2Pac’s most chilling insights weren’t those about the world around him, but rather the ones about himself. After repeated visions of his own death, 2Pac wrote and laid down haunting vocals for his gangster sermon “Hail Mary.”
His “THUG LIFE” tattoo is usually taken at face value, but 2Pac once explained that it’s actually an acronym for “The Hate U Give Little Infants F***ks Everyone.” It reads a lot like a modernization of the proverb “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth,” and “Hail Mary” is 2Pac’s prayer for mercy with the flames lapping at his feet. He says that iconic line, “I ain’t a killer but don’t push me,” with an understanding that life’s crushing circumstances for his people have led to violence that now mortally threatens him.
On the other hand, the video tells a tale of divine justice from beyond the grave. 2Pac had already died 2 years before its production, and its creators took full advantage of marrying his darkest, most foreboding song with a story to match. When an innocent inmate’s best friend is murdered, the ghost of Makaveli, one of 2Pac’s other rap identities honoring the writings of Machiavelli, crawls from his coffin to exact righteous revenge. It’s admittedly a lofty concept for your typical 5-minute late-90s rap video.
Speaking of reckoning with one’s wrongs (and believing wholeheartedly that alongside praise must come accountability as well), 2Pac had a list of his own, including one in particular that merits addressing – his involvement in the 1993 assault of Ayanna Jackson. Here I’ll defer to the words of Evette Dionne, editor-in-chief of Bitch Media who in response to the death of another high-profile celebrity wrote, “It is irresponsible to excuse or gloss over… But feminism, at least the tradition I follow, makes space for redemption too.”
Whether this was one of the sins he sought repentance for is between him and a higher power, but here on earth, 2Pac did serve actual prison time. And without a doubt, “Hail Mary” is an acknowledgement that in the end, atonement comes for us all. Even him.
𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘:
“Penitentiaries is packed with promise-makers”