Episode Summary Politics is a battle over elections and policies, but underneath it’s really a battle over stories, the cultural myths that shape our sense of identity, power, and possibility. And few stories loom larger in the American imagination than the saga of Tupac Shakur, the rapper and actor whose influence continues to resonate across the globe nearly 30 years after his death. It’s easy to see why. The problems of poverty, racism, capitalism, and inequality are as present today as they were when Tupac and other early hip-hop musicians began telling stories that no one else would. Talking about all of this with me today is Dean Van Nguyen. He’s the author of a new biography of Tupac Shakur called “Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur” that highlights the political legacy that was lost when the emcee was gunned down in the streets of Las Vegas in 1996. While today’s rap industry has largely been absorbed by the capitalism its pioneers once resisted, the radical spirit Tupac embodied still echoes—sometimes in unexpected places. One of those places is Donald Trump’s political movement. In a bizarre turn, Trump has increasingly styled himself as a hip-hop folk hero—and, surprisingly, more than a few rappers have gone along with it. This is a conversation about symbolism, masculinity, memory, and resistance. The video of this episode is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. Theory of Change and Flux are listener supported. We need your help to keep going. Please subscribe to stay in touch! 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Audio Chapters 00:00 — Introduction 05:53 — Tupac’s continued global resonance 09:14 — The origins of hip-hop and its commercialization 11:35 — Tupac’s legacy of contradictions 18:41 — The Black Panthers’ influence on Tupac’s mother 23:50 — Masculinity and gender within hip-hop 29:06 — Gender and sexuality in the Black Panther Party 35:56 — Obama and Trump in rap 39:12 — Former Panthers still have hope for the future despite Trump 41:31 — Trump’s 2024 campaign reached out heavily to hip-hop artists 46:22 — ‘Coolness’ as a non-political voter persuasion method 50:22 — How Van Nguyen brought oral history into his book 58:19 — Eazy-E, another political West Coast emcee 01:01:55 — The meanings of ‘thug life’ Audio Transcript The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only. MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Dean Van Nguyen. Hey, Dean. Welcome to Theory of Change. DEAN VAN NGUYEN: Thank you. Thanks for having me. SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So this book is, it's a really important book, actually, I think especially because it's connecting a lot of ideas that got started during the life of Tupac Shakur, obviously by him, but also by other people. And he's a guy that continues to remain relevant despite having been killed decades ago. And you write in the introduction of the book that you see him as America's last revolutionary figure. Tell us about that. VAN NGUYEN: I think America actually isn't a nation that tends to create these. Figures. It's been a, a stable political, system for quite a while now. So I think when you see where Tupac's icon has resonated mostly across the world, and it tends to be in countries that have histories of colonialism and colonial oppression and anti-colonial uprising such as my own country, which is Ireland and nations that have suffered brutal dictatorships and have had uprisings against that and things of that nature. So he, I think his icon has grown to, to be almost this, almost like avara figure where he. He represents [00:04:00] ideals, like to see his image ignites certain feelings within people or certain ideas within people of, revolution and resistance. And I don't think there's actually too many Americans as you could actually say that about. Yeah, I think if you got, like there was, of the, figures in the book as well who's icon, who's I comparing to a little bit is like Bob Marley. Che Guevara. So, yeah, I think I, I can't really think of anyone who's come since him that really matches that, that that symbol that he's become, side of the us. SHEFFIELD: If we expand outside of the us other non-American figures can you think of people after Tupac generally that are, that widely known and recognized as revolutionary icons?I think he's certainly, I think, the single most recognizable icon that hip hop produced. I think maybe the other one might be Eminem, but I'm not sure that when people, recognize who m Andm is when they see him, but he, doesn't ignite the same se a set of principles that like, that Tupac does. VAN NGUYEN: S so, yeah, and I think that he's probably even eclipsed, say, Panther forebears certainly in terms of his ability to be recognized just from pictures of 'em and things like that. Like he's, I think he's more famous than Huey Newton, Bobby Seal and Eldridge Cleaver, and people like that. yeah, I, it's hard to, it's hard to think of o other, even his contemporaries really, who match him in that regard. SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I think that's right. And it's, there's a lot of reasons for that. one of them obviously is cultural fragmentation. I think that's a huge part in that. But it's also, as you say, that his music is about telling stories in a way that is. A lot more authentic compared to especially the people who came after him. Tupac's continued global resonance SHEFFIELD: your connection as you mentioned earlier, that you're from Ireland and you had a particular interest in [00:06:00] Tupac as a kid growing up. tell us about that. VAN NGUYEN: Yeah, so I, I from a school system where I think is probably stereotypical what you might expect, a Catholics, the Catholic, Irish school system to be as in like school uniforms. I went to an all boys school. Most of the schools, I think in Ireland at the time, probably still now, I'm not sure were, single sex and. it was just, it was a very drab existence with no really extracurricular activities to speak of. So I think for us that we found and to be a, an escape or, certainly something to be interested in. For some, and for some of us gangster rap was, popular. There was another set of kids, like Kurt Cobain was the guy for them. And like for us, I think probably above everyone else it was, Tupac. He had died by the time I got interested interested in him already. But I think that even added to the mystique around him. and yeah. And I think that there's, but you, like even, I, was just talking to last weekend actually, my, I had a friend over who's from New York and is partner for the first time. And she had just been down in, I'm from Dublin and she had just been in Galway, which is another town that's on the other side of the country, but she was saying she'd seen a mural of Tupac there. and yeah, in the, book a little bit, I mentioned some of the murals that have popped up about him and there's just, there is something in the Irish psyche that seems to, like him. I, had to take out some instances in the book I've just seen anecdotally that kind of shows Irish people's affinity for him. And I think again, it just speaks to that he resonates in countries with a particular history. and I, say I go into some of those, the other nations and places like Sierra Leone and the Solomon Islands in the book as well. So, yeah, I think he was just, that was, he was just the guy for us. And in terms of probably the rapper, we most particularly, certainly some people anyway, most particularly [00:08:00] gravitate towards and certainly who, could like evoke a real sort of sense of. loyalty and, interest in maybe more so than guys like Nas and Wu-Tang Klan. We also all listen to. But yeah, tu, Tupac just seems to, stand above all the rest. SHEFFIELD: yeah, and I, think there's it, the, obviously the fact that he, died so young and so suddenly, that obviously it, put him to a higher status. But on the other hand, there were a lot of, guys who died young and didn't get anywhere near that iconic status. So it's worth thinking about him. and also the other thing about Tupac, I think that makes him stand out is that because he was there, in in the beginning of the genre, and then never. a chance to sell it. who knows whether he would've or not. It's hard to say, right? But, he didn't, and, but he was able to preserve that original ethos hip hop and rap. And so talk, talk, talk about that though. Like how rap originally was as a medium. The origins of hiphop and its commercialization VAN NGUYEN: in, in, in the book, I, had, if I saw it as there being an opportunity to do a tangential narrative on how hip hop came from radical origins like I, I go into Tupac's Black Panther parentage and his, heritage and, hip hop was born in New York on the same streets where the Panthers, hop the newspapers and had offices and it was. Just it was just slightly, just, a couple of years after their, the peak of their influence in New York. But it's, I think that it was still, it's from, it's like it's from the same streets. It's from the, conditions in which the Panthers sought [00:10:00] to, recruit and, sought to, provide relief for, in terms of the poverty that a lot of the people who lived in those areas were experiencing. oh, it hip hop was a, was it was a youth movement, really no commercial intere
