It's not just about you taking care of "your" child. It's about you taking care of these children.
First, I want to say peace to my mother. She's not here, but I've got to give a 'peace out' to her, because I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my mother. And, I look in the front of this thing and it says 'start from within to rebuild our original greatness.' Right? Okay, well that’s what my mother did. You know what I'm sayin? And I'm listen about freedom fighters and strugglers. Well you got to understand when it was 'in' to have a gun and be in the streets, my mother gave that up to be in a house and wash the dishes and feed us. You know what I'm sayin? And put the thoughts in our brain. We didn’t get any of that history from all of those soldiers that we lost. We got none of that. They all went to jail if you can remember that. They all went to penitentiaries. We didn't see none of that knowledge. If it was not for my mother, that stayed home, and didn’t go out and do all that, then I wouldn’t have shit, excuse my language. But, I wouldn’t have been nowhere. So what I want to do hopefully is. I want to be, not I want to be, I am Tupac Shakur. I have to be a reminder that we cant chill out. No, it not time cool out in banquets, its still on. It's on just like it was on when you were young and you want to say 'fuck that'. Just like you said 'fuck that', back then. So how come, now that I'm twenty years old and ready to start some shit, everybody's telling me to 'calm down'. Don’t curs them, go to school, go to college. Well, fuck that. We have had colleges for awhile now. You know what I'm sayin? There's still Brenda’s out there and niggas are still trapped. You know what I'm sayin? And it gets me, irked. You know what I'm saying? Because I understand that it's not going to stop. You know what I'm saying? It's not going to stop until we stop it. And it's not just white men that's doing this to Brenda. It's not just white men that's keeping us trapped. It's 'black', and we have to find the new African in everybody. In all of us, because if we keep running around looking for black and who got the most colors on or who got the baddest dashiki, we're still going to, excuse my language, we're still going to get fucked. Because it hurts me that my mother right now is going though, you know, she has to get clean. This is somebody I watched travel the whole country. You know what I'm saying? During the time when our women were scared to speck up. But, a Black Panther she spoke at Harvard, Yale, everywhere and now. I see my mother as what's really going on. You know what I'm saying? I don’t see no big parade around my mother now. She's got a dozen fucking awards, and I don’t see nobody there. You understand what I'm saying? So out of this, I take that lightly. I take all this lightly. What I want you to take seriously, is what we have to do for the youth. Because we're coming up in a totally different world. This is not the same world that you had this is not 6th Street its not. You grew up, we grew up B.C. Before crack. That's just saying it all. You understand? We did not grow up without parents. You had parents that told you this and that and told you what went on back in the day. You have young kids, fourteen, coming home and their mama is smoking out, going to their best friend to get the product. You understand what I'm saying? So that means it's not just about you taking care of "your" child. It's about you taking care of "these children". It hurts that I got to, it bothers me, not hurts, that I have to sidestep my youth to stand up and do some shit that somebody else is suppose to be doing. You understand what I'm saying? There's too many men out here for me to be doing this, because it ain't my turn yet. I'm supposed to be following behind him getting the knowledge. I don't even got a chance to get the fucking knowledge. I can't go to college. There's too much problems out here. I don't got the money. Nobody does. You understand what I'm saying? So what I'm saying is, it's not as easy as we're mapping it out to be. We've got to stay real. Before we can be new African we've gotta be black first. You understand? We've gotta get our brothers from the streets like Harriett Tubman did. Why can't we look at that and see exactly what she was doing? Like Malcolm did, the real Malcolm, before the Nation of Islam. You've got to remember, this was a pimp. You know what I'm sayin, we forgot about all that. In our strive to be enlightened we forgot about all our brothers in the street, about all our dope dealers, our pushers and our pimps, and that's who's teaching the new generation, because y'all not doing it. I'm sorry. But, it's the pimps and pushers who's teaching us. So, if you got a problem with how we were raised, its because they was the only ones who could do it. They the only ones who did it, because everybody else wanted to go to college, and you know, yeah everything's changed, they were the ones telling you 'the white man ain't shit, there you go, check this out young blood, you take this product, you switch it, you get money and that's how you beat the white man, you get money, you get the hell up out of here.' Nobody else did that. So I don't wanna hear shit about nobody telling me who I can't love and respect until you start doing what they did. To me, this is Mecca. This is the black family. You know what I'm sayin? But, what makes it that much sadder, what makes me wanna cry, is that when I leave this place, so does Mecca. You understand what I'm sayin? We're going back to the real deal. Right out there, you're going see the same sisters and Brenda, they're right out there, and y'all are going to get in your cars and drive the fuck home."