I googled "define:politics" and got a beautiful, overarching definition from Wikipedia: "Politics (from Greek πολιτικός, "of, for, or relating to citizens"), is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally associated with the art or science of running governmental affairs." Now, with this definition in mind, I barely consider "Changes" a political song (it has no intent of cooperating with anyone to make any kind of collective decision or change) but, it is on our class playlist. I think this is because Tupac's audience accepts it as political, and reacts likewise. In any case, its free game for my blog, so let's take a look.
My first problem with this song is that it has no factual foundation. When Billie Holiday sang "Strange Fruit," there was no doubt she sang about real events and problems. She had a plethora of haunting evidence that lynching was, in fact, an issue to be discussed. When Nina Simone sang "Mississippi Goddam," there was no mistaking the act of arson that killed innocent black schoolchildren in their own church, and the more encompassing issue of segregation that plagued the southeast. But now Tupac is saying, "It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact... the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks." It took me 5 seconds to Google "national inmates by race" and find out from the Federal Bureau of Prisons that 58.5% of our nation's inmates are white. That is quite a majority considering the number of races that are represented in prison. The amount of black inmates is at least 20% lower, and while it may be slightly disproportionate to the percent of population that is black, it still does not support the statement "penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks." But of course, as Tupac also states in the song, he is "back with the facts."
In addition to unsupportable facts, the song also sports many logical fallacies. For example, "Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me." Let's think about this. If a person is living in poverty, and they spend all the money they have on drugs (instead of food, shelter, etc.) which also keep them from getting a job... aren't the drugs acting as a catalyst of the poverty cycle? Right. So the police that are cracking down on drugs are in fact, trying to fight poverty. Alright.
Mostly I feel this is a song about trying to justify bad decisions. He says "I ain't never did a crime I ain't have to do." For example, "My stomach hurts, so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch." In the lines after this example, he is complaining about the police. I don't think I have to point out logical fallacies in detail here, as they are obvious. My point is that by sending this song out mainstream, he is perpetuating this cycle of bad behavior by justifying it. He is misusing his power as a celebrity and becoming a detriment to the society he dislikes so much already. I feel that Eminem did much the same thing (see my last blog entry for more on him).
The common theme I am seeing in rap is that there is only complaints for the issues, and justifying the individuals part in the cycle. Saying, in essence, "I know I helped cause this problem but I had no choice. So it is still your fault." Whether they sing to a government or a personal enemy, I think the theme is much the same. My big question though, is whether this method of expressing politics (dysfunctional though it may seem) is effective. Does it stir up enough anger/discontent/bad feeling about society to make change, or just enough to breed hate?
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