Listening to Tupac in the Andes

From Quito, Julian Cola looks at 2pac's influence in the Andean capital.

A young man sports a Tupac (2Pac) Shakur t-shirt in Parque Carolina (Quito, Ecuador) Photo: Julian Cola

Cruising the streets of Quito, it’s my distinct impression that the top five music artists or groups, their name or image printed on fans’ t-shirts, are Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Black Sabbath, Guns N’ Roses, and Tupac (2Pac) Shakur. The order given is a random selection. No detailed survey indicates which artist stands first to fifth in terms of popularity and groups like Ramones and Metallica would receive special mention. Notably, rock bands score an edge in terms of genre favorite. However, the sole artist on the list whose name pays homage to the impregnable Inca revolutionary, Túpac Amaru, is 2Pac Amaru Shakur.

“I was named after this Inca chief from South America whose name was Túpac Amaru,” 2Pac told MTV News correspondent Tabitha Soren in 1995. “So my mother named me after this Inca chief… If I go to South America they’re going to love me.”

For his revolutionary crusade against Spain, Túpac Amaru, the Sapa Inca—sovereign King of the Inca Empire—was captured and ordered to the gallows by Viceroy Toledo. The Quechua honorific—Túpac—meaning noble or honorable, re-emerged in 1780 when Túpac Amaru II led a rebellion against Spanish colonizers in Peru. For his efforts, executioners dismembered him in a public square.

In 1781, Túpac Katari, his wife, Bartolina Sisa, and 40,000 mostly indigenous soldiers laid siege to the Spanish colonial city of La Paz in present-day Bolivia. Betrayed by a group of followers, both were captured by Spanish servants of the crown. While Túpac Katari was executed by quartering, Bartolina Sisa was beaten, raped, and hung in what is today Plaza Murillo (La Paz’s main public square). Afterwards, the Spanish severed her corpse into pieces, displayed her head publicly and even sent her limbs on a traveling tour to different villages as a means to intimidate the Quechua, Aymara, and other 1st Nation people.

A bust of Túpac Amaru, the revolutionary Inca leader, is cemented with a host of other indigenous revolutionaries at the entrance to the Universidade Central (Quito, Ecuador) Photo: Julian Cola

Two centuries later, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) would emerge in Peru in the 1980s. This armed guerrilla group, along with another called the Shinning Path, aimed to establish a revolutionary socialist state. Beyond the Andes, yet witnessing right-wing movements and military dictatorships sprout up across the region, an urban guerrilla group in Uruguay rose to the challenge in the 1960s and 70s. Paying homage to the enduring legacy of resistance embodied by multiple Túpacs, they named their organization the Tupamaros.

Then, in 1971, while in a New York City jail awaiting trial in the infamous Panther 21 Case, a pregnant Afeni Shakur learned about Túpac Amaru II from a Peruvian female prisoner. Acquitted of all charges after representing herself and other Black Panther Party comrades and released from prison only days before giving birth, Afeni named her only son, Tupac Amaru Shakur.

  1