Livelii

January 10, 1947 - May 2, 2016 Afeni Shakur, political activist, philanthropist, and mother of the late rapper Tupac Shakur passed at the age of 69. The Marin County Sheriff’s Department in California (in North San Francisco Bay Area) confirmed Shakur died late Monday night [May 2, 2016]. Officials have not released a cause of death. Born Alice Faye Williams in Lumberton, North Carolina in 1947, Shakur lived between New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia and California throughout her life. She changed her name to Afeni Shakur when she joined the Black Panther movement. She and other party members were arrested in 1969 and charged with conspiracy to bomb multiple, busy city landmarks in a case where she defended herself (and was pregnant with Tupac at the time). In May 1971, she was acquitted on all charges and gave birth to ‘Pac just one month later. After Tupac’s 1996 shooting death, Shakur took over the late rapper’s estate, which reportedly earns about $900,000 eac...

I'm First in foremost you cannot be considered the greatest of anything if you're not recognized. No that doesn't mean the more titles you have determined your greatness, but a substantial amount of people should agree before calling you the greatest. Why? "Great" people influence more people and greater people. Great people skills ultimately are recognized before their name. For example; Michael Jordan is considered one of the greatest, and during his time I'm sure there was a person that could've beaten him, but that doesn't mean that they have more skills than Jordan. If greatness was determined by one time frame, one game, one accolade, and one album, than a lot of "Greats" wouldn't or would be “Great.” Time ultimately shows your talent, work ethics, being able to withstand even under pressure. You could be the best basketball player in the world but if no one sees it, you're only great to yourself, and if you don't compete h...

Conscious VS Trap After Vince Staple tweet about not wanting to be placed in the conscious rap label last Wednesday evening, Hip Hop heads voiced their opinion on the sub labels of hip hop. I am highly offended by the term conscious rap don't associate me with that. — Vince Staples (@vincestaples) August 12, 2015 This brings me to talk about the topic. Should hip hop have sub genres? Hip Hop was founded on the fun of mixing together music with rhymes and developed into storytelling, word play, political power etc... The culture of hip hop will always include the elements of  DJs to turn the tables, a microphone to spit the bars, graffiti to paint the images, and the infinite break dancing. Introduced in the late 70's were hip hop pioneer groups like, the Sugar Hill Gang, who were the first hip hop group to enter into mainstream media with the classic anthem "Rappers Delight," which expressed pure fun, funkadelic beats, rhymes, and basic flow. During th...

Hip-Hop You The Love of My Life Well I absolutely love this topic, because I love hip-hop. I'm 20 years old, so yes I'm a 90s baby, unfortunately I wasn't alive for the beginning of hip-hop. Therefore my hip-hop influences are not: Eric B & Rakim, Run DMC, KRS-1, Suga Hill Gang, Funky 4 plus One More, Rappers Delight etc... You get the drift. However we 90s babies are the luckiest, because we've gotten a chance to be a part of the elevation of the lifestyle. Raps that were once only rhymes, elevated to many poetic devices. Artist such as: Tupac, Biggie, Common, Jay-Z, Nas, Eminem, and OutKast etc...are examples of the advance. With all of that being said, I've been a hip-hop listener since 1998, I was 5 years old, but of course that's not when I fell in love with hip-hop, because I was way too young to appreciate any music. Back then all I enjoyed about music was the catchy tones, but not the lyricism. As the years past I began to develop an infatuati...