All Eyez On Me: The Movie of A Rap Legend’s Life
After the Straight Outta Compton movie and its praise, it is no surprise that another true story movie of one of hip hops legends will be released soon. All Eyez On Me, the new movie about Tupac Shakur’s life from childhood to fame to death, is titled after the last album he released before his death.
Tupac is known as a legend of rap. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today, April 7, 2017. Many rappers cite him as inspiration and of course the conspiracy surrounding his death is still a topic of discussion today.
In the video there are scenes of meetings he attended as a child. Most of his family were members of the Black Panther Party and then the Black Liberation movement including his mother. He grew up in this environment, where his family was struggling and they were fighting for their rights. People he loved were often accused and convicted of serious criminal offenses. The movie appears that it will depict his childhood as truthful and use it as a springboard for who he becomes.
There is another scene of his standing with Biggie Smalls outside a club concert venue where he says, “We’ve got a big platform man. Use that platform to make change.” An idea that Tupac is often credited for today, as rapping to promote change in a racist world, not to glamorize violence and gang culture that hip hop is so often accused of doing.
In another scene a man says to him before he enters prison for his nine month sentence, “you’re trying to start a positive movement for black people by using negative symbolism like thug and outlaw.” Tupac replies ‘“You’ve got to enter in somebody's world in order to lead them out.” He is an inspiration that is using his career to not just make him famous but to bring attention to issues that people are comfortably ignoring.
But no one is just a hero in real life. In the trailer there is a shot of Tupac handcuffed getting of a bus to begin serving his prison sentence. He was sentenced to prison for nine months for sexual assault. It is of my concern that in this movie the cause for his sentence will not be mentioned, will barley be mentioned, or will make Tupac look like the victim of unfair circumstance. Movies like this have spun the truth in the past to tell the story they want to tell, not necessarily the true story. In Straight Outta Compton Dr.Dre was portrayed as the kind hearted one of the group, but never did they mention his history with assaulting women. He attacked a journalist, Dee Barnes, at a record release party in Hollywood (1) and after his trail was given probation and community service. His Ex, Michel’le, spoke publicly about how she endured beatings by the rapper throughout their six year relationship (2). Dr. Dre commented on these issues in a Rolling Stone interview:
“I made some f**king horrible mistakes in my life. I was young, f**king stupid. I would say all the allegations aren’t true — some of them are. Those are some of the things that I would like to take back. It was really f**ked up. But I paid for those mistakes, and there’s no way in hell that I will ever make another mistake like that again.”
But Dre’s forever engrained portrayal of his young self didn’t include these horrible actions. The mass majority of people will know of him by that movie not by what he did to those woman.
Obviously 2pac’s movie has not been released yet, and the depiction of his trail and of his prison sentence is unknown. I do believe it is the responsibility of those creating true story movies to tell the truth of the story, the good and the bad. It is an injustice to all women that Dre’s abusive past was left out and would be another injustice if Tupac’s was.
In the trailer once Suge Knight is introduced, we know the horrible end is near. Suge Knight was the corruption center of Straight Outta Compton, often using violence to get what he wanted. Knight was also present in the car on the two separate occasions that Tupac and Biggie were killed, so his connection to the two murders is to most more than a coincidence. After Suge Knight’s appearance in the video we see Tupac become more violent. In a short conversation with Jada Pickett where she is crying because he no longer is using his voice to educate he tells her “If he coming at me he gonna get dealt with” in a very aggressive tone. Even in just the trailer we get a glimpse at the evolution of Tupac, his rise to fame how that fame began to affect his personality.
Telling the story of the past is one way to reflect on it, to see the negatives and the positives in the span of two hours. This movie will give Tupac the recognition that he deserves, the credit for his talent and passion for writing that he had, and hopefully an honest story of his life. Retellings of hip hop can point to the negatives just as much as they point to the positives. There is a huge issue within this movie of sexual abuse and how it is portrayed in the movie will show whether hip hop and society has progressed since the 1990s. There is also the issue of race, of being black in 1970s-1990s America. The depiction of racism has become more honest in current movies, but it is still an issue that is crucially important for the creators of this movie to deeply dig into.
