[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

stone monkey, on 31 July 2023 - 01:05 PM, said:

Even art is no escape.
Whatever you think of Drill/Grime as a genre, it's still art and I will happily fight you on that regard. So the Met's thesis here appears to be that young black men are, by their very natures, so unsophisticated that it is impossible for them to write and/or perform a song in character.
By this standard, I suppose Johnny Cash really should have been jailed for shooting a man in Reno, just to watch him die.

OTOH:

Quote

UK drill has earned autonomy and is currently enjoying its reign as drill’s most successful incarnation. But if that defines drill in 2023, what of its Chicago roots? [...]

[...] Larro Wilson declares himself “one of the true pioneers of drill music”. It’s not a claim without substance. As “founder, director and sole owner of Lawless Incorporated”, Wilson was responsible for the career of King Louie, often dubbed drill’s godfather.

[...] “[Bump K's] stories weren’t just stories, they were reality. I watched him rise, but also experience bad times. It got so gangster, the industry got scared and closed up to that for a minute.”

[...] While his sonics and presentation predate drill, he shared its tendency to blur the line between criminal content and behaviour. “Cause every line that I put up in a rhyme is real,” Bump J proclaims on “Move Around”, preemptively inaugurating drill’s trademark rhetoric.

In 2008, Bump J was imprisoned for ten years for armed robbery and was dropped by Sony before the release of his debut album. He would miss drill’s arrival by about 18 months.

[...] “It wasn’t about the beat, that came later. It was just the realness of the message,” Wilson says. “It wasn’t about flow or lyrical skills, either. Artists rapped about things they had caused, witnessed or were involved in. It was the purest street rap imaginable. You were judged on how real you go.”

[...] He claims its ultimate goal is vividly illustrating criminal activities whilst withholding any specifics that may risk helping authorities. [...]

[...] Zone 2’s “No Censor” is one of UK drill’s landmark moments – and also perhaps the most extreme incarnation of the kind of “name-dropping” that Wilson condemns. [...] catalogues the Peckham clique’s dead gang rivals, with each name accompanied by a Mario-style “one-up” sound effect as well as the gruesome details of their alleged murders.

The Secret History of Drill (vice.com)

Of course if they say 'my lyrics describe what actually happened, literally' that could also just be part of the performance... most of the time?

[stone monkey]

Azath Vitr (D, on 31 July 2023 - 01:37 PM, said:

Of course if they say 'my lyrics describe what actually happened, literally' that could also just be part of the performance... most of the time?

I'd argue that it's basically the same as kayfabe in Professional Wrestling. It's fakery, the intended audience (mostly) know that it's fakery, but everyone pretends that it's not because that's how they choose to have a good time. If every rapper who, according to their bars, was out there 24/7 poppin' caps in fools' domes, actually was out on the street murdering people in droves... Well, the police would probably have a truly astonishing clear-up rate, because they'd be drowning in recorded confessions.
It's kind of bleakly ironic that the prevailing social power structures only seem want to believe what black people are saying when those words can be used to cause them harm.
And, of course, the underlying implication of the argument being made is that young black men are incapable of using creativity and imagination in their art. Y'know, like humans...

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 31 July 2023 - 07:28 PM

[worry]

It's a problem in the States too. California fortunately passed a law last year restricting the use of lyrics in criminal prosecutions -- it's not an outright ban, I guess so there's always a just-in-case contingency, but requires pretty strong judicial review. Actually made it through the legislature unanimously, which is pretty cool. Less cool is it's first (and I think still only) state in the nation to have done so, so far.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Much of the media coverage of the [murders ...] zeroed in on one thing they had in common. Griffiths was a member of the drill rap group [...] performing as SA, or Splash Addict ("splashing" is slang for stabbing). Barton and Kamara were members of an allied drill group, Moscow17[...]

[...] after Barton's death [...] grieving friends and family marched in his memory [...] Some of the younger marchers chanted the lyrics to Moscow17's anthem Moscow March, a track on which Barton raps about "chinging", "blading", "drenching" and "slashing" his enemy, the rival Peckham drill crew Zone 2.

