Cold Open: Tupac and Biggie - two of the biggest hip hop stars of all time. And neither of them would see the age of 26. Their West Coast/East Coast rap feud helped sell millions of records, helped launch the career of Puff Daddy. Cemented Death Row Records as one of the greatest hip hop labels of all time. I listened to a ton of Tupac growing up. And who hasn’t heard some Biggie? But how much do we really know about either man? Well, after today’s episode, you’ll know a lot. Biggie, biggie, biggie, can’t you see that we’ve got to learn a little bit about you and Tupac’s history, today, on Timesuck. PAUSE TIMESUCK INTRO I. Welcome! Happy Monday Timesuckers! I’m Dan Cummins aka the MasterSucker, the 4th leg of Bojangles - and this IS Timesuck! Welcome to the Cult of the Curious Recording from the Suck Lair. Josh Krell monitoring the sound waves. Space lizards! The app has been updated! Hail Nimrod! New update that fixes pretty much everything up now at the Google Play and the Apple app stores. So happy that is happy. Thank you Bit Elixir! It’s working great on both my Android and my iPhone. Thanks to all those Space Lizards who made the Trek to Couer d’Alene. I’m recording this Suck before our get together, but, I’m just gonna assume we had a great time I’ll be posting lots of pics on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter - @timesuckpodcast Back on tour this week! Stand up shows in Minneapolis, March 2nd and 3rd at Sisyphus Brewing. Both early shows are sold out. Some tickets still available for the 10PM shows. Brea Improv - SoCal- March 8th - 11th Hilarities in Cleveland March 22-24th. Salt Lake City April 20-21st. More tour dates at www.dancummins.tv - big Southern tour in early April. And now, time for Timesuck 76 - Tupac & Biggie: Fame, Money, & Murder. PAUSE INTERLUDE II. Intro: Alright - you guys read for a giant timeline today? Kind of a dueling timeline really. Tupac and Biggie were just barely a year apart in age, and they died within six months of each other. So, it makes sense to bounce back and forth between their childhoods and ascent to hip hop superstardom in a little dueling timeline. Let’s get it started. PAUSE INTERLUDE III. Tupac Timeline A. June 16, 1971: Tupac Shakur was born on June 16, 1971, in East Harlem - New York City. He was born Richard William Jr. but changed it later because a record label exec told him that no one was gonna buy a hip hop album from a guy named Dick Willie Jr. No. He was born Lesane Parish Crooks, but in 1972, when he was barely a year old, his mom renamed him after Túpac Amaru II, an 18th-century Peruvian revolutionary who was executed after leading an indigenous uprising against Spanish rule. And, since dad didn’t stick around, she didn’t feel like it was fair to have him take dad’s last name, and, I gotta say, I agree with that logic. You know your mom is a wee bit more intense than other moms when, instead of naming you after a grandpa or Uncle, you get named after a Peruvian revolutionary even though you’re not even 1% Peruvian. Well - Afeni Shakur Davis was more intense than your average mom. She wasn’t a homemaker. She didn’t have a white collar job. She didn’t work as a checker at Safeway. She was a high ranking member of the Black Panther revolutionary political movement. Both of Tupac’s parents were Black Panthers. Revolutionaries. Afeni, born Alice Faye Williams, met Tupac’s father, Billy Garland, while working for the Black Panther Party. They had a brief romance that produced a baby. Not sure about all the details of the romance but I’m certain it involved a penis inside a vagina and an overly relaxed attitude towards birth control. Afeni specialized in raising bail money for jailed Panthers – which was an important organizational role considering the Black Panthers were constantly getting arrested. Law enforcement HATED them. Mostly because they openly hated law enforcement. Alfeni operated alongside prominent Black Panther member Geronimo Pratt, who would later be named Tupac's godfather. Geronimo was born Elmer Pratt. Not actually joking this time. Hard to be taken seriously as a revolutionary when your name is Elmer, as in Fudd. And Elmer Fudd was no revolutionary. He was a ‘Wabbit hunter! Kill d rabbits, kill d rabbits, kill d wabbits!! Elmer renamed himself after the famous Apache warrior. And he would go to prison in 1972 for a murder charge that would later be vacated in 1997 because the prosecution upheld key evidence from the jury, such as the fact that their key witness was an FBI informant. Pratt