3. Why no one talks about or talks to Tupac’s sister Sekyiwa Shakur
Recently Hip Hop legend Scarface gave an interview where he gave his opinion on the All Eyez on Me movie. He questioned who benefits from the movie: “It ain’t feeding his momma, his momma gone,” he said “It ain’t feeding his kids, he ain’t got none. Who getting the money?” he continued.
That statement made sense until I thought about his sister Sekyiwa Shakur. Wouldn’t she be the direct beneficiary of everything related to 2Pac? Before Afeni Shakur died she set up a trust to control the estate of 2Pac’s music catalog. Sekyiwa and Afeni’s sister Gloria were the heirs to that estate. However it has been reported that Afeni was against the making of this movie and her estate doesn’t benefit from it. Napoleon, who was a former member of 2Pac’s group the Outlawz , talked about Afeni Shakuer’s rejection to the movie and why he didn’t participate in the movie.
Nonetheless they still went into some detail about Afeni’s life. They talked about the relationship she had with 2Pac. On the other hand, his sister was more of a by-product of the story. In the clip below, she makes a rare public appearance and talks about how Hip Hop and entertainment helped save her family lives.
It would have been cool to learn a little bit more about Sekyiwa in the movie. I do realized the movie was only 2 hours and it the primary focus was to concentrate on the life of Tupac. Yet and still, they could have gave us a some insight about her as a person. In an 2006 interview with Allhiphop.com, she talked about, depression, her insecurities and how she got pregnant as a teenager. “Growing up, dark-skinned, Black, with short hair, in a revolutionary family with a name like Shakur you deal with American issues with beauty” she said in the interview. “When I was like 16 or 17, I won a beauty pageant in high school, something like the Black Nubian Queen. Six months after that, I got pregnant and I was a fat baby mama, living the life of a fat baby mama. When you have a beautiful person like Tupac as your brother, it’s a cruel mirror to look at, you know what I mean? He didn’t have the problems I had” she confessed. Not only did she revealed her teenage pregnancy, but she also mentioned that she has two kids by EDI Mean of the Outlawz: “EDI of the Outlawz and I have two children together, and we’ve raised them together.” she said
It is so many layers to Tupac’s life, that it makes it hard to capture it all. I would be lying if I told you that I wasn’t rapping along to Pac’s songs as they played in the movie. But I would also be lying if I told you I didn’t leave the theatre disappointed. I’m not going to shit on the movie and I’m not going to praise it. To casual fans and neophytes to his legacy, it could be a sufficient narrative. But to hardcore fans and Hip Hop heads, it wasn’t enough. I just walked away feeling that a happy medium could have been achieved. So my point in this is not to belittle or to discourage you from watching the film.
I just felt that they could have kept it sexy and left the more famous names such as Jada Pinkett Smith and Quincy Jones daughter Kidada as his love interest. Yet and still, they could have kept it real and included Yo-Yo and Keisha Morris. That was the balance and complexity of Tupac Shakur.
Let us know how you felt about the All Eyez on Me film? Leave your comments below