It is those highly specific references to hyper-local, real-world violence that marks drill out from its predecessors. [...] extra-judicial instruments [try to] ban rappers from mentioning particular rival neighbourhoods or individuals in their songs.

The threats make it harder for liberal voices to defend the genre [...]

[...] the scapegoating of the genre has come at the expense of any concerted attempt to address the myriad problems at the roots of the violence. [...]

[...] For him, drill was finally documenting some brutal realities that had been ignored for too long: it was an act of catharsis and a cry for help as much as anything.

'Security has deteriorated': young Londoners pay price as city expands | Cities | The Guardian

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 01 August 2023 - 01:46 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

researchers are searching for evidence linking [Drill] music to violent crime — and failing to find it.

[...] There is little dispute that some drill music is produced by gangs in London and that the release of drill music coincides with violence from time to time. The question is over cause and effect. Does drill music incite violent crime?

[...] “An initial look at the relationship between crime and sentiment did not support the idea of the negativity of drill lyrics as a leading indicator (or even incitement) for real-life serious crimes,” say the researchers. “We cannot interpret these results as support for the hypothesis that sentiment can be used as an indicator of real-life crime.”

[...] much of the crime in London is not related to gang activity, which the researchers acknowledge. But this shortcoming may mean that their analysis is not capable of revealing a correlation, even if it exists.

The Curious Case of Drill Rap and its Link to Violent Crime | Discover Magazine

That article's from 2020; this one's from May 2023:

Quote

there is virtually no evidence to support the claim that music causes crime. What research has shown is that policing music and musicians often criminalises or marginalises young people, particularly young people of colour. It also pushes particular musical genres underground, away from legitimate venues. Moreover, for many artists seeking to emphasis their authentic street-cred, being pursued by police is not really so bad for business.

[...] as hip-hop become more popular around the world, crime rates have meanwhile dropped, even in major cities like New York or Los Angeles, the home of gangsta rap. Does this mean hip-hop prevents crime? Well, no, but it does highlight the fallacy of drawing such causal links.

No, music doesn't cause crime - not even drill rap - The University of Sydney

Quote

“People around the country are dancing. Dope. I’m thinking, ‘You all dancing on graves. People are dying,’” Grammy Award-winning rapper and Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor at MIT Lupe Fiasco said about the popularity of drill.

Dee-1, New Orleans rapper, activist, and Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellow at Harvard’s Hiphop Archive & Research Institute, agreed. He recalled the time one of his slain students was memorialized by family and friends at a funeral with music glorifying violence. “In a way, we’ve become too numb and too desensitized to the literal words that are being spoken in this music.”

[...] Stuart’s past research on drill in Chicago’s South Side also revealed how young people are using drill to map out which areas of their neighborhoods are safe, and which are not. “By hearing who’s being shouted out negatively and who is being shouted out positively, they can quickly understand whose neighborhood they’re in and who they’re feuding with,”

Is drill music chronicling violence or exploiting it? – Harvard Gazette March 2023

[QuickTidal]

The Will Smith / Jada Pinkett thing.

So there’s been more tea spilled about these two (and Jada has a book, because of course she does…) and now I’m getting a MUCH clearer picture of what lead to things like the slap than I had before.

I mean, I always knew that Jada had some kind of hold over him and that she was holding some kind of torch for long dead Tupac…but the depth here is much worse than I think we all knew.

Firstly, that Will and Jada have apparently been separated (if not divorced) since 2016 which should be a revelation for everyone….but it puts her weird ass relationship with her sons friend into more context as to why that might have happened and Will didn’t seem to have much say in it. But it calls directly into question the lies of the red carpets they attended together to keep up some appearances…and it ESPECIALLY calls into question The Slap and his referral to Jada as his “wife” when she at least believed at the time that she wasn’t.

