essay draft 2

Ingrid (Nina) Picado

Spencer

WRT101S

September 19, 2019 (September 19, 2019)

Tupac Shakur Brenda’s Got a Baby

                        The rapper, poet actor Tupac Shakur released the music video for his debut album 2Pacalypse Now in 1991. Brenda’s Got a Baby the music video was released in 0ctober 20,1991. The song Brenda’s Got a Baby was a controversial song and the record label Interscope Records did attempt to stop it from being released. Shakur stated, “My music makes you think.” It was his platform to illustrate for the community what poverty-stricken families go through who suffer from alcohol drug abuse and sexual abuse. Shakur came across a newspaper article that read “Baby Saved From Compactor, Where Mother 12, Says She Put Him.” March 28, 1991. That was the only information given to society; no follow up news article was published.

 In the Lyrics for Brenda’s Got a Baby Shakur states, “I hear Brenda’s got a baby But, Brenda’s barely got a brain. A damn shame the girl can barely spell her name.” That statement symbolizes ethos in part stating I hear Brenda’s got a baby because Brenda does have a baby. 

The Lyrics continue with “But, Brenda’s barely got a brain. A damn shame the girl can barely spell her name.” this verse is pathos because of the emotion Shakur is saying he feels towards Brenda having a baby so young and not being mentally capable of having a child yet related to not even being able to spell her name since she is so young. In the music video, it shows Brenda walking in the street with a baby and Shakur and a group of his friends behind Brenda. 

Shakur is talking about Brenda and the group of friends state (That’s not our problem that’s up to Brenda’s family.) “Well let me show ya how it affects the whole community.” In that statement, Shakur provides the listener/audience/his group of friends a view different view onto that issue of young minority teen pregnancy affected by drug abuse molestation and poverty. Shakur offers a voice to these teens and offers a different perspective to the community that some might not even realize or think about. “’cause you are in the ghetto doesn’t mean you cannot grow. But, oh that’s a thought, my own revelation. Do whatever it takes to resist the temptation.” That’s a claim that is pathos in a sense he is saying where you are born or where you are from should not define you. Shakur uses that verse as pathos if you are from “The hood” that specific verse hits close to home and shakur being from the ghetto knows how to speak to his audience in that form.

 Shakur continues trying to convince the audience how Brenda having a baby affects the whole community one way it does is stated by the verse “She tried to hide her pregnancy from her family who really didn’t care to see, or give a damn if she went out and had a church of kids. As long as the check came, they got first dibs.” In this statement he brings up a common issue in poverty stricken homes when parents don’t care and just use kids and grandkids for welfare income and instead of using it for what it is intended for it is used for drugs or alcohol or both. “She’s 12 years old, and she’s having a baby in love with the molester, who’s sexing her crazy, and yet she thinks he will be with her forever and dreams of a world with the two of them are together Whatever, he left her, and she had the baby solo.”            

            Shakur touches base on another problem in the ghetto how teens get manipulated by older men or men in general and have sex with them and impregnate them and leave them to care for a baby on their own.