African American rapper - Free Essay Example

The Rose That Grew From Concrete Tupac Shakur was a black African American rapper who lived his life with poverty, violence and drugs. Tupac Shakur was born in New York City. His parents had separated before he was born, and his mother moved him and his sister around the country for much of their childhood. Frequently, the family was at the poverty level, but Shakur managed to gain acceptance to the prestigious Baltimore School of the Arts as a teenager. While he was at the school, his creative side flourished, as he began writing raps and acting. All his poetry relies on vivid imagery and violent language to create a very realistic picture of how terrible life can be living in the ghettos of America. Tupac Shakur was a poet, an actor, and the voice of a generation. He was able to make movies and videos, write and record music, and still found time to write remarkable poetry before his untimely death. In one of his poems, â€Å"The Rose That Grew from Concrete, Tupac’s theme statement is â€Å"people surrounded by trouble and failure can still live and succeed†. This is almost an exact reflection of struggle for success. People who come from broken homes, troubled youth, failed pasts or other tough backgrounds still can succeed and make something beautiful of their life. â€Å"The Rose That Grew from Concrete† is not really about a rose that grew from the concrete. The rose is a simile which symbolizes a man and the concrete symbolizes the ghetto. Tupac is that rose who borned in an urban area. A rose would never grow from concrete and by this he means to say that it is really hard to survive the hard life of the ghetto and make something out of yourself. The second line â€Å"proving nature’s laws wrong it learned 2 walk without having feet† means that the person has made something out of himself. This line conveys a personal struggle between him and success. Nature’s law† is a metaphor for people, whic h mean that no one expected the man to survive and can make something out of himself. From â€Å"The Rose That Grew from Concrete† the rose defied the odds and proven itself to the world all by itself. In the third line, â€Å"Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams it learned 2 breathe fresh air† means that though it seems funny, but if someone tries their best to work towards their dream, they are bound to succeed. Here â€Å"fresh air† is a metaphor for â€Å"success†. In the last sentence Long lives the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared† means that though the people around him didn’t care about him, still he overcame his difficulties and managed to succeed. This poem and all of the other Tupac‘s poems are filled with Latinate diction. His informal use of simple words like 2 instead of to, create the idea of three things: it was his actual thoughts, writing poems came naturally for him, and it was his final co py the first time he wrote it. Tupac is a legend and perfected the ways to put his ideas down in ink through forms of poetry and lyrics. This poem â€Å"The Rose That Grew from Concrete† conveys a sense of balance through his use of parallelism, has a sense of flow by his use rhyme, and allows many different audiences to connect with his ideas by his use of informal word choice. These three writing devices let the audience in on Tupac’s personal life and let them see through the eyes of a poetic god. The message Tupac is trying to bring through this poem is to keep trying and focus on your dreams, don’t let anything get in the way.