Now adding into this is the more or less newly revealed story told by Tommy Davidson of an interaction on the set of the 1998 film WOO where he played the romantic lead to Jada in this romantic comedy. Apparently in the trailer after a take where he and Jada shared a scripted kiss Will showed up and basically loomed over him in a chair and vaguely was like “Whats up?! I don’t appreciate that. I DON’T APPRECIATE THAT!”…and Tommy was apparently confused as to what was going on and Jada apparently sat back and didn’t say anything but kept saying “Will” repeatedly but nothing else. Tommy’s latter assumption is that Will took issue with Jada and Tommy having a scripted kiss.

THAT my friends is a man who fears for his place in his relationship and his wife’s non-committal calling of his name instead of actually de-escalating the situation could be construed as egging him on.

Now WHY would Will Smith (who at the time could likely have had his veritable pick of partners) be afraid of losing something of his wife to an acting kiss? Well that’s another of the revelations…we knew that Jada carried a bit of a torch for Tupac Shakur….but in this new book she referred to him as her SOULMATE but that they didn’t have the chemistry (I think?) and thus Will is the chemistry and not the soulmate. Imagine being married to someone and the whole marriage from the get-go you are battling the shade of a dead rapper your wife claimed was her fucking soulmate….like that knife has been in Will since probably before he married her. Why else would bravado-man get all uppity over a stage kiss (something he continued to do in his films after they were married) unless he felt unworthy?

Now the Slap takes on a new element. The Will Smith that hauled off and slapped Jada’s friend and former co-star Chris Rock for a milqetoast non-joke about her shaved head, is the same Will Smith who threatened Tommy Davidson in his trailer all the way back in 1998 a year after he married Jada…a scared guy fighting a shadow to keep a wife who never REALLY cared about him to begin with. There is scads of video that shows she doesn’t…like her and her mother talking about how she HATED that she was getting married to Will, hated the wedding (I think this is because she was preggers and her mother and others forced her to marry him?) and you can see Will chuckling about this….ABOUT HOW HIS WIFE WAS WILDLY UNHAPPY ON HER WEDDING DAY TO HIM….like the psychological damage that being said out loud by your partner would be immense. This is shit I would not even say about my worst enemy…but she says it about him.

In an alternate universe Will never married Jada, saw the DEEP red flags and walked. THAT Will Smith never gained the decades-long insecurities about his relationship, which would result/culminate in him assaulting another human on a stage in front of the biggest audience of his peers he could manage, effectively destroying a decades-long career in a single moment.

Honestly, if at this point he was smart, the rehabilitation of that career would BEGIN with not only leaving Jada entirely, divorcing her and then working out the depression he must be in through deep therapy…do this publicly. Show people that you realize that the error was EVER getting into a relationship with such an unbelievably toxic woman and that much of the problems in your life, though still of your own doing (like he still has the blame for all this, she’s just the catalyst), stem from that wildly dysfunctional relationship. Learn. Move on. Find yourself for a while and maybe in a few years find someone new, an equal partner.

Let Jada Pinkett languish in the swamp of her own making where no decent man would ever have anything to do with her toxic ass ever again. Every single instance of that red table podcast and show and now this book and these interviews was her deliberately egging on the fear inside Will Smith that she would leave him (something she’s already done, he just doesn’t know it because she hangs onto him with her claws for fun) for (I have to assume) her own amusement? I want her to shut the fuck up, shut all the way the fuck up, until she reaches the top of Shut Fuck Mountain, where there are no more fuck-ups to shut.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Their marriage sounds genuinely horrible. I tend towards wanting to assume there must have been some positives for them to have stayed the course this long... but it all just sounds incredibly ick.

Nothing like as extreme and obviously not on a world stage, but there's a similar couple in our friendship group i.e. she is constantly disrespectful and deeply unpleasant to and about him in front of an audience, and he does next to nothing in response and to all intents and purposes remains adoringly in love.

Unfortunately, until the person who is on the receiving end realises it's not actually something they have to put up with and they either address the behaviour together or decide to split up, there's nothing really anyone external can do.

