Heros of Harlem

Ghetto Gospel -Real -or Imagined

Tupac's Ghetto offers the audience a front row seat to Tupac's view of the almost insurmountable obstacles and challenges confronting those living in the Ghetto. This is Tupac's doctrine--his idea of what is truth for blacks in today's society. Tupac's Ghetto Gospel carefully choreographs and illuminates the hopes and dreams embraced by most people living in the Ghetto, which are then extinguished each and every day the moment they step out into the white man's world. As an outsider to the Ghetto, I believe until one has lived there, they would probably not be properly qualified to definitively state that Ghetto Gospel and the message it portrays meets the threshold to be called Gospel. However from the second hand information I am able to gather, it would probably be accurate to suggest that it is Gospel to those living in the Ghetto--it has a ring of gritty truth to it.

Eyes Versus Ears

A video leaves very little to the imagination. It's images are very precise. In writing or poetry one creates the outline; however the pictures are left to be colored in by the readers’ imagination. The images in the video show one man who is trying to rise above the crime, drugs, poverty and violence of the ghetto. It documents a day in the life of this man, symbolizing the day in the life of everyman in the Ghetto. The video details by use of a timeline this individual’s day which begins with him waking up with his loving family and ends in his death as a result of a drive by shooting. Throughout the day, we are witness to both the hope and despair that living in the Ghetto offers through the camera of his eyes. He sees young black men dealing dope; he looks toward the church for salvation; he sees a homeless woman strung out on crack. At one point, he looks toward the sky and raises his arms, in what appears to be a spiritual moment, looking for God’s help. Later in the day, we see him laying in bed lovingly with his wife and playing with his baby, which humanizes him even more, and creates great sympathy for him. These images of a young man with so much potential and goodness make his random death at the hands of drug dealers all the more poignant. The moral of this story can only be interpreted as evil triumphs over good in the ghetto.The images in the poem are different from the ones evoked in the video. The sparse language in the poem leaves a lot to the reader’s imagination and interpretation. The video is very precise in its depiction of the main character as a family man who shuns drugs and is a spiritual person; it puts a face and a name on the people in the ghetto. But there are certain images in the poem that are not present in the video. For example the poem says “I remember Grandma’s hands used to hold me, mold me, I never forgot the things she told me.” The video does not have any images of a grandmother at all, and she’s not included in the storyline. Another image and verse that’s included in the poem but not in the video is “I wake up stone cold gansta main, see ya gave me ghetto gospel, I thank you main, use to roll in the back and do drugs a lot.” By deleting this scene, the video succeeds in presenting the main character in a much more favorable light, as someone who doesn’t take drugs and is nothing more than an innocent victim gunned down by mistake.

One Dollar or 4 Quarters, It's still a Buck!

“We out of the projects, jumped into another form of slavery,” could only mean from Tupac’s perspective, that in today's society severe limitations continued to be imposed on black men and how through those limitations the white man continues to enslave the blacks. Even with all the laws that have changed and the accomplishments made by blacks in sports, science, the arts, politics, etc, the majority of black people continue to be enslaved by society’s unspoken yet clearly evident discrimination.

Two Different views from on top of the Hill !

I think there is a significant difference in the tone and the approach to death between Langston Hughes and Tupac Shakur. There is a sadness, grief and regret expressed in Hughes’ poem “Night Funeral in Harlem” that is missing in Tupac Shakur’s “In the Event of My Demise.” Hughes uses imagery like “the street light at his corner shined just like a tear—that boy that they was mournin’ was so dear, so dear…” to convey the sense of loss and sorrow that the boy’s death has caused. In addition, there is a respect accorded to the young man who died in this poem—they got him a satin box, despite no insurance, sent wreaths of flowers and paid the preacher $5.00 to preach at the funeral (a large amount of money back in the 1920s) The emotion that best characterizes Hughes poem is sorrow.In Tupac Shakur’s poem, there is a certain resignation about his eventual death, and a detachment that is almost chilling. He seems certain that he will die young (which ironically, turned out to be true), and expresses the hope that he dies for a principle that he valued. There doesn’t seem to be much sadness associated with his demise, he seems to have accepted his fate and is prepared for it. The emotion that best characterizes Tupac Shakur’s poem is detachment.

Turning up the Volume on Hughe's Poetry

Never experienced a ride on a time machine? Hop on board Hughe's “The Weary Blues,” and you are suddenly taken back by the narrator to the 20's and 30's to what the experience might have been like listening to a black musician playing blues music on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. During the 20s and 30s, a period known as the Harlem Renaissance, African American writers, artists and musicians proliferated, and jazz and blues music flourished. Blues music which is known for its repetitive patterns and Hughes poem shares this style in lines 6 and 7 and lines 25, 26, 27, 28. The mood of his poem is very evocative of the melancholy tone used in Blues music. The Hughes poem also uses actual blues lyrics, “I got the Weary Blues, and I can’t be satisfied, got the weary blues and can’t be satisfied—I ain’t happy no mo’ and I wish that I had died.” Hughes mournful language “ain’t got nobody in all this world, ain’t got nobody but ma self,” also reflects accurately the sad feeling and tone of Blues music