Global// Battered and Bruised: 2Pac Against the Criminal Justice System.
By Maya Hernandez
10 October 2020
2Pac’s 1995 album Me Against the World is riddled with paradox: from portraits of perseverance and positivity to hopelessness and despondency. Despite these contradictory messages, one preoccupation remains constant: an indictment of the criminal-justice system. Although this subject is not new to rap music, it takes on a new light against the backdrop of Tupac’s run-ins with the law and sexual abuse accusations, his mother’s involvement with the Black Panther Party, and the passage of the largest crime bill in the history of the United States. Through the songs, ‘Me Against The World’, ‘Lord Knows’, ‘It Ain’t Easy’, ‘Fuck the World’, and ‘Outlaw’, 2Pac criticises the three pillars of the criminal-justice system: law enforcement, the court system, and containment and correctional agencies.
‘Coward-Ass Crooked-Ass Cops’: Law Enforcement
A child of the Black Panther movement, 2Pac was no stranger to the injustices of the criminal-justice system (Dyson 67). Involved in political activism since he was seven, 2Pac became fascinated with police after moving to Marin County, California at seventeen. 2Pac’s mentor and later manager, Leila Steinberg, recalls him wanting ‘to ride around the Bay with video cameras to monitor’ them (Stanford 10). He was suspicious of police and the police were equally suspicious of him. In ‘Fuck the World’, 2Pac raps, ‘Getting stalked by these crooked cops again’. This was no exaggeration, as being the child of a Black Panther meant the police watched his every move. He recalls how naïve he was for thinking that because ‘the Black Panthers are not around…that they have stopped looking at’ their children (Dyson 61). The foundation for this paranoia came from the teachings of his mother, who informed him and others around him to practice safety measures such as ‘not sitting next to the door’ and ‘wiping my fork again before I eat’ (Dyson 62). In ‘Me Against the World’, 2Pac raps, ‘Stress in the city, the cops is out for me’. This rings true given the drama, crimes, and misdemeanours he navigated during the years leading up to the album’s release. In 1992, an altercation between Pac’s entourage and jealous youths in Marin County turned deadly when he attempted to pull out his gun, but stumbled and dropped it. Someone from his crew grabbed the gun and fired it, killing a 6-year-old bystander, Qa’id Walker-Teal. Though not charged for the death, in 1995, the child’s family brought a civil case against the rapper, settled by his record company offering to compensate the family $300,000 to $500,000 (Biography).
In the song, ‘Outlaw’, he echoes similar sentiments, rapping, ‘Got me runnin’ from these coward-ass crooked-ass cops’. This criticism of the police came from experiencing police brutality firsthand. In October, 1991 Pac was walking the streets of Oakland when he was stopped by police officers for jaywalking, slammed to the ground, and arrested. In an interview, Pac said the officers asked for his ID and ‘sweated’ him about his name (Meline). Having had enough, he uttered ‘fuck y’all’, and next thing he knew, ‘[he] was in a chokehold passing out with cuffs on, headed for jail for resisting arrest’, he reiterates, ‘Yes, you heard right, I was arrested for resisting arrest’ (Meline). What followed was a $10 million civic suit against Oakland PD, successfully settled for $42,000. This settlement was considered groundbreaking, and according to the Mayor of Oakland, ‘held our department to a higher standard’ (Meline).
Animosity towards police is apparent throughout Pac’s album, to the extent that the US vice president tried to ban it (Meline). However, this did not stop Pac from exposing police brutality and corruption. Easy Mo Bee said that whether it was ‘his feelings about the government or police brutality, what’s going on in the neighborhood, how us as Black people here in America get treated, he wasn’t afraid to speak about it all’ (Bristout). In ‘Lord Knows’, Pac says, ‘When you’re runnin’ from the cops-and never look back. If they could be Black, then they would switch, open fire on them busta-ass bitches.’ Here he emphasises that aside from being racist, one of the main problems with police officers is that they lack empathy. If cops cared about the hardship that accompanied being a black man in the ghetto, then they might join them in their fight. Later in the song, 2Pac raps, ‘every single day it’s a test, wear a bulletproof vest.’ Mentioning bulletproof vests draws parallels between black men and the police. The same way a day on the job comes with risks for police, every day in the life of a black man in America involves extreme risks. Bulletproof vests are not reserved for the police because people of colour are also in danger. However, whereas the police get to go home every night, remove their vest and sleep soundly, for black and brown people in America’s poor communities, there is no escape.
‘Fuck the Judge, I Gotta Grudge’: The Court System
Tupac’s denunciation of the criminal-justice system extended to the courts. An example of his involvement with the court was the ongoing trial mentioned throughout the album, involving accusations of rape. In ‘Fuck the World’, Pac asks, ‘Who you calling a rapist? Ain’t that a bitch…Wanna see me locked in chains, dropped in shame.’ He was convinced that his accusers and the judge had already placed him in shackles. The accusations stemmed from an incident in November of 1993 in which 2Pac, his road manager, ‘Man Man’, and friend, Jacques Agnant, were said to have ‘groped a woman in his [hotel] room’ (Foster). Nineteen-year-old Ayanna Jackson, introduced to Pac by Agnant, claimed her first sexual encounter with Tupac was consensual, but that days later, upon visiting the men at Pac’s hotel room, she was forced to perform sexual acts for them (Bruck).
