Ok, ive been somewhat of a Tupac fan for over 20 years. In all that time I never once gave the slightest credence to the occasional whisper saying Tupac was gay. After he died, the rumors only intensified, which only further cemented my certainty that theze rumors were the product of a vicious smear campaign of haters to tarnish the dead man’s legacy.
It wasnt until yesterday that all of that changed. Totally and permanently and just wow. Yesterday i watched an evidently obscure interview of Tupac from 1988 when he was a 17 year old teen in high school. Rather than attempt to describe what i saw, i will simply post the video and let it speak for itself.
Bottom line tho, if you watch this interview you will be unable to honestly deny the truth of what is revealed. Namely that one of the most legendary rappers in the history of an industry and subculture that incubates some of our society’s most virulent toxic masculinity, the rapper who epitomized bravado and machismo was a gay man.
Every single non verbal element of his being communicates one thing. I watched this video just speechless. Amazed. This was not the gangsta who had Thug Life tattooed on his stomach. But it WAS Tupac. The unshakable self confidence, the charm, the stage prezence, the intelligemce, the social aware.ness.
The reason for the interview you ask? Well Tupac was a standout in ballet and drama club in high school. Yep, Tupac was a ballerina. That felt so absurd writing that short sentence. R e ality is the most absurd thing of all tho. And I have always been more of a Tupac fan for the person and mind and way he carried himself throughout his life than his music. But i did like his music too because you cant separate the music from the man. I know the Dope isnt a meeting ground for hip hop heads but i know there are at least a few. Butthis isnt really aboutrap music. Its about human nature, individual expression and freedom colliding with community cultures and conforming pressures. And just general social equality issues in our country as a whole and within the various sub commmunities/cultures that make up our country.
Wow, that’s what you got from that interview? Male ballet dancers are not ballerinas, and good grief, is this why you think he was gay? I’ll bet you did feel absurd typing that sentence, because it’s absurd. Frankly, years of ballet could help explain that stage presence he had. I saw a guy being expressive with his gestures and passionate about social injustices (and by god let’s let some homeless people stay in the White House, there’s plenty of room!). If that says gay to you, that could explain those rumors. Note: yes, I have heard those rumors. Everything I’ve ever heard about Tupac indicates to me that if he thought he was a gay man, he would have been out. Unlike some other notable public figures who are perpetually rumored to be gay.
I have to say one thing and i am not coming back to this thread. People read what they want in my posts and not what I post. I never once even hinted at his social awareness and activism as being indicative of anything other than him being a sharply intelligent, empathetic, involved man who was committed to the quality of life of those in the black community, even after he became a star and he had to move out. I brought up the activism to say that the aspects of Tupac’s legacy that i had ALWAYS admired, including (but not limited to) that of social awareness and committment to social justice, were recognizable clear as day in Tupac as far back as his teenage years, even before he had developed his persona that was his commercial image. Now, when i say he developed a commercial image persona, I dont mean he posed as something he was not. But he was a performer, a rapper, who’s bottom line was making music that sells as much as possible, while also staying as true to the message and artistic/personal integrity that propelled them to the spotlight in the first place.
And are you fucking kidding me? No, Tupac would not sabotage everything he wanted to do with his life by coming.out to the world (and most especially his fans and community). And the reason that he would not is because he understood how our society functioned. Or failed to function. If he would have come out, he would never have been able to reach the millions of youmg black men that he was talking to specifically (but not exclusively) in his music. He recognized that unfortunately if he wanted to make a positive impact on the world that lived on after he was gone, he HAD to not talk about that. He would have been INSTANTLY shunned. This wasnt about HIM. He had made it. He only kept aspects of his personal truth hidden not due to any weakness or personal turmoil or unwillingness to accept hiimself but rather due to keen understanding of his own community and fans. After all, he knew that his black communities were broken (from reasons over which they mostly lacked control) that is why he was committed to the welfare of its members.
