Tupac: 15 Years On

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born on June 16th 1971 which would make today his 40th birthday. The Bigger Picture examines how differently the rap industry would have shaped up had he been around for the last few decades.

Tupac was murdered on September 13th 1996 in Las Vegas.

[See more: 'Tupac Killer Comes Forward' http://rikybains1.blogspot.com/2011/06/tupac-killer-comes-forward.html ] 

After the passing of the Notorious BIG and Tupac, the two biggest phenoms in hip hop at the time, the demographic and the structure of the industry began to weaken at the foundations and popularity shifted.

50 Cent makes reference to the shift in the style of music being produced in his song 'I'm A Hustler' :

'From '86 to '96 the game went from sugar to sh*t'

From 1996 onwards, hip hop's complexion became softer and heavily RnB based songs were the consequences of the death of the hard-hitting rappers, Christopher Wallace and Tupac Shakur. The gap left by these two giants were exploited by DMX alongside the Ruff Ryders who brought the aggressive material which the industry had been missing. It is arguable that had Tupac not been eradicated from the equation, DMX would not be so popular.

The second greatest example is 50 Cent. Fifty rose to stardom at a time when the only rappers with aggressive material in the charts were the likes of Nelly, and even his material was still soft. 50 found a niche in the music market which was aggressive material, backed up by real life experiences and catchy hooks - these attributes had not really been exploited since Tupac's demise.
Therefore you could again argue that artists like 50 who shocked audiences with a refreshing new aggressive tone would not be so popular had Tupac not been murdered and was still involved in the game.

Demographics

We must remember that Tupac was only 25 when he was murdered and we can assume that he would have remained at the top of his game for at least another ten years.
When Shakur was releasing his records, the hip hop audience was predominantly black. Since the arrival of Eminem and the commercialisation of hip hop with groups such as Young Money at the forefront of making rap mainstream, the rap audience has diversified and no longer holds boundaries of gender, race, age or ethnicity.
Had Tupac reigned for another 10- 15 years, would the demographic have changed? or would his material remain consistent to the black audience that could relate to his expressionism of the harsh realities which society finds itself in.
I personally think that artists such as Drake who are considered to be 'conscious' rappers would be ineffective in a world with Tupac. Therefore, the pop audience that artists such as Drake and Lil Wayne bring with them would not exist.

Who knows what the game would have looked like but one thing for sure is that we all sorely miss the man's music.



Happy 40th Birthday Tupac

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