essay

Ingrid (Nina) Picado

Spencer

WRT101S

October 2, 2019 

Tupac Shakur Brenda’s Got a Baby

The rapper, poet, and 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 on 0 October 20, 1991. The song Brenda’s Got a Baby was controversial, 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. Include a thesis statement here. 

 In the Lyrics for Brenda’s Got a Baby Shakur states, “I hear Brenda has 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 has 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 is 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 does not mean you cannot grow. However, oh, that is a thought, my revelation. Do whatever it takes to resist the temptation.” That is 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 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 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. Shakur goes into detail on how Brenda gave birth, “She had it on the bathroom floor and didn’t know, so she didn’t know, what to throw away and what to keep she wrapped the baby up and threw him in the trash heap I guess she thought she would get away, wouldn’t hear the cries she didn’t realize. How much the baby had her eyes. Now the baby’s in the trash heap balling.” In the news article’s reality, the twelve-year-old threw the baby in the trash heap, and a sanitation worker found the baby, and it was still alive; it was treated for hypothermia. In Shakur’s song, for Brenda’s got a baby, Brenda ends up going back for the baby and trying to take care of it. “Now the baby is in the trash heap balling mama can’t help her, but it hurts to hear him calling. Brenda wants to run away mama say you’re making me lose pay and social workers here every day.” t This shows how little interest Brenda moms have in her; the mother doesn’t even care what Brenda is going through. “Now Brenda’s gotta make her own way Can’t go to her family; they won’t let her stay no money, no babysitter, she couldn’t keep a job.” Brenda left her home since her mother didn’t want her there. “s “She couldn’t keep a job She tried to sell crack, but end up getting robbed.” This is a big issue in the ghetto; some teens have nowhere else to turn but to crime, to survive, they sell drugs or steal. “so now, what’s next? There ain’t nothing left to sell. So she sees sex as a way of leaving hell it is paying the rent, so she really can’t complain.” Brenda is so desperate; she has no education, no trade, no skill. S She is so young and naïve and just had no one to help her in thriving in life. How is this possible in the United States of America, the land of the free, the land of opportunity? Opportunity, how can this happen to a young teen? It breaks my heart because so many more have gone through this. She felt she had no other option but to sell her body and prostitute herself. “Prostitute, Found slain, and Brenda is her name, she has got a baby.”

That is the last lyric. Shakur’s powerful message was how the poverty-stricken community needs to pay attention to how one life affected by this affects all of the community. Moreover, He brought to light these real problems within the country and how no one is helping, so we must help ourselves and help each other, and I agree entirely with his claim, and I empathize with every lyric of this truly touching, moving song.

                                                           Works Cited

             Shakur, Tupac. “Brenda’s Got a Baby.” 2Pacalypse Now. Interscope Records, 20 Oct. 1991.

Shakur, Tupac Amaru. “Brenda’s Got a Baby lyrics.” LyricFind, Universal Music Publishing.