2Pac is Alive & VEGAN!
Tupac Amaru Shakur (aka 2Pac and Makaveli) is an American rapper, actor, and one of the greatest liberation thinkers and poets of the 20th century.
Born in 1971 Manhattan as Lesane Parish Crooks, 2Pac was slain by an assassin on September 13, 1996.
But everyone who knows what’s up knows that ‘Pac never died. Tupac’s voice is immortal.
2Pac lives because Life Goes On. And 2Pac is alive and well as a vegan.
2Pac Da Man
Most accounts of 2Pac the man talk about him as a meat eater. And he was. But so are the rest of us who are brought into the world to believe that stealing milk from baby cows is “natural” and that stealing eggs from chickens is “nutrition.”
The clip above is doctored, but here’s how 2Pac’s homies remembered his diet.
Shock G, the Digital Underground icon, ‘Pac’s close friend and mentor (and a vegetarian), says 2Pac preferred “hot wings, weed and Hennessy.”
“I never seen him eat a vegetable, not once in the five years I knew him,” Shock G adds. “That’s how I knew he wasn’t planning on living too long.”
So, is 2Pac more of a “do as I say, not as I do” rapper?
Not really.
At that time of his life, 2Pac just didn’t know any better. But he knew enough to call out hypocrites.
Don’t you just love people that smoke three packs a day, talking about “I’m a vegetarian.” Fuck dat.
But 2Pac also saw that our old ways weren’t working, and he blew the whistle as loudly and as forcefully as he could.
2Pacism = Veganism
Take a listen to Changes.
Let the words sink in. Close your eyes.
Otherwise, you can’t C 2Pac for who he really is.
And here we go.
In one of his most beautiful and powerful liberation tracts — Changes — 2Pac makes clear that our old way of eating is clearly not working.
“So, it’s on us to do what we gotta do to survive.”
Notice the emphasis on collective consciousness and social changes. Us. We. That’s how Tupac rolled.
And realize that of all the changes that 2Pac is asking us to make, the very first is: “Let’s change the way we eat.”
We gotta make a change
It’s time for us as a people to start makin’ some changes
Let’s change the way we eat
Let’s change the way we live
And let’s change the way we treat each other
You see the old way wasn’t workin’
So it’s on us to do what we gotta do to survive
Is this a vegan push? You decide.
Here’s another take on these prophetic words:
2Pac could see that the old system of routinized violence is only causing more violence.
And even though he knew that if you live by the gun, you gonna die by the gun, he took time to teach the rest of us that if we want meaningful changes, we have start first and foremost with changing the way we eat.
Before changing (2) “the way we live” and before changing (3) “the way we treat each other” we had to change (1) what we eat. Because we are what we eat.
And if we eat death, then we are death.
As MDE-eaters [MDE = meat, dairy, eggs], we’re trapped on Death Row.
Stressed Out on Death Row
2Pac is a master wordsmith.
The fact that changing the way we eat is at the top of the stack isn’t an accident.
2Pac knows that the only way out of the vicious cycle of death is by looking past centuries and millenia of social coding that rationalized slavery, exploitation, violence, and cruelty.
If you want to see Tupac, then —
Don’t believe everything you read — Alizé and weed!
2Pac is alive today not as a hologram gangsta, recycling old lines about “bitches” and “hos.”
Tupac is alive today as a green motherfucker who understands that killing life is just suicide.
We Killing Us
What’s the biggest stressor killing us all?
It’s killing itself. A cycle of violence and death only begets more violence and death. That’s one thing that 2Pac understood better than anyone else in the world.
2Pac’s entire ouvre is devoted to opening people’s eyes to the brutal reality of modern life. Deep structural violence that is so routinized that it becomes normal.
He empathized with everyone who is stomped on, locked down, jacked up, backed up, cracked up, and “pimp smacked” up. He was a vegan at heart long before being vegan was hipster.
To my Thug niggas in lock down witness me
bail on these ho’s in floss mode
tha life of a Boss Playa
fuck what ya thought tho’
You might have thought eating meat, dairy, and eggs was natural. But 2Pac is clear that real liberation and true emancipation can only come when you “fuck what ya thought tho’ …”
That’s just the way it is.
Liberation = (Re)volution
2Pac knew that liberation meant violent struggle. In his own struggles with street hustlers and the law, 2Pac understood the powerful forces who were fighting him.