In my anecdotal instance the rest of the group do voice support of him and try to politely push back, but there's very much a feeling of only being able to go so far with that because she gets visibly angrier at any perceived challenge or disagreement with her. Having been in an abusive relationship I'm very alive to the fact she could take her displeasure out on him further behind closed doors (I don't know if she is out and out abusive, to be clear, but she's certainly very unpleasant).

We also don't want to push so far that she starts refusing to come to gatherings (she's quite open about the group not being her cup of tea) and giving her a reason to isolate him further.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 17 October 2023 - 09:36 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 17 October 2023 - 09:32 AM, said:

Unfortunately, until the person who is on the receiving end realises it's not actually something they have to put up with and they either address the behaviour together or decide to split up, there's nothing really anyone external can do.

This. In my previous job, I dealt with domestic abuse cases, like a LOT, and in so many of them, we were only called because the victim (usually but not always the woman) wanted the immediate situation stopping. Once we'd done that, they would often not want to pursue matters any further.

"He loves me really and we have a great relationship usually" was a common refrain. At first I would be almost contemptuous "why stay in a relationship like that?" But I grew to see how much more layered and complex it is. So I'd just keep trying to help where I could, fill out the safeguarding paperwork, pass details to the relevant support agencies etc. And then come back a few days later and do it again.

The ones who did want to pursue a formal complaint and were willing to go to court etc were the ones that told me they'd been together for years and it had been going on for the entirety of their time together.

I hope your friend wakes up soon TRB. I've seen too many go badly wrong. I'm not saying they will of course (I still tend to assume the worst due to my last job!) and it sounds like you guys are doing what you can in a bad situation.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Tiste Simeon, on 17 October 2023 - 12:13 PM, said:

I hope your friend wakes up soon TRB. I've seen too many go badly wrong. I'm not saying they will of course (I still tend to assume the worst due to my last job!) and it sounds like you guys are doing what you can in a bad situation.

Thanks Tiste. He's giving no sign of being unhappy, they married a couple of years ago and have one year old little boy, and I guess to some extent we all have to respect that until it isn't the case. We all keep an eye and just do what we can, but it's hard to not want so much better for someone you care about.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 17 October 2023 - 12:27 PM

[amphibian]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 17 October 2023 - 09:32 AM, said:

Their marriage sounds genuinely horrible. I tend towards wanting to assume there must have been some positives for them to have stayed the course this long... but it all just sounds incredibly ick.

Nothing like as extreme and obviously not on a world stage, but there's a similar couple in our friendship group i.e. she is constantly disrespectful and deeply unpleasant to and about him in front of an audience, and he does next to nothing in response and to all intents and purposes remains adoringly in love.

Unfortunately, until the person who is on the receiving end realises it's not actually something they have to put up with and they either address the behaviour together or decide to split up, there's nothing really anyone external can do.

In my anecdotal instance the rest of the group do voice support of him and try to politely push back, but there's very much a feeling of only being able to go so far with that because she gets visibly angrier at any perceived challenge or disagreement with her. Having been in an abusive relationship I'm very alive to the fact she could take her displeasure out on him further behind closed doors (I don't know if she is out and out abusive, to be clear, but she's certainly very unpleasant).

We also don't want to push so far that she starts refusing to come to gatherings (she's quite open about the group not being her cup of tea) and giving her a reason to isolate him further.

I was that friend, putting myself through this slow grind of social friction from my partner for years. She would make disparaging comments about me in public, be a low level jerk to others, drink too much, puke, I'd scrape her together and bring her home with patience etc.

My advice is to not subsume your needs for a polite, respectful, fun time to giving him and her the social time. If she's a jerk to you, call her out calmly on it rather than tolerate it. If she's a jerk to him, I'd call it out calmly.

Yes, it might mean she withdraws from time with you and pulls him away too. Yes, it means conflict and possible distance. At the same time, you're modeling how a healthy person handles someone being a jerk - calm refusal to take that crap - and provide a contrast to how he/I handled it before.

It's still going to take him deciding to leave before things get better for him. I hope he moves to that stage sooner rather than later.

