By Farayi Mungoshi

“SOME say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice; I say the darker the flesh, the deeper the roots.”
These opening words to Tupac Shakur’s ‘Keep ya Head up’ boomed out from the speakers of my car in song, spiralling me back to the streets of Zengeza over 20 years ago when I wore oversize jeans and bandanas because it was considered ‘cool’.
I was a little menace then, a true rebel without a cause, driven by gangster rap music. It made me feel macho and untouchable. Like a drug, it often sent me into my own little world in which nothing else mattered but me and my friends, and if any one crossed paths with any of us (my friends and I) we were sure to raise hell.
As sad as it is to admit today, but it’s the truth. There are some songs by Tupac that played a role in transforming my mind and being from that of the sweet little child who every parent wishes for to that of a teenager/young adult who every parent dreads.
I am talking about that cigarette-waving, beer-touting, foul-mouthed young man who thinks he knows everything while in actual fact he knows nothing and is yet to discover who he truly is.
But while the thuggish behaviour and gangster lifestyle portrayed by Tupac was infectious, there was also something else even more infectious — his blackness.
While some black musicians won’t dare open their mouths in public against racial discrimination for fear of jeopardising their careers, Tupac did not care and he spoke out through his music.
No wonder he died at such a young age of 25. He was too dangerous for the American Government to handle.
The new All Eyes on Me movie on Tupac’s life, starring Demetrius Shipp Jr as Tupac, tries to depict this but somehow does not go deep enough to show the truth; maybe the filmmakers were scared for their lives.
The movie also stars Zimbabwean sensation Danai Gurira as Afeni Shakur (Tupac’s mother), an activist with the Black Panthers. Both Gurira and Shipp Jr’s acting is convincing and on point in the movie.
However, most filmmakers would agree with me when I say the movie does not live up to expectations. I kept trying to pinpoint what it was that was off with the film but it kept escaping me.
It was only after a couple of more views that I noticed that even though the directing by Benny Boom was not captivating enough, the script had been poorly written.
One can say it is not easy to show the life of Tupac in just two hours and 20 minutes, but that is the whole idea.
The ability to knit together the events that happened in his life with a clear and well structured story line is paramount as it gives the story direction and the flow it needs to keep its audience hooked.
In as far as I can see, the movie is just a string of events pieced together, leading to his death.
That is the challenge with biopics, especially the ones on black musicians, the Biggie movie was also just as badly done and so was the Aaliyah movie, which I must say most of us here in Zimbabwe don’t even know about.
The Ray Charles movie, Ray, in which Jamie Foxx won a well-deserved Oscar is, however, a cut above the rest. The movie is captivating and well structured. It’s almost 10 years now since I watched it but it left a vivid and lasting impression.
I cannot truly say the same about the Tupac movie. Maybe like the rest of his fans, I was left looking and searching for something the movie should’ve addressed but didn’t.
It does not tell us who killed Tupac or the fact that he, like Biggie had FBI agents following him on the night he got killed.
Neither does the film even suggest who could’ve killed Tupac despite evidence showing the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the FBI had a hand in it.
Former LAPD detective Russell Poole said that he uncovered dirty cops in the police department while working on the murders of both Tupac and Biggie Smalls but when he told this to the chief of police and that he wanted to investigate these corrupt police officers, he was told to investigate no further. It is believed that Suge Knight (CEO of Deathrow Records which was Tupac’s recording label) orchestrated the hits on both Tupac and Biggie Smalls with the help of rogue LAPD officers on his payroll.
He owed Tupac over US$10 million in royalties. Tupac lived his final days paranoid and aware that somebody was out to get him but this is not even shown in the movie.
When Snoop Dogg was asked who killed Tupac, he said the man sitting next to Tupac as seen in the last photo Tupac was taken alive just before his killing with Suge Knight sitting next to him in a car.
However, the movie shies from these facts. Some might say these are conspiracy theorists’ garbage but when you have real live witnesses ready to testify presenting their case on tape, it ceases to be just theory.
Lil’ Cs, another rapper who sang with Biggie Smalls, and Biggie’s bodyguard both identified Amir Muhammad as Biggie Smalls’ shooter. Even Puff Daddy saw him, but up till this day, the people involved have not been brought to book because they are protected by LAPD and the FBI.
I feel that by not delving a bit further into Tupac’s death and role as an activist for black people and a voice for the impoverished, the movie denied him relevance in the fight for the freedom of black people.
Was his death just gang-related or another assassination of a powerful black man whose voice proved too difficult to silence?
Some would ask: What is the relevance of the Tupac story to us in Zimbabwe?
For me, not only does the story tell of a blackman’s struggle against a system that is bent on seeing black people remain impoverished but it also tells me of how crafty and how far America is prepared to go in order to discredit any force that threatens or challenges its supremacy.
If it is ready to kill its own and cover it up, then imagine what it is willing to do to other nations in order to maintain its hegemony.
It has already done it to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
Who is next?