Tupac Shakur, the exceptionally talented rapper/movie star died yesterday, and

it is a great loss. Shakur, who recorded his rap albums under the name 2Pac, was

just 25. He died at exactly 4:03 P.M. of respiratory failure and

cardiopulmonary arrest, according to a spokesperson at University Medical

Center in Las Vegas. His death is pointless. You can be sure that if we ever

learn why that white Cadillac pulled up beside the car Shakur was riding in

last Saturday night and fired off a round of bullets, four of which hit the

rapper in the chest, the reason will be something petty, something ridiculous.

Like Shakur dissed someone, or didn't pay them enough "respect." Excuse my

sarcasm, but as I write this I'm both frustrated and angry. If you saw Shakur

in Juice or Poetic Justice, or listened to his music then you

know that he was no hype. Tupac was a real talent, a man with a lot to give.

But he was also a man who grew up in Harlem, raised by a single parent, Afeni

Shakur, a member of the Black Panther Party who spent part of her pregnancy in

jail; she has said that she has had problems with crack. Like many Black males,

Shakur grew up on the street, immersed in violence, drug dealing, the gang

life. It appeared that he never escaped. Rick James used to talk about the

"ghetto of your mind," about how just getting out of the physical ghetto wasn't

enough, that African-Americans who grew up in poverty needed to get outside the

"ghetto mentality." Shakur never managed that. Even as he became a star--first

he was a member of Digital Underground, then he went solo and scored a major

hit with "I Get Around" in 1993--he was in one altercation after the other:

convicted of sexual assault; victim of a previous shooting; accused of

beating up a film director... Now he's dead.