Chapter 13: “Dear Mama” by Tupac Shakur

The first time I heard “Dear Mama” in early 1995, I was a nineteen-year-old sophomore in college, living right outside of New York City. I was a longtime Hip Hop head, but only a moderate fan of Tupac; my geographic loyalty was with the Notorious B.I.G., or Biggie, as I typically still refer to him. However, “Dear Mama” (Shakur, 1995) was a game changer for me in every sense of the word. In previous songs Tupac had made respectful and even somewhat remorseful references to his mother, former Black Panther Afeni Shakur, but this was a complete, transparent homage to her struggles and celebrations as a single parent, and I was mesmerized from the first time I heard it. In fact, seventeen years later, it is still such a powerful classic Hip Hop text chronicling the group identity and experience of Hip Hop culture that I am using it in my work as a scholar and activist, most recently in my work with high school students incarcerated at Riker’s Island.