five times and jailed years before. The big difference between 'Pac (as he was known to friends) and every other hard rapper is that, as the documentary points out, all of his drama, convictions, shootings, and so on happened [i]after[/i] he became a rap star. That's not the emphasis of the piece, it's just one of many interesting facts revealed in this enthralling documentary. Even more enthralling is the way this filmmaker takes 2Pac's ghoulish fatalism and is able to edit in such a way that 2Pac seems to tell his own story from beyond the grave - he's the narrator, his real voice, and he talks about being shot and killed. I kid you not. To an outside observer, this is uncanny, but 2Pac's fans know that he was constantly preoccupied with his own death, and saw his life after his original shooting as a resurrection of the type Machiavelli himself couldn't plan. And 'Pac knew all about Machiavelli, as well as several other great philosophers and thinkers, which is what makes him so fascinating. This hard as nails rapper was a poet, raised by a single mother who was one of the infamous Panther 21 who had him after escaping that case, while his father was barely known to him, but a revolutionary in his own right. While the average rapper is little more than a thug off the street, 2Pac went to art school as a child, read voraciously, and had an uncanny knowledge of history and politics, as well as common man's insight into all of the above. I've said a million times that the greatest tragedy of 2Pac's killing was that he died at 25 knowing and having learned so much - it's inconceivable how great he could be today. This man, IMO, could have been that great Black Messiah that J. Edgar Hoover was so afraid of. There seemed to be no limit to what he could achieve - as the documentary shows, he was an exceptional actor, as testified by one of my personal favorites, the late great Gene Siskel. As a a rap fan, I know what an incredible musician he was. Women go on and on for days about his appearance. All of the rappers he feuded with went on to become huge stars after his death, and every plan he made, from starting a youth football league to retiring as an A&R person at the height of his fame have since been taken up by others. 2Pac was so far ahead of his time, it's impossible to describe. I never knew what older people must have felt like when Martin Luther King died until 2Pac did. This film captures it all, including an appearance where 2Pac makes a speech as riveting as any of Malcolm X's best.

2Pac once said that all poor people should have to be rich for a week, and all rich people should have to be poor. And then switch it, week by week. I've done that, and now know why he said it. 2Pac also said that the worst thing one could live through was poverty. I've done that, and now I believe it.

Again, I don't like thinking about what we lost when we lost 2Pac, because I get too upset. Of all of the great thinkers and artists in history, he was the only one I lived through. And I miss him.