"Young girls at play are unaware that they are socially performing the embodied memories of a black musical past, but this explains the subconscious links between the generations of youth, between youth and adults, over time…. In other words, girls are telling stories through their embodied play: dramatizing the "infinite process of African-American and black musical identity construction" by practicing and performing the mnemonic rituals of a kinetic orality."
Excerpt from The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double Dutch to Hip Hop.
The first Tupac song I ever heard was "Brenda's Got A Baby." I was in college, participating on an assignment for my Humanities class. Students were divided into pairs and asked to bring in a song of their choosing that had substance. We were to provide lyrics for everyone in the class. Then, as each song was played, we listened intently and analyzed the lyrics.
The girls in After Tupac and D Foster feel a deep connection to Tupac and this song.
"He was so beautiful, I felt like I could see Brenda inside of him. Like even though he was singing about a girl who threw her baby away, he was thinking about himself."
"It's like I look at him and see myself. It's like I'm looking in a mirror."
They see Brenda in Tupac, and Tupac in themselves.
How can one song make all of these connections?
When I heard this song, I was taken aback by its cruel reality. I'd never heard anything like it before. I had known girls like Brenda and I suddenly gained a profound compassion for her and those like her. I truly believe that compassion, empathy, understanding - all of these things - are the highest achievement that the arts can make.
"What else do you have in common with Tupac," Neeka said.
" It's like his mama was a mess sometimes and he still loved her- people's moms be all complicated, and it's not like you got a bad mama or you got a good mama the way people be trying to judge and say."- D
