Abstract

Although dead for more than two decades, Tupac Shakur endures as one of the most iconic rappers in hip hop music. His celebrated work ethic, talent, and charisma as an MC, actor, and public figure, however, tend to overshadow the collaborative nature of his work in the studio. This paper considers one of Tupac’s most prolific collaborators, producer Johnny J Jackson, with whom he recorded more than one hundred songs. By focusing on an iconic song from Tupac’s extensive catalogue, “Life Goes On” (1996), this paper explains how the beat that Tupac raps over conveys important meaning of its own. Drawn from a sample of the O’Jays ballad “Brandy” (1975), which Johnny J had looped years before Tupac wrote and recorded his lyrics, the beat provides meaningful poetic structure and associative content that both supports and amplifies the song’s message of compassion and resilience in the face of stolen black lives.

Another reason for focusing on this particular track is that it presents an opportunity to challenge some commonly held assumptions about musical difference that, I argue, limit the way scholars analyze hip hop as music. Johnny J’s beat, which Tupac likely listened to while composing his lyrics, resembles a piece of classical music that would have been familiar not only to the rapper and his producer but also their many fans. Thus, the beat of “Life Goes On” contributes its own poetic content and plays a key role in Tupac’s emotionally charged elegy to victims of violence and long-term incarceration. In this way, “Life Goes On” frees us to hear both the collaborative nature of Tupac’s voice and the way producers not only make beats, but produce meaning as well.

Author

• Loren Kajikawa, George Washington University