I spent 6 years with my often cruddy ex. I am blessed to have great family and friends, yet I think I'd have gotten out a little sooner if a few had stood up for themselves and for me in terms of confrontation of awful behavior.

And regarding Jada - she's made no secret of being weirdly polygamous since high school. The Tupac stuff is exaggerated for selling a narrative. Will knew what Jada was then and now. He's a weirdly controlling Scientologist and he's not an innocent wrapped up in her life and attitudes.

The thing I don't get is why Jada even needs the money and the attention. She and Will individually should be set for life with many millions to just cruise on with.

[QuickTidal]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 17 October 2023 - 09:32 AM, said:

In my anecdotal instance the rest of the group do voice support of him and try to politely push back, but there's very much a feeling of only being able to go so far with that because she gets visibly angrier at any perceived challenge or disagreement with her. Having been in an abusive relationship I'm very alive to the fact she could take her displeasure out on him further behind closed doors (I don't know if she is out and out abusive, to be clear, but she's certainly very unpleasant).

We also don't want to push so far that she starts refusing to come to gatherings (she's quite open about the group not being her cup of tea) and giving her a reason to isolate him further.

My wife and I had a similar sitch with a friend, for years he was just kind of searching for a mate (funnily enough he once had a crush on my wife before I'd met her, but she never reciprocated) and he was a sweet and funny dude who was fun to hang around, but could kind of be a pushover too. He tried not to drink as his father was an alcoholic. Well one day he meets this woman and they hit it off. Well she IS a heavy drinker so he put up with that...but we hung out with them in group settings probably 5 times and in every instance she constantly made fun of him (pretended she was joking), would push him away if he got affectionate with her (but if he was off talking to someone else or having a good time win his own she would pop up beside him and grab his arm and horn her way into the conversation), and then the last few times we hung out with them we watched her be madly drunk and hit him. She pretends to keep it "I'm a girl, this is playful!"....but I saw him rub his arm after she punched him there with a hard shot...My wife and I and the rest of our friend group talked about this and decided that enough was enough and we decided to bring it up to him. He defended her, said we weren't seeing who she truly was...you know, all the abused person's spiel. Then he told her what we'd said and she went fucking ballistic, called my wife screaming at her, raged at me on FB, made passive aggressive comments on everyones photos in instagram...like lashed out and kept lashing out. Then one day we stopped hearing from him. We learned they got married not too long after that. My wife reached out and he messaged her that saying that his wife didn't want him speaking with us anymore. We never saw him again. As far as I know they are still married (thank gods they don't have kids; I doubt they'd jive with her party personality), but no idea if they are happy. His best friend (who he still talks to I believe) moved to Oz about a decade ago, so he was not able to help the situation. I was abused in a similar way, so watching it happen to someone else broke me a little.

Tiste Simeon, on 17 October 2023 - 12:13 PM, said:

This. In my previous job, I dealt with domestic abuse cases, like a LOT, and in so many of them, we were only called because the victim (usually but not always the woman) wanted the immediate situation stopping. Once we'd done that, they would often not want to pursue matters any further.

"He loves me really and we have a great relationship usually" was a common refrain. At first I would be almost contemptuous "why stay in a relationship like that?" But I grew to see how much more layered and complex it is. So I'd just keep trying to help where I could, fill out the safeguarding paperwork, pass details to the relevant support agencies etc. And then come back a few days later and do it again.

This was my mom in the relationship she was in after my dad and her split up. For 7 years she made excuses and made sure not to press charges on her abusive BF when the cops would show up. One day he apparently (my sister saw) took a knife to her forearm during a fight in the kitchen and even THAT didn't snap her out of it...Serendipity struck though, and one night he came home drunk and the house was locked (he often forgot his house keys), and the garage door was locked. So he did what we expected him to do, he got into the car to sleep. He got into the drivers side, however, blind stinking drunk and promptly passed out. My sister and I waited till he was there a while and then called the cops on him. They came and arrested him for being drunk behind the wheel (even if the car was not in motion)...and the weekend he spent in a jail cell was long enough for my mom to finally snap out of it and leave him. But yeah, people in abusive relationships have to help themselves and it takes a LOT to get them to walk.

