Baltimore School for the Arts

But they eventually move to to Baltimore, which was really sort of, I'll use the word again, incubator for hip-hop, which I didn't really appreciate fully.

So tell us about their time in Baltimore and his attendance at the Baltimore School for the Arts, etc.

Sure, yeah.

I'll just quickly fill in just a touch because I think it's really important.

Mm

... and, and with Tupac here at Baltimore School for the Arts.

And so it was really funny.

I went to see that movie with her and her daughter, Maya, who's my goddaughter, and it was so funny watching it, this movie, 'cause she knows that person.

That was a good low detail.

And then he loved the Baltimore School for the Arts and he moves to Marin.

And even though he found himself and found friends, I think he was always haunted by that move, as was his sister.

Well, you know, I run rhymecology.

Can you kind of run down with me a little bit of Tupac's trajectory?

Tupac is, I always say, or I've said since I wrote the book, he is a, I phrase it something kind of like this, he's a New York-born, Baltimore-raised, Black Panther-informed, west coast artist so i kind of agree with you he's a mishmash of a million different things he's a kid who spent his very early years in new york moved to baltimore for the middle school years spent one year at dunbar high school in baltimore two years at the baltimore school for the arts baltimore school for the arts very very very much informed and enlightened and educated him then is kind of as a sister uh set said to me when i asked what was it like when you moved to california and she said to me well there's your white privilege and i'm like what do you mean she's like we were moved, we were relocated.

And I was like, ouch.

And California was thrust upon him and he was just immersed in the middle of crack culture, moved to public housing in a pretty dangerous wild, wild west area, Marin City, but also really exposed him to a lot of artists and a certain style of music that he never would have had had he stayed in.

I always say if Tupac had stayed in Baltimore, There's like a sliding doors moment where he stays in Baltimore.

He graduates from Baltimore School for the Arts, and he winds up going to NYU for film school or Berkeley College of Music.

There's this weird sliding door thing, but he moves to the West Coast, and he's immersed in crack culture.

He's immersed in the projects.

Tupac Shakur repped a new hybrid style of rap that was at once socially conscious and at the same time violent and representative of the streets he came up on, raised by his mother, the former Black Panther and '60s radical.

As a boy, he showed natural talent as an actor, attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, and later went on to display his immense acting talent and charisma in two critically acclaimed performances in his first two films.

And in addition to making great movies, Tupac Amaru Shakur also made great music.

That music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music.

It wasn't long before Afeni Shakur became addicted to the new drug herself.

Tupac made his way through middle school, and then his first couple of years of high school, and at that time, his mother was fully addicted to crack cocaine.

While Tupac was accepted to the prestigious Baltimore School for the Arts, his mother could barely hold down a job.

Addiction aside, that revolutionary fire still burned in her belly, and much of the family's extended network of support was made up of other former members of the Black Panthers or the Black Liberation Army.

So two weeks later, I got an acceptance letter.

from Baltimore School for the Arts.

And there, that's where I was starting my formal training of ballet, classical, modern techniques from Horton, Lamont, maybe an intro to Graham.

I don't quite remember.

Yeah, jazz, musical theater.

Like that's where I've basically gotten all my training from.

It's the Baltimore School for the Arts.

And I kind of loved it and took it and ran with it.