claimed to be 350 miles away from Santa Monica, where the murder occurred, when it actually did occur. Twenty-five years on a bullshit murder charge. Damn. After getting out, he left the country and moved to the East African country of Tanzania. Don’t blame him! And why was he charged in the first place? Probably because he was a member of the Black Panther party, an organization formed in response to numerous acts of police brutality. In 1969, Afeni and 20 other members of the party were jailed while facing trial on some trumped up charges of planning a series of bombings in New York City; Shakur was pregnant with Tupac at the time. Tupac later told a reporter, “I was cultivated in prison, my embryo was in prison.” After reading Fidel Castro's History Will Absolve Me while incarcerated, Shakur chose to represent herself in court, telling other accused Panthers that if they were convicted, they would be the ones serving jail time, not the lawyers. Pregnant while on trial and facing a thirty-year prison sentence, Shakur interviewed witnesses and passionately argued in court. And she won. She and the other members of the Panther 21 group were acquitted after an eight-month trial and released from prison in May 1971. The following month, she gave birth to Lesane. And then she changed his name to Tupac. She’d later say: “I wanted him to have the name of revolutionary, indigenous people in the world. I wanted him to know he was part of a world culture and not just from a neighborhood.” Again, not your typical mom. Not gonna be a typical childhood when that’s your origin. 1. Who were the Black Panthers? Little more about the Black Panthers before we move into Tupac’s childhood. Who were they? Well, the Black Panthers - who deserve their own Suck and I’m sure will get one someday- kicked off on October of 1966, in Oakland, California. And, apparently, they have nothing to do with the new Black Panther movie even though the comic book character of the Black Panther also debuted in 1966. The party was formed in October. The comic came out in July. Weird timing. The Black Panther character was the first mainstream African American comic superhero. Did the the party take their name from the comic? Supposedly not, but, again, weird coincidence. Or did the party take their name from Pootie & Juju, issue #58: Pootie Gets a Black Panther and Names It Hootie, which is how the band Hootie and the Blowfish got its name. That issue of Pootie & Juju came out in August of 1966. Pootie Gets a Black Panther and Juju freaks out because A) it’s illegal to have a black panther for a pet, B) Juju is allergic to cats, and C) Pootie told Juju that he got Hootie for a really good price because Hootie had eaten her two previous owners. Well, luckily for Pootie and Juju fans, Hootie didn’t eat either of them in the episode! But, she did eat Juju’s pet goldfish, Muffintop. And when Juju came home to find a Black Panther with a wet face and a missing goldfish, he’d had enough. “No more Hootie, Pootie!” He screamed. But it was hard to understand him because his face was swelling up due to his cat allergies. And Pootie said, “What? No more Pootie Tooties?” And Juju screamed “No more Hootie, Pootie!” And Pootie heard him this time and said, “What if we just keep him in the yard? Then your face probably won’t swell up as much.” And Juju screamed “Too little, too diddle Pootie!!” And they argued back and forth about whether or not to keep Hootie for 235 consecutive pages. And by the time they were done, Hootie the Black Panther had died of old age. It wasn’t one of their more popular issues. And I hope new listeners realize by now I’m joking about Pootie and Juju. Anyway, the organization was founded in the wake of the assassination of black nationalist Malcolm X in 1965 and after police in San Francisco shot and killed an unarmed black teen named Matthew Johnson in September of 1966. The Black Panther Party's initial reason for existence was to form and organize armed citizens' patrols that monitored the behavior of the Oakland Police Department. As I said, they were formed as a response to continual police brutality against African Americans in the 60s. And, as organizations typically do, they evolved. In 1969, community social programs became another core activity of party members. The Black Panther Party instituted a variety of community social programs, most extensively the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, and the provided community health clinics to address issues like food injustice.