Pac claimed he was innocent, recalling a message Mike Tyson shared with him, that even though you aren’t guilty of a crime, the government would do anything to keep a black man from being in possession of and potentially using a gun, and ‘so they want to put you in jail even if you are innocent’ (Juemai). This insight was translated into 2Pac’s song, ‘It Ain’t Easy’, when he says, ‘even though you’re innocent you still a n**** so they figure, rather have you behind bars than triggers.’ These lyrics not only represent the discrimination Pac faced during his trial, but highlight the precariousness surrounding the lives of all black men in the midst of a mass incarceration crisis. It further emphasised how the legal standard of being innocent until proven guilty simply doesn’t apply to black men in America. 2Pac was accused of ‘sex-abuse, sodomy, and weapons charges’, as two guns were found in the hotel room (Bruck). In, ‘Fuck the World’, Pac defends himself against these gun charges: ‘I told the judge I’m in danger and that’s why I had that .45 with one in the chamber.’ The danger that he alludes to was very real, as he was almost murdered during his trial. While the jury was deliberating, 2pac was robbed at gunpoint and shot five times in the lobby of a Times Square recording studio. He showed up to the courtroom days later, bandaged and in a wheelchair, to receive his verdict. Pac was acquitted of the sodomy and gun charges, but was convicted of two counts of sexual-abuse and sentenced to one-and-a-half to four years in prison (Bruck).
After a few months of his sentence, Pac learned that Jacques Agnant’s indictment had been dismissed. When asked why, Melissa Mourges, the assistant district attorney who had tried the case against 2Pac, responded that Ms. Jackson ‘was “reluctant to go through the case again”’ (Bruck). However, this reluctance didn’t stop her from bringing a civil suit against 2Pac following the trial. 2Pac addressed this discrepancy in ‘Outlaw’ rapping, ‘Hit the district attorney, but fuck that bitch, cause she’s a liar.’ Mourges noticeably displayed prejudice towards 2Pac during his trial, referring to him as a thug, setting his bail unreasonably high at three million dollars, and sending him to Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison. Mourges’ inconsistency and discrimination led Pac to believe the entire situation had been a set up by Agnant, though this was never confirmed (Bruck). The injustice that Pac faced during his case showed how ‘once the gears of the criminal-justice system were set in motion, [he] was penalized more for who he was’, in the public’s eye, a politically minded, son of a Panther, gangster rapper, rather ‘than for what he had done’ (Bruck).
“Stay Away from these Packed Jails”: Containment and Correctional Agencies
2Pac’s history with jails and prisons began before he was even born, as his mother was pregnant with him while in prison. In an interview from inside Clinton Correctional Facility, he says, ‘I was cultivated in prison’ (Peters 7:28). In his song ‘It Ain’t Easy’, he anticipated serving a jail sentence, writing, ‘So now I'm in this high-powered cell at the County jail’. Describing jail as ‘high-powered’, he criticises the government for having weaponised the prison system. In his interview, Pac says, ‘If you see [the game of life] you can see the little signs … that the guns are turning away from Europe and Russia and Iran and Iraq and they are turning to us’ (Peters 17:10). This can be interpreted as police brutality, but it can also be seen in light of the 1994 Crime Bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Just as the U.S. military invests in weapons in times of crisis, Clinton’s Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act encouraged states to build up their criminal punishment infrastructure and policy to stifle the burgeoning crime rate. According to the ACLU, the bill ‘gave the federal stamp of approval for states to pass even more tough-on-crime laws’, and encouraged ‘harsher practices on the ground’ (Ofer). This allowed prosecutors and police officers to ‘lock up more people and for longer periods of time’ (Ofer). This was accomplished through the federal ‘three strikes’ provision, states’ ‘truth-in-sentencing laws’ increasing the amount of crimes that qualified for the death penalty, and prosecuting young people as adults (Ofer). While in prison, Pac was surrounded by men serving for life because they made ‘a mistake when they [were] young kids and they stuck forever’ (Peters 36:10). This is one example of the bill’s problematic consequences. More can be heard in 2Pac’s song ‘Fuck the World’ through the lines, ‘Fuckin’ with the young Black male, tryin’ to stack bail and um, stay away from the packed jails.’ Pac illustrates that the bill targeted young black men and resulted in more of them ending up in jails, unable to make bail and thus, were stuck inside for longer. Pac himself could not escape the devastating effect this bill had on the black community, and with this lyric, he successfully places his sexual assault ‘conviction into a larger narrative of Black men victimized by the prison industrial complex’, and its expansion due to the 1994 crime bill (Foster).
