Tupac's 'Dear Mama': Why This Song Sucks

Killakadafi77

You can't be serious, this must be a joke, lmfao

makaveli

go fuck yourself shea

Taylortolbert23

Are you fucking kidding me? You obviously have no clue as to what you are saying so im not going to waste my breath on you. Get a grip asshole >:/

Atif18

shoot your self.

tupac did more in his 25 years than you will do in your entire life

Pdnice_2

like i said try walking in Tupac shoes for a day. Then maybe you can think further. Tupac is the only true voice on our network !!

Thep1mpman

your stupid go fuck yourself

Jamie

you are a fukin idiot get a life

Ryan

Shea, I really enjoy your writing for the Houston Press and Passion of the Weiss. Your knowledge of H-town rap is damn near encyclopedic, and you have an engaging voice. Which is why it saddens me to say that your writing for this particular feature is consistently painful. I have no particular affinity for 2pac or "Dead Mama," and in fact was kind of hoping you would tell me "Why [that] song sucks," but this piece is not that. Please stop trying to force humor out of these articles. You just aren't very good at it. Stick to writing intelligently about rap music, rather than trying to "make jokes." Thank you.

granky161

Whoever wrote this sucks.

BrandoC

Serrano, you're one bold ass ese.

Jigonzalez3

It is obvious this man does not understand where tupac came from the struggles his mother and family faced..everything written in this article is disrespectful...if tupac was alive I dare the writer to speak about tupacs mom like that to his face..all I'm saying

Sweetsheina

As someone who's mother has been both a crack fiend and a queen, I have to say that what this article lacks is understanding of the full human experience. A man cannot honor his mother because she had an addiction? A man cannot honor his mother because she showed him physical discipline? I feel very badly about your limited scope of what humanity looks like. Additionally, it would serve you well to go and apologize to your mother.

u idiot

What a idiot hating a man and his mum. His mum was on drugs but she was still a queen to him you fool. The images of the kid hiding the book, well you get the idea don't you? Stupid imbecile. A classic idiot writing how great tupac was while trying to talk him down. This song wasn't just for his mother, it was for all mothers. He paid homage to his mum and said he was sorry for leaving the house at a young age.. I guess you have no mum/have no life/ have nothing better to do.

West Coast Sound

Haterade from England!

Lexo

Typical privileged voice trying to be funny and failing. I'm not a huge fan of 'Pac as I found him to be full of shit mostly, but this song was a nice tribute to the struggle single moms face and how patterns of addiction are complex etc....This writer obviously knows shit about that, and as pointed out, finding humor in darkness is the root of all great comedy. Tell this dipshit to watch some Richard Pryor, write a report on it, THEN maybe try to write a snarky piece dissing a song about growing up poor in a cycle of drugs and violence. What an asshole.

West Coast Sound

What makes you think you know anything about this writer?

Lexo

My comment lays out pretty clearly why I'm making the assumptions I am. If you have even an ounce of understanding regarding the struggle Tupac was speaking too, you wouldn't write such a stupid fucking article. If you want to take humor out of pain and tragedy go ahead, but humor is the key word. This plainly sucked, and sucked because the writer clearly doesn't know the subject.

Lexo

No "basically" needed. I haven't read any of his other stuff, and judging by the quality of this piece of shit (which is what I'm doing) I don't intend to. Unless I feel like getting pissed off. The whole crux of his jive is that if Pac's mom had a crack problem that it's absurd (to the point of I guess being funny?) that he refer to her as a "black queen". A wack premise to begin with, and again, not funny. Trying too hard, and dripping with the vibe of someone who doesn't know shit.

West Coast Sound

So basically you haven't read any of his other stuff, because if you had you'd realize you're talking out your ass.

UberdanSounds

So *this* is how you get people to your blog?!

Well played...well played!

LMW24

Omg who ever wrote this is uninformed. 2pac was telling a story about his mother. Not many will understand the struggle but this author missed the point of the song COMPLETELY!! Go back to the drawing board because this is the dumbest thing I've read in a while. I won't be reading LA WEEKLY until this joke of an article is taken down!!

Drewsef

Wow. So I'm sitting here reading a truly stupid article on how one of the greatest rap songs ever recorded "sucks," and then I look up at the other top stories for this site, and see one with the headline "Lulu is the best album of 2011." And another offering a lyrical dissection of "I Wanna Sex You Up."

I've been reading music coverage in the LA Weekly since the late '90s. There's been some great stuff in here over the years. But I think I'm done with this magazine. If all you guys have to offer now is basically just trolling, self-consciously contrarian bullshit, and unfunny attempts at high-schooler snark, I don't see much reason to keep reading.

Guest

This is really, a very obviously, satirically written piece. A very, very funny one, at that. Come on, guys. Chill the fuck out.

Ivan the Turrible

Funny? How is this funny? Denigrating an artist who paid tribute to his drug-addicted mother despite her flaws all because the author of this article didn't feel the word "queen" was used appropriately...?

Look, I'm about as snarky as they come, but snark for the mere sake of snark is simply uninspired. It's offensive, if nothing else. If this song "sucks", then so does 2Pac's entire catalog. And it doesn't. For what it's worth, this song was given the rare honor of being included in the Library of Congress.

Marcofromhouston

" Well, I guess it gets

multiple pageviews from angry

commenters like me"

This. How many times do you comment on any given blog post? How many times do you write more than once sentence, better yet a whole paragraph or two? Call this a FAIL all you want, but it's full of WIN.

Oh, and how many times does an online commentor swear to never again read anything on a particular blog, yet they pop in again after a few days or whenever they're bored/drunk?

Exactly.

amh

I'm sorry but I agree with everyone else but the writer, so-called writer better yet. Why don't you go try and use your "scientific method" on something else, maybe like a resume because you shouldn't be doing what you do.

Drewsef

Exactly. The thing is, a great comic writer can make funny commentary on things that absolutely aren't funny. (See old-school Dave Chapelle for someone who can actually find sad, knowing humor in the inner-city drug plague.) And a great critic can take a beloved song and tear it apart intelligently. (I mean, you could argue that "Dear Mama" helped crystallize the tendency for misogynist rappers to throw in a "mom tribute" song as a way of making up for their less enlightened songs -- see Ghostface's "All I Got Is You" vs. "Wildflower," or Jay-Z's "Mama Loves Me" vs. "Girls Girls Girls." Or one could point out the irony of a man composing a song to his mother while he was under indictment for sexual assault.) But this is neither -- not funny, and not smart. This is just hating on something beautiful for absolutely no reason.

What on earth is the point of this piece, or the piece arguing that "Lulu" is a great album? Well, I guess it gets multiple pageviews from angry commenters like me, so in that case, kudos. But it's intellectually empty, glib, and offensive without being provocative. And you can only go to that well so many times before people stop paying attention to you.