[Abyss]

amphibian, on 17 October 2023 - 12:53 PM, said:

... The Tupac stuff is exaggerated for selling a narrative. ...

This. They needed another hook. This was it.
Tupak's in hip hop heaven(hell) thinking 'who...? the actress from A Different World?'

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

amphibian, on 17 October 2023 - 12:53 PM, said:

I was that friend, putting myself through this slow grind of social friction from my partner for years. She would make disparaging comments about me in public, be a low level jerk to others, drink too much, puke, I'd scrape her together and bring her home with patience etc.

My advice is to not subsume your needs for a polite, respectful, fun time to giving him and her the social time. If she's a jerk to you, call her out calmly on it rather than tolerate it. If she's a jerk to him, I'd call it out calmly.

Yes, it might mean she withdraws from time with you and pulls him away too. Yes, it means conflict and possible distance. At the same time, you're modeling how a healthy person handles someone being a jerk - calm refusal to take that crap - and provide a contrast to how he/I handled it before.

It's still going to take him deciding to leave before things get better for him. I hope he moves to that stage sooner rather than later.

I spent 6 years with my often cruddy ex. I am blessed to have great family and friends, yet I think I'd have gotten out a little sooner if a few had stood up for themselves and for me in terms of confrontation of awful behavior.

Thanks for this Amph, it's really helpful input. I'm so pleased you're out of that situation.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Apologies for the double post!

QuickTidal, on 17 October 2023 - 12:53 PM, said:

My wife and I had a similar sitch with a friend, for years he was just kind of searching for a mate (funnily enough he once had a crush on my wife before I'd met her, but she never reciprocated) and he was a sweet and funny dude who was fun to hang around, but could kind of be a pushover too. He tried not to drink as his father was an alcoholic. Well one day he meets this woman and they hit it off. Well she IS a heavy drinker so he put up with that...but we hung out with them in group settings probably 5 times and in every instance she constantly made fun of him (pretended she was joking), would push him away if he got affectionate with her (but if he was off talking to someone else or having a good time win his own she would pop up beside him and grab his arm and horn her way into the conversation), and then the last few times we hung out with them we watched her be madly drunk and hit him. She pretends to keep it "I'm a girl, this is playful!"....but I saw him rub his arm after she punched him there with a hard shot...My wife and I and the rest of our friend group talked about this and decided that enough was enough and we decided to bring it up to him. He defended her, said we weren't seeing who she truly was...you know, all the abused person's spiel. Then he told her what we'd said and she went fucking ballistic, called my wife screaming at her, raged at me on FB, made passive aggressive comments on everyones photos in instagram...like lashed out and kept lashing out. Then one day we stopped hearing from him. We learned they got married not too long after that. My wife reached out and he messaged her that saying that his wife didn't want him speaking with us anymore. We never saw him again. As far as I know they are still married (thank gods they don't have kids; I doubt they'd jive with her party personality), but no idea if they are happy. His best friend (who he still talks to I believe) moved to Oz about a decade ago, so he was not able to help the situation. I was abused in a similar way, so watching it happen to someone else broke me a little.

Jesus, that's her. Big party girl, I'm a big personality so I can say what I like but if she's ever called out she's "joking" - the only bit missing is the physical violence (at least so far as I'm aware). She is low key aggressive/mean to others but it's played off by him and others (who I think probably fall into the not wishing to create a scene camp) as "Oh that's just her, she says what she thinks".

There isn't space even in an unlimited post size to get in to the varying layers of anger I have with the "Oh that's just them" argument about poor or indeed abusive behaviour.

I hope your former friend is okay. I realise it was his choice to cut contact and marry her, even after it sounds like you and friends did all you could, but given isolation from family and friends is a part of abusive dynamics it's hard to imagine he's having a completely happy time.