In his interview, 2Pac critiqued the bill for incentivising states to build more prisons. He referred to the prison system as big business, saying, ‘they are starting to sell jail space’, and, ‘this jail is in the middle of a town that feeds everybody’. He then comments on how prisons profit off inmates by charging them for telephone calls and disciplinary problems and says that ‘if there were no criminals, nobody in that entire town would have work’ (Peters 17:37). In the song ‘It Ain’t Easy’, Pac raps, ‘Bill Clinton, can you recognize a n**** representin’ doin’ twenty to life in San Quentin?’ calling out Clinton for perpetuating mass incarceration and being ignorant to the negative impacts this bill had on the black community. In 2015, Bill Clinton admitted that he was pressured by a rapidly increasing crime rate to sign ‘a bill that made the problem worse’ (Merica).
2Pac raps in the song, ‘Me Against the World’, that ‘Politicians are hypocrites, they don’t wanna listen.’ At the time, politicians supported this bill to combat gang violence with as much force as possible. Pac acknowledged this quickness to call out gang violence as hypocritical since ‘this country was built on gangs’ (Peters 20:27). He described political parties and bureaucratic agencies as gangs and said that the country was run on gangs. ‘Republicans, Democrats, the police department, the FBI, the CIA. Those are gangs’ (Peters 20:33). He said, ‘I had a correctional officer tell me straight up, “we the biggest gang in New York State”’ (Peters 20:40). He said it was even more hypocritical to call out gang violence, when the majority of gang violence occurs out of retaliation, after ‘somebody shoots your family member’ (Peters 21:09). He said the US does the same thing in foreign countries, ‘except nobody even shot their family members’ (Peters 21:18), and that America’s unnecessary display of force in foreign countries was parallel to the gangster mentality that politicians despise. Pac says plainly, ‘America is the biggest gang in the world’ (Peters 21:41).
Imagining his time in jail in his song ‘It Ain’t Easy’, 2Pac asks, ‘What do I do in these county blues? Gettin’ battered and bruised by the you-know-who.’ He follows with, ‘Sittin’ in this living hell, listening to n***** yell. Tryin’ to torture ‘em to tell.’ These lines emphasise the physical, verbal, and mental abuse endured by inmates, along with the corruption within the prison system. Not only do they have to worry about being tortured by officers and guards, but Pac says, ‘you can die here’ (Peters 13:34). In his interview, he described an inmate who was murdered the day before by another inmate, who was serving life and had ‘nothing to lose’ (18:38). He also expanded upon the mental abuse, saying ‘Prison kills your spirit’ (Peters 3:54). ‘Someone…tells you when you can get up, when you can shower…they can speak to you any way they want to and you’ve got accept it’ (18:26); ‘It’s like you’re an animal’ ( Peters 36:47). This is felt in the lyric, ‘When will I finally get to rest through this oppression? They punish the people that’s askin’ the questions’, in the song ‘Me Against the world.’ Here, he conjures the images of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and his own mother, who ‘chose to analyse society and fight and do better things’, and were all punished by the system (Dyson 51).
Conclusion
With the weight of the justice system bearing down on his back, 2Pac still managed to create Me Against the World, his ‘ultimate message in a bottle’ and deliver a crushing indictment of a system determined to be his demise (Bristout). Steinberg says, ‘Pac was born to be political, he was born to touch the hearts of the world’ (Bristout). Though it was not his last album, Me Against the World established 2Pac’s legacy of dedication to justice for people of colour, even from behind bars. The issues he addressed, such as police brutality, systemic racism, and the prison industrial complex, still plague our nation today. Due to recent uprisings surrounding the killing of innocent black men and women at the hands of police, many people are only beginning to realise that these horrendous injustices have been devastating black and brown communities for centuries. If 2Pac were alive today, I have no doubt he would be in the streets, fighting to defund and abolish a system that he, and many other hip-hop and rap artists, had tried to expose long ago. These problems are not new. It’s about time we turned up the volume and started listening.
Works Cited
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Bruck, Connie, et al. “The Takedown of Tupac.” The New Yorker, 30 June 1997, www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/07/07/the-takedown-of-tupac.
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Peters, Ken. “Tupac Shakur: Clinton Correctional Facility Prison Interview, September 1995.” YouTube, uploaded by Steez Vault, 25 Sept. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=791&v=nhpq0MEcYzg&feature=emb_title.
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2Pac. “Me Against the World.” Me Against the World, Interscope Records, 1995.
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Maya is a 20-year-old Mexian-American woman. She is originally from Los Angeles, but currently lives in Amelia Island, FL. She is a first generation college student, studying global politics and environmental studies at Washington & Lee University. She is passionate about intersectional environmentalism, which advocates for justice and protection of both the planet and its people. She hopes to study environmental law after she graduates and pursue a lifelong journey of using her voice to speak up for the people and places who aren’t being heard.