“When I was pregnant and in jail, I thought I was gonna have a baby and the baby would never be with me. But I was acquitted a month and three days before Tupac was born. I was real happy. Because I had a son.” Afeni Shakur. Dear Mama is a song performed by Tupac Shakur, that takes a look at the relationship between Tupac and his mother, Afeni Shakur. The slow, pensive song was produced by Tony Pizarro, and released under Interscope Records in 1995. Dear Mama also includes samples of the songs Sadie by The Spinners and In My Wildest Dreams by Joe Sample.
Tupac was born in New York City, but moved to Oakland, California as teenager. The influence of his moving to California can be seen in his music with songs like California Love, and To Live and Die in LA as well as his affiliation with Death Row Records. The influence of Tupac’s upbringing in California could also be seen when he became the face of the infamous East Coast/West Coast war, which
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For example, in the music video for Dear Mama, the audience is first introduced to the song with a brief quote by Afeni Shakur, in which she talks about being pregnant with Tupac while in jail. Mass incarceration becomes one of the focal points of the video, as we see scenes of both Afeni and Tupac in jail. It also should be noted that a stand in had to be used to film portions of the Lionel C Martin directed video because Tupac was in jail during filming. In addition, Tupac mentions his run-ins with the law when he raps, “I reminisce on the stress I caused, it was hell. Hugging on my mama from a jail cell, and who’d think in elementary? Heeey! I see the penitentiary, one day. And running from the police, that’s right Mama catch me, put a whoopin to my backside”. With this line, Tupac is acknowledging the prison industrial complex and the strain it put on the relationship he had with his