The song “Changes” by Tupac Shakur is one of his more famous songs. In this song, many subjects concerning African-Americans injustices are being conveyed. Subjects like racial-profiling, poverty and racism affect the everyday life of African-American. In the song “Changes”, Tuapc gives an inside look at the daily life of an African-American. Tupac seems to be trying to express the idea that changes needs to be made to therefore stop poverty and racism that African-American are facing every day.
Tupac also criticizes the dispersion of African-Americans over the idea to unite to overcome poverty and racism facing them. The title of Tupac’s song is called “Changes”. It is call Changes for numerous obvious reasons. Tupac starts the song by stating; “I see no changes”. He is possibly referring to the changes that were brought upon after the African-American Civil Right Movement, during the 50’s and 60’s. African-American Civil Movement was supposed to bring an end to social issues like racism and poverty afflicting African-American population.
But in the song “Changes”, he states that he sees no changes. The same social issues that concerns African-Americans before the Civil Right Movement are still common afterwards. Throughout the song, Tupac gives an inside look on the social problems afflicting African-Americans and suggests possible resolutions. In the first stanza of the song “Changes”, Tupac first talks about how certain social issues are link together; he makes a correlation between his skin color and being poor: “I’m tired of bein’ poor and even worse I’m black. Then he explains how poverty causes crime: “My stomach hurts, so I’m lookin’ for a purse to snatch. ” And finally, he demonstrates the relationship between police brutality and race: “Cops give a damn about a negro?
Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he’s a hero. ” Following the links between the social issues, Tupac makes interesting observation on why African-American communities have trouble dealing with these social problems: “First ship ’em dope & let ’em deal the brothers. Give ’em guns, step back, and watch ’em kill each other. His observation could be interpreted as a conspiracy into eliminating or significantly diminish the African-American population in the United States of America. However, Tupac does not mention who is behind the plot. Tupac suggests the solution of unity into solving the social issues that African-Americans are facing. African-Americans should united together to solve poverty, racism and violence. “I got love for my brother, but we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other.
We gotta start makin’ changes. ” In these two verses, it could be notice that Tupac uses the pronoun “we” to represent unity among African-American. The importance of unity makes it possible for changing the ways to deal with these complex social issues. At the end of the first stanza of the song “Changes”, Tupac seems to be making a criticism of how social issues would not solve itself if they were just ignored: “I’d love to go back to when we played as kids, but things change, and that’s the way it is. In the second stanza of the song “Changes”, Tupac reconfirms social issues that afflicts African-Americans; violence: “And only time we chill is when we kill each other. ” and drugs: “’Cause mo’ black than white is smokin’ crack tonight. ”
A couple of verses further, Tupac makes the ultimate point that the unity for changes has not happen because there are too many individualistic people who are not willing to give up their personal interests. “Try to show another way, but they stayin’ in the dope game. This verse shows the people have a choice but instead they choose the life of crime. How are they able to change the social issues afflicting them if some are not cooperating. After analyzing the first two stanza of the song “Changes”, it could be assume that Tupac is clearly stating the importance of African-American unity to overcome the challenging social issues facing them; violence, racial profiling and drugs. Finally stanza of the song is about Tupac drops the idea of unity because of the fact that nobody is following it. He has to therefore do what is best for him like everyone.
