Tupac Keep Ya Head Up Analysis

“Ooooh Child Things are Gonna Get Easier” Or Will They? Tupac Shakur is one of the greatest African American rap artists the hip-hop world was blessed to have. Tupac’s music is some of the most dynamic, influential, and self-powering music from the 1990s. Even though his messages for a higher respect for women, an end to gang violence, and a better world were over shadowed by his arrest on a first-degree sexual abuse and him being shot on multiple occasions, they can still be heard in his music today. His song “Keep Ya Head Up” shows just how passionate he was about the topics his songs reflect. Some people today might just listen to his music to say they are living the “thug life,” but the people who listen to his music and truly understand what he is trying to say are the people

Tupac brings the themes of disrespecting women, leaving women to raise a child alone, and how it’s time for change in the way men treat women to the forefront. Tupac realizes just how badly men treat women and just how hurtful men’s actions can be to women. Tupac says, “And uhh, I know they like to beat ya down a lot. When you come around the block brothas clown a lot. But please don't cry, dry your eyes, never let up. Forgive but don't forget, girl keep your head up. And when he tells you, ‘you ain't nothin' don't believe him. And if he can't learn to love you, you should leave him” (“Keep Ya Head Up”). In this section of the first verse, he communicates that men degrade women by saying harsh and hateful things to the point that these women feel like they are nothing anymore. He wants women to realize that these men are below them in society for degrading them the way they do. Women deserve to be treated much better than how most men treat them. The worse part about men degrading women is that if women hear all of these negative things too many times, they start to believe them and confine themselves to that way of