Tupac's song Changes really comes out with a very powerful but yet a truthful message to all of the rapper's fellow members in his black community. This song was released in 1998 and the lyrics of the song refer to how African-Americans are constantly harassed and treated badly by the police (even been sent to jail for crimes they have not ever committed) and also all of the negative things that has been occurring in the black community from drugs to murders to poverty.
The song's music video opens up with several different pictures of Tupac himself and then plays to a black man being arrested and harrassed by a white police officer showing how blacks in the United States are treated badly by the police. As the video continues, we continue to see several glimpses of Tupac, just his face alone. We see the man greet his fellow black friends and also see him deliver a quote in an interview from a news reporter. This is the look at the quote. The only way I've been practicing my whole life, to live my life is to be responsible for what I do. I don't know how to be responsible for what every black male did, I don't know. And yes, I am gonna say that I'm a thug, that's because I came from the gutter and I'm still here. Tupac here is showing how proud he is to be a black american and represent a very corrupt, dangerous environment and community and a thug is considered among the media to be one of the worst kinds of people to come across due to the fact that thugs consistently are involved in drugs, violence, gangs etc and Tupac is proud to call himself one despite being one of the biggest music stars in the world. As the music video continues, we constantly see glimpses of black people being thrown into a jail, sitting in a cell which are two stereotypes as it is always assumed in the media that black Americans are always the ones to be criminals and put into jail. We also see the black Americans being targeted by the police and pictures of Tupac growing up. Recapping the music video we see the negative side of black Americans all through the eyes of one man, Tupac Shakur. African Americans are just portrayed in a negative way as thugs and criminals and people always having involvement in violence and Tupac is trying to show the reality in his song on how his community is consistently undermined and how the media will always portray African-Americans in a negative away and times are never going to change.
Looking at the lyrics of the song and parts of the song such as "I see no changes. All I see is racist faces", "The penititiary is packed, and its filled with blacks" are two lines trying to show how whites the opposite ethnic group are continuing to be racist towards African-Americans and that jails are always going to be full of black people even for crimes they did not even commit. Sellin' crack to the kids. "I gotta get paid," is showing how Tupac is not proud of his community and the only way they can make a living is by selling drugs to younger aged people in his community.I'm tired of bein' poor and even worse I'm black.
My stomach hurts, so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch.
Cops give a damn about a negro? Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he's a hero.
Here are even more lines referring to how his people are poor and they are all criminals, you can see how in the last line he's referring to how cops continue to harass African Americans.
Overall what we see is how African-Americans are consistently portrayed in the media as poor criminals as we see in the music video that it a lot of the time consistently takes us to a moment where we see a black man being thrown into a jail or be chased or harassed by a cop. The story of his music video is to show us how this is never going to change and forever we will be seeing more and more blacks being thrown into jail and continue to be criminals and always be undermined by the media and be stereotyped by whites. They continue to be excluded and marginalized.
The song's music video opens up with several different pictures of Tupac himself and then plays to a black man being arrested and harrassed by a white police officer showing how blacks in the United States are treated badly by the police. As the video continues, we continue to see several glimpses of Tupac, just his face alone. We see the man greet his fellow black friends and also see him deliver a quote in an interview from a news reporter. This is the look at the quote. The only way I've been practicing my whole life, to live my life is to be responsible for what I do. I don't know how to be responsible for what every black male did, I don't know. And yes, I am gonna say that I'm a thug, that's because I came from the gutter and I'm still here. Tupac here is showing how proud he is to be a black american and represent a very corrupt, dangerous environment and community and a thug is considered among the media to be one of the worst kinds of people to come across due to the fact that thugs consistently are involved in drugs, violence, gangs etc and Tupac is proud to call himself one despite being one of the biggest music stars in the world. As the music video continues, we constantly see glimpses of black people being thrown into a jail, sitting in a cell which are two stereotypes as it is always assumed in the media that black Americans are always the ones to be criminals and put into jail. We also see the black Americans being targeted by the police and pictures of Tupac growing up. Recapping the music video we see the negative side of black Americans all through the eyes of one man, Tupac Shakur. African Americans are just portrayed in a negative way as thugs and criminals and people always having involvement in violence and Tupac is trying to show the reality in his song on how his community is consistently undermined and how the media will always portray African-Americans in a negative away and times are never going to change.
Looking at the lyrics of the song and parts of the song such as "I see no changes. All I see is racist faces", "The penititiary is packed, and its filled with blacks" are two lines trying to show how whites the opposite ethnic group are continuing to be racist towards African-Americans and that jails are always going to be full of black people even for crimes they did not even commit. Sellin' crack to the kids. "I gotta get paid," is showing how Tupac is not proud of his community and the only way they can make a living is by selling drugs to younger aged people in his community.I'm tired of bein' poor and even worse I'm black.
My stomach hurts, so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch.
Cops give a damn about a negro? Pull the trigger, kill a nigga, he's a hero.
Here are even more lines referring to how his people are poor and they are all criminals, you can see how in the last line he's referring to how cops continue to harass African Americans.
Overall what we see is how African-Americans are consistently portrayed in the media as poor criminals as we see in the music video that it a lot of the time consistently takes us to a moment where we see a black man being thrown into a jail or be chased or harassed by a cop. The story of his music video is to show us how this is never going to change and forever we will be seeing more and more blacks being thrown into jail and continue to be criminals and always be undermined by the media and be stereotyped by whites. They continue to be excluded and marginalized.
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