As an artist who was introducing entirely new genres of rap and R&B, 2Pac saw the three stages of truth firsthand. First hip-hop was ridiculed as underground “urban” (read: Black) music. Then hip-hoppers suddenly got targets painted on their backs. Literally.
Twenty years later, hip-hop is an unstoppable global cultural phenomenon. The same is happening with veganism today.
This didn’t just happen. People fought to make it happen. People died to make this happen. 2Pac died to make this happen.
But the people who paint 2Pac’s legacy as a hologram gangster make a mockery of 2Pac and themselves. 2Pac is a revolutionary who opposed oppression in all of its forms. So long as we have oppression, 2Pac is alive — fighting the good fight alongside the victims.
Today, 2Pac is not at Coachella or Burning Man; he’s rapping and agitating at a slaughterhouse vigil.
One of the greatest forms of oppression today is the consumption of meat, dairy, and eggs (MDE) and other animal products.
Armed with the knowledge we now have about standard MDE industry practices, Tupac-the-vegan knows— like Tolstoy before him — that as long as we have slaughterhouses, we will have battlefields, and ghettos.
“The Man” is Bad, but We’re Worse
Today, 2Pac is remembered as a valiant warrior for civil justice and Black liberation. The son of a Black Panther who went on to speak truth to power.
But anyone who ever actually takes the time to really listen to 2Pac understands that as bad as “the man” is, the man in the mirror is the bigger problem — and the only real solution.
Here’s 2Pac laying it down in Only God Can Judge Me.
Perhaps I was blind to the facts, stabbed in the back
I couldn’t trust my own homies just a bunch of dirty rats
Will I, succeed, paranoid from the weed
And hocus pocus I try to focus but I can’t see
And in my mind I’m a blind man doin’ time
Look to my future ’cause my past, is all behind me
Is it a crime, to fight, for what is mine?
Everybody’s dyin’ tell me what’s the use of tryin’
I’ve been Trapped since birth, cautious, ’cause I’m cursed
And fantasies of my family, in a hearse
And they say it’s the white man I should fear
But, it’s my own kind doin’ all the killin’ here
We are 2Pac’s own kind, and we are doing all the killing here.
It’s easy to lay blame on the executives and shareholders of mega MDE corporations for the 58 billion land animals and a trillion sea animals who are killed each year.
But it’s a lot harder to look in the mirror and realize that if you’re consuming animal products or “enjoy” animal “entertainment,” you drive the demand that causes this ghastly suffering.
2Pac’s most powerful weapon is the gun of self-reflection — the realization that unless we make changes, the changes we want to see in the world aren’t going to magically come about.
With 2Pac, this isn’t wishful thinking. Being the change you want to see in the world meant realizing that you were entering violent struggle. 2Pac has the courage to speak truth to power. Do you?
Truth to Power
2Pac has a genius grasp on the media’s power to structure reality. He didn’t need Chomsky to explain how manufactured consent serves ruling interests.
Here’s 2Pac explaining why Only God Can Judge [Him] —
Everybody’s droppin’ got me knockin’ on heaven’s door
And all my memories, of seein’ brothers bleed
And everybody grieves, but still nobody sees
Recollect your thoughts don’t get caught up in the mix
’Cause the media is full of dirty tricks
Here’s ’Pac blaspheming —
We probably in Hell already, our dumb asses not knowing
Everybody kissing ass to go to heaven ain’t going
Put my soul on it, I’m fighting devil niggas daily
Plus the media be crucifying brothers severely
And here he is asking us to make Changes —
And still I see no changes can’t a brother get a little peace
It’s war on the streets and the war in the Middle East
Instead of war on poverty they got a war on drugs
So the police can bother me
And here’s the truth bomb that 2Pac was laying down for us all this time. It’s in Changes, again. And, surprise, surprise, it starts and ends with food.
I see no changes wake up in the morning and I ask myself
Is life worth living should I blast myself?
I’m tired of bein’ poor and even worse I’m black
My stomach hurts so I’m lookin’ for a purse to snatch
Cops give a damn about a negro
Pull the trigger kill a nigga he’s a hero
Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares
One less hungry mouth on the welfare
First ship ’em dope and let ’em deal the brothers
Give ’em guns step back watch ’em kill each other
The first dozen times you heard Changes, you might have thought the stomach pain was just the backdrop to the real story. But take 2Pac at his word, and it clicks into place.
