“I Get Around” is the diametric opposite of “Keep Ya Head Up.” Though tame in comparison to songs that came before and after it, the song is at times, as disrespectful as “Keep Ya Head Up” is the epitome of respect.

“Keep Ya Head Up” is as critical as it is encouraging. 2Pac rhymes with controlled gentility, matching his tone with his lyrics masterfully. This type of rhetoric is beautifully and disappointingly prophetic to today’s times. I think it’s time that we kill for our women, time to heal our women, be real to our women,Īnd if we don’t, we’ll have a race of babies that will hate the ladies that make the babies,Īnd since a man can’t make one, he has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one” I wonder why we take from our women, why we rape our women, do we hate our women, “And since we all came from a woman, got our name from a woman and our game from a woman, During the first verse, he asks why so many Black men mistreat Black women and turn them into single mothers. It’s a plea to not only uplift Black women who have felt slighted, misused, and taken advantage of for generations, but also a declaration of embracing one’s Blackness. “Keep Ya Head Up” is as uplifting a song as has ever been recorded in hip-hop history. The duality of 2Pac drove his idiosyncratic artistry and persona, codified on “Strictly” with the inclusion of two of his most famous songs, two songs that couldn’t be any more diametrically opposed: “Keep Ya Head Up” and “I Get Around.” On the other hand, he was engulfed in an urban plight that plagued many Black communities. On the one hand, he was raised under the umbrella of the Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army movement via his mother (Afeni Shakur), stepfather (Mutulu Shakur), and godfather (Geronimo Pratt). It’s important to remember that 2Pac is a product of dueling influences from his formative years. This album should be more revered than it is. Digable Planets’ first album, ‘Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space)’ just turned 30.

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