The cliches come pouring out: Killed by the life you sung about Riddled with the bullets you praised A fitting comeuppance for one so crazed But what do those cliches see? Only black skin, and an ethnic goatee A hard one to defend, for sure Like the rest of us, far from pure Arrests and convictions and endless fights And a few too many wild nights Alleged treatment of a devoted fan Did you really treat her that way, man? You reflected the horror of kids like yourself The ones left behind on the ghetto shelf After the ones like you make it big-time Churning out albums of violence and crime You rapped of bloodshed and proud misogyny But amidst such vitriol, you added poetry You laced your rants with rays of hope Eloquently addressing the struggle to cope And you changed your view of women as things With a song for your mother only you could sing So those who curse you should stop and ask As they hide behind their self-righteous masks: How and why did you find the time To add THOSE words to your million-selling rhymes? Like your lyrics, your life, too, was a schism Rendered asunder by a nation's racism You rose over that rift, you rose high For a boy from the 'hood, a boy of 25 You gave the USA a mirror of itself Fanned the flames of a fire we built Rapped the words we're afraid to hear Gave a visage to our race-based fears Stayed true to your mom's legacy But infused it with a '90's reality Why couldn't you have survived And let the dark angels pass you by? The rift was too much to bear, stretched you too thin Being a clear-voiced black man in this country we're in As high as you went, the lows waited for you The schism tore and burned and tortured you You fell back down, time and again Cheating death once…but it got you in the end And now your murder causes so much glee Among so many people whose smirks I see Why do they stress 'He got what he deserved'? Why do they ignore the evidence of your worth? Pointing to you, relieved, they say 'There, in that hooligan's death, go our troubles away' But little do they know As they slither so low The fire that consumed you Targets them, too It burns on, 2Pac, it burns on And the flames will only grow hotter Now that you're gone