QuickTidal, on 17 October 2023 - 12:53 PM, said:

This was my mom in the relationship she was in after my dad and her split up. For 7 years she made excuses and made sure not to press charges on her abusive BF when the cops would show up. One day he apparently (my sister saw) took a knife to her forearm during a fight in the kitchen and even THAT didn't snap her out of it...Serendipity struck though, and one night he came home drunk and the house was locked (he often forgot his house keys), and the garage door was locked. So he did what we expected him to do, he got into the car to sleep. He got into the drivers side, however, blind stinking drunk and promptly passed out. My sister and I waited till he was there a while and then called the cops on him. They came and arrested him for being drunk behind the wheel (even if the car was not in motion)...and the weekend he spent in a jail cell was long enough for my mom to finally snap out of it and leave him. But yeah, people in abusive relationships have to help themselves and it takes a LOT to get them to walk.

I'm glad your mum got out in the end, and you were able to help.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 17 October 2023 - 02:26 PM

[QuickTidal]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 17 October 2023 - 02:21 PM, said:

I'm glad your mum got out in the end, and you were able to help.

Thanks. She spent about 15 years (before she passed away)after that with my stepdad, and while I may not have liked him and found him caustic, she loved him and he was never abusive to her as far as I could tell.

[amphibian]

Abyss, on 17 October 2023 - 01:50 PM, said:

amphibian, on 17 October 2023 - 12:53 PM, said:

... The Tupac stuff is exaggerated for selling a narrative. ...

This. They needed another hook. This was it.
Tupak's in hip hop heaven(hell) thinking 'who...? the actress from A Different World?'

They went to the same bougie artistic high school and were friends. I don't think they banged, but that's less important than "Let's gin up some book sales with this".

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 17 October 2023 - 03:06 PM, said:

Abyss, on 17 October 2023 - 01:50 PM, said:

amphibian, on 17 October 2023 - 12:53 PM, said:

... The Tupac stuff is exaggerated for selling a narrative. ...

This. They needed another hook. This was it.
Tupak's in hip hop heaven(hell) thinking 'who...? the actress from A Different World?'

They went to the same bougie artistic high school and were friends. I don't think they banged, but that's less important than "Let's gin up some book sales with this".

To be fair, they were very good friends for a decade before he died, and it was often surmised that they'd hooked up even if they refused to admit it (Pac even wrote poetry about her and she got him a guest spot on A Different World)....no, but she's the one who's kept the speculation alive all these years. She's made many posts remembering him and how much she loved him and such. It's not like this just arose when the book was being written...it's been two decades of this from her.

Also "bougie artistic high school"? TIL that a publicly funded Art-focused school in downtown Baltimore to help kids who were artistically inclined head towards a career in that direction, many of whom were from less than affluent families (including Tupac himself)....is somehow "bougie".

[amphibian]

That specific high school is set up as both public and private in that the out-of-city students who get in pay $10k a year to attend. It's also tiny at ~430 kids total and yes, bougie - especially in comparison to the other schools in Baltimore. There's absolutely good stuff happening at the school, but it's not something that is large scale in a metro area of 2 million plus.

My ex lived in Baltimore and explained what that school is doing, the context for it, and what it meant for Tupac, Jada, and all the other people to get in (they did absolutely terrific in an audition and interview, in a Julliard like model).

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 18 October 2023 - 12:56 PM, said:

That specific high school is set up as both public and private in that the out-of-city students who get in pay $10k a year to attend. It's also tiny at ~430 kids total and yes, bougie - especially in comparison to the other schools in Baltimore. There's absolutely good stuff happening at the school, but it's not something that is large scale in a metro area of 2 million plus.

My ex lived in Baltimore and explained what that school is doing, the context for it, and what it meant for Tupac, Jada, and all the other people to get in (they did absolutely terrific in an audition and interview, in a Julliard like model).

I guess I'm hung up on you not believing that these two had a tight relationship that might be affecting hers with Will after the fact. Like he literally proposed to her...how is that "made to sell the book"?