(1) “Stomach hurts” + (2) “hungry mouths on the welfare” + (3) “let’s change the way we eat” + (4) “do what we gotta do to survive” = (5) today’s approach to food is fucked. Majorly.
This isn’t some vegan propaganda. This is 2Pac, in his own words, in one of his masterpiece raps. More than 25 years ago!
Food for Thought
Turns out, food comes up over and over in 2Pac’s greatest hits. Listen to 2Pac’s heart-wrenching love song for his Dear Mama:
And I could see you coming home after work late
You’re in the kitchen trying to fix us a hot plate
Ya just working with the scraps you was given
And mama made miracles every Thanksgiving
Here’s 2Pac spreading Blasphemy:
Memories of a past time, giving up cash
To the leaders, knowing damn well, it ain’t gonna feed us
And now, ask yourself, why are the “hungry mouth[s] on the welfare” having stomach pains that are so severe that the only outlet becomes purse snatching, the gateway to a life of crime? What is it that our “leaders” know about our nutrition that we don’t?
Could it have something to do with the fact that the institution of welfare, and food stamps, are just an elaborate subsidy to BigAg and BigPharma? A system to make millions of poor folks eat unhealthy foods that cause illness, and trap families and entire communities in a vicious cycle of runaway consumption and costly Band-Aids? Are MDE diets the new Jim Crow — a slow but calculated play to debilitate and eventually eliminate supposedly “weaker” populations?
Liberate Your Plate, Liberate Yourself
A skin-thin read of 2Pac is that he was crusading against racial injustice. Yes, he was. But like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 2Pac’s crusade was about more than just race.
’Pac understood that the real problems went deeper: poverty, cruelty, injustice — in all of their forms.
It’s no wonder that some of the greatest civil rights leaders — Gandhi, Ceasar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Dolores Huerta, Angela Davis, and many others — were all vegan.
2Pac hammered away at the question of moral improvement. Nonstop. Here’s some more Changes:
I see no changes all I see is racist faces
Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races
We under I wonder what it takes to make this
One better place, let’s erase the wasted
Take the evil out the people they’ll be acting right
’Cause both black and white is smokin’ crack tonight
And only time we chill is when we kill each other
It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other
Time to Heal
The skill to be real, and the skill to heal, is the practice of veganism.
Veganism is a rejection of the senseless and, ultimately, suicidal practice of abusing animals. Veganism is about respect for life.
Play back some of your favorite 2Pac lyrics and substitute MDEs for “dope” and it becomes crystal clear.
Give BigMacs to the kids who the hell cares
One less hungry mouth on the welfare
First ship ’em meat and let ’em deal the brothers
Give ’em cheese step back watch ’em kill each other
The truth is that normalized violence on one’s plate leads to normalized violence in the streets.
Even the hardest core gangsters know that at a certain point, enough is enough. As Ice Cube used to rap back in the day:
Just waking up in the morning gotta thank God
I don’t know but today seems kinda odd
No barking from the dogs, no smog
And momma cooked a breakfast with no hog
I got my grub on, but didn’t pig out
Finally got a call from a girl I wanna to dig out
You can almost hear an even more woke Ice Cube finishing up today with:
Today was like one of those fly dreams
Didn’t even see a berry flashing those high beams
No helicopter looking for a murder
Two in the morning got the veg burger
Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp
And it read “Ice Cube’s a pimp!”
Blasphemy
Is it blasphemy to revive 2Pac as a vegan? Not at all, when all that’s being done is reading 2Pac’s at his word. That’s no more blasphemous than reviving 2Pac in holographs or comedy sketches.
The reality is that 2Pac is alive in spirit, and if he were alive in body, then 2Pac would be vegan.
2Pac told us so himself in Only God Can Judge Me:
My only fear of death is coming back to this bitch reincarnated.
If you want to reincarnate 2Pac, it’s time to make our life more rich, less bitch.
The reason is simple, as ’Pac himself teaches: “Killing ain’t fair.”
Killing ain’t fair.
Killing ain’t fair.
And because killing ain’t fair, it’s time for us as a people to change the way we eat.
