Tupac Shakur was a card carrying member of the Young Communist League in Baltimore. He studied theory alongside his closest friends, actively participated in their organizing efforts and even dated the daughter of local Communist Party chapter. No wonder his lyrics always felt so real and profound.
It’s wierd that you say that, I expected MM&TBS to go a lot harder but I didn’t find anything too anti-cap at all imo. A lot of personal things but not much about the system. Definitely not compared to e.g. To pimp a butterfly
Then you reach the end songs and he literally says “Lately, I redirected my point of view” I got a kid and a family I choose me i’m sorry
And then you go back to the previous songs again and start reading in a bit
“The industry has killed the creators, I’ll be the first to say (What the fuck?) To each exec’, “I’m saving your children”—We can’t negotiate (What the—)”
e.g. the execs saying “hey with this pay i’m saving your children here but you can’t rap about this stuff no more”
and in the songs later he’s like ‘i can’t please everbody people look up to me and i have to just nod along and say the music is gonna keep coming’ and that he can’t be this world-saviour character
and like total repsect for that he has a family and 2 kids now and it seems like he chose to self-preserve and you know 100% get it
But I think the anti-capitalist Kendrick has been suppressed
At least to pimp a butterfly still goes hard