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When I was thirteen, I managed to get my hands on a copy of Kanye West's The College Dropout and it changed the way I listened to music forever. Before that, I pretty much just listened to Train and Dave Matthews Band with my dad (sometimes I still listen to those bands), but hearing Kanye was my first true rap experience. I loved the sound and how every single time I popped it in my portable CD player (Wow, we had those?) I discovered some new wordplay I did not realized the first time. It was incredible.
Flash forward almost eight years: I could pop that album in today and it would feel like the first time all over again. Everything about the record to me is perfect. When friends that are trying to get into rap ask me what they should listen to, I give them that.
Fifteen years ago today, a young man named Tupac Amaru Shakur died after being shot four times in Las Vegas. Tupac was loved by many and inspired a lot of people to love rap and become rappers themselves. When I think about all my favorite rappers, I know they must have been inspired by the people that came before them to try to take their craft to all new heights.
Tupac did that. I think many rappers today would be wrong to say that without Pac, they would not be where they are today. Without Pac, there is no Lil Wayne, Kanye West or fill in the blank. He changed rap forever and that is something worth remembering.
Today, Tupac would have been forty years old and who honestly knows what he would be doing. What we do know is that without the time he was given on this earth, Hip-Hop/Rap would never be at the level it is today.
"I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing. Through every dark night, there's a bright day after that. So no matter how hard it get, stick your chest out, keep ya head up.... and handle it." -Tupac Shakur
Chad Underwood is the editor-in-chief of Students Of The Game. He is currently attending Auburn University at Montgomery and majoring in Mass Communications.
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