After an interesting revelation from his videographer Gobi M. Rahimi and also Jampol Artist Management now managing his estate, 2Pac takes the stage this week for Throwback Thursday with his 1991 debut single titled “Brenda’s Got A Baby“.
From 2Pac‘s debut album “2Pacalypse Now“, “Brenda’s Got A Baby” is a song based on a young girl (12 years old, to be exact) dealing with social issues in the ghettos of the United States such as teenage pregnancy, drugs and prostitution.
2Pac wrote this song after he read a newspaper article about a 12-year-old girl who got pregnant from her cousin and, because she did not want her parents to know about the baby, threw it in a trash can.
The song also features a brief appearance from fellow Digital Underground artist Money B and also RnB singer Dave Hollister.
The video was directed by the Hughes brothers (who 2Pac went on to have beef with over disagreements over the film “Menace II Society“). It depicts the story that 2Pac tells with scenes relating to his lyrics. We see Brenda growing up with a drug-addicted father and also having her cousin as her first boyfriend who she then went on to become pregnant with. The most striking part of the video shows Brenda giving birth to the child and then struggling to cope with her new born baby. This leads to Brenda throwing her baby in a dumpster. The story ends with Brenda becoming a prostitute to make ends meet and eventually being murdered.
Possibly his most potent song from his deep library, 2Pac‘s lyrics are a bold commentary on America’s ghettos by using Brenda to tell his story:
Now Brenda’s belly is getting bigger/
But no one seems to notice any change in her figure/
She’s twelve years old and she’s having a baby/
In love with a molester, who’s sexing her crazy/
He then goes on to tell about her struggle to cope with the shame of having this child:
He left her and she had the baby solo/
She had it on the bathroom floor and didn’t know so/
She didn’t know, what to throw away and what to keep/
She wrapped the baby up and threw him in a trash heap/
The song went on to be an influence for then-future rappers. The Game refers to the song in his single “Hate It or Love It” in the line:
Pac is gone, and Brenda still throwing babies in the garbage/
Kendrick Lamar references the song in “Keisha’s Song (Her Pain)” with the lines:
To make you fiend for more/
She play Mr. Shakur/
That’s her favorite rapper/
Bumping “Brenda’s Got A Baby”/
While a pervert yelling at her/
Median released a “sequel” to “Brenda’s Got A Baby“, titled “Brenda’s Baby“. The story follows Brenda’s baby, who has been named “Rose” in reference to 2Pac‘s poem, “The Rose That Grew From Concrete“.
Re-issued in 2004, “2Pacalypse Now” was the beginning of a huge legacy in Hip-Hop and is available on Amazon.
Also, check out my double-disc mixtape I made in 2011 titled “15 Years On: A Tribute To Tupac“
