Not much to say about this, I just want to store it here: I'm sitting with this Tupac song, "Hold Ya Head," which Wayne, the guy I'm writing an article about, cited--specifically how important the line, "God bless the child that can hold his own", was to him when he was a teenager and felt God couldn't help him in the hell of despair, drugs, and violence he was in.
This song is hard for me to enter into, it's so far from my experience--but I feel it touch me, like walking through a spiderweb, you feel its silk strands brush your face--some living being, here with me on Earth, has made this.
I'm intrigued by how people can have such entirely different lives––and yet have some meeting points... places the consciousnesses can brush against each other, like a breath.
I like that, I look for that.
Tupac (2Pak) Shakur, "Hold Ya Head" (1993)
"God bless the child that can hold his own."
I was also wondering how much he consciously borrowed from Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child [that's got his own]".
A quick google turns nothing up, but listening to it again now, there are echoes--certainly he knew her music: she's with him in his vision of heaven in "Thugz Mansion".
"God Bless the Child", written by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog, Jr. in 1939; this performance, 1950
From "Thugz Mansion" by 2Pac
"Dear momma don't cry, your baby boy's doing good
Tell the homies I'm in heaven and they ain't got hoods
Seen a show with Marvin Gaye last night, it had me shook
Drinkin' peppermint Schnapps, with Jackie Wilson, and Sam Cooke
Then some lady named Billie Holiday sang
Sitting there kicking it with Malcolm, 'til the day came"
This song is hard for me to enter into, it's so far from my experience--but I feel it touch me, like walking through a spiderweb, you feel its silk strands brush your face--some living being, here with me on Earth, has made this.
I'm intrigued by how people can have such entirely different lives––and yet have some meeting points... places the consciousnesses can brush against each other, like a breath.
I like that, I look for that.
Tupac (2Pak) Shakur, "Hold Ya Head" (1993)
"God bless the child that can hold his own."
I was also wondering how much he consciously borrowed from Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child [that's got his own]".
A quick google turns nothing up, but listening to it again now, there are echoes--certainly he knew her music: she's with him in his vision of heaven in "Thugz Mansion".
"God Bless the Child", written by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog, Jr. in 1939; this performance, 1950
"Dear momma don't cry, your baby boy's doing good
Tell the homies I'm in heaven and they ain't got hoods
Seen a show with Marvin Gaye last night, it had me shook
Drinkin' peppermint Schnapps, with Jackie Wilson, and Sam Cooke
Then some lady named Billie Holiday sang
Sitting there kicking it with Malcolm, 'til the day came"
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