*and the thing about ballet and drama on their own doesnt inform anyone about anything othet than Tupac had talent as a performer from an early age. But its in aggregate that those facts jump out in bold. And when i said i felt absurd typing it, it wasnt because. I felt or attempted to express any negativity or ridicule towards the man. It was the juxtaposition of theTupac lyrics (actually Thug Life lyrics but that’s hair splitting) that i was hearing in my head as i read the fact that he was a talented ballet dancer (i had no idea male ballet dancers arent ballerinas too) and the images those facts made my brain conjure up. The grown man Tupac i was familiar with, shirtless, tattoos on display, donning a pink tutu pulling off spectacular arabesques on stage, screaming , “Thug nigga til i die!”
Not to talk about the subject matter of my OP. I mean, yes, “bamm!” “Ahhhh! You got me!” I responded to kayakers joke with another joke. Nice gotcha tho.
I feel like responding to THIS post comes closer to the line of going back on what i said I was doing by leaving the thread but the same thing is true here, im not discussing anything in the OP at all in this response. I honestly didnt realize until you posted this that most posters on the board with the exception of the handful of participants in my other thread, would have no idea that i was getting upset or losing patience over anything other than one single misunderstanding here, which also was the very first post to the thread.
I had posted a thread in GQ a day or two ago that I am still bewildered over how it unfolded. It seemed like every-single-solitary post and poster in that thread highlighted such a huge chasm betwéen what i was saying and what they responded to.
And i didnt think what i was asking in my thread question. was confusing or not concise and answerable directly. Not at least to understand what i was asking, if not understand how to answer it.
Yet just about to a T, I was getting an irrelevant fact hammered at me and i kept saying thanks but not the question. Its like they were all reading different words in my posts other than the words i had composed. It obviously was a communication breakdown, or so i thought, because i was having the same type of head scratching confusion with all the participants, not just one. The common denominator was me.
I didnt understand what had gone wrong, still don’t. But i soon after posted this thread, and in the very first post, i get the exact same manner of misundetstanding picking up right where my last thread ended. My patience snapped and i couldnt stand the thought of banging my head against the wall thinking im not communicating clearly and go round and round and round for ridicilous reasons when the whole time, I had written my post/OP in exactly the way it needed to be in order to clearly, accurately and smoothly communicate my POV.
I think a combination of these things and the shoddy sleep ive gotten the past 3 pr so days has made me stressed and irritable and crabby (or i guess i could have just picked one of those adjectives). After making such real, good faith efforts to make sense of what was happening (if it was me, of course I’d appreciate that being pointed out to me), to think its going to just happen all yhe time now, my stress took over and i just said nope.
Sorry for the long winded explanation. I reread my other thread so many fucking times, i reread this OP so many times even before posting it. I am satisfied with the quality of my comminication in both.
Hey, Walter Payton did ballet! (Though there were also rumors he was gay.)
But, yes, the video in the OP does give off what one may characterize as a stereotypically gay vibe. Do I care? No? Do I think the video proves anything? No. But I totally can understand how the OP is coming to the conclusion they are.
Ehh, seems pretty fucking trivial to be so final, so uncompromising. But you must just be announcing your personal code because you didnt say anything else along with it. So I’ll play:
My take away from your OP is that using non verbal indicators, from an old video, to posit the secret sexual identity of someone long dead, unable to respond seems highly misguided to me.
But you’re certainly entitled to an opinion of course!
I didn’t watch your video, but I watched the multi part Tupac doc that was on a few years back. From what I recall he took ballet while he was in acting school, at least partially because he was just ridiculously talented at everything.
It should also be noted that the image you have of him is, at least at the start of it, an act. Many of the people that knew him before he connected with Suge and signed with Death Row say he didn’t have the gangster persona and some even warned him that even if he was doing it to fit in, it’s not going to end well for him.
In any case, I feel like we should be at a time when finding out someone is gay doesn’t warrant a thread.
I was surprised, and very proud of my daughter (as well as society in general) one day while I had Will and Grace on. She was probably 11 or 12. Not a single mention or question about Will and Jack dating men. Questions about the story in general, but she didn’t appear to consider them being gay to be remotely out of the ordinary.
It’s nice to know that we’re getting closer to a time when anyone can date anyone without raising eyebrows.
FWIW, lots of other people you might consider ‘macho’ have taken ballet as well. For as long as I can remember, its been a known thing that many football players take ballet. Arnold took it to help with his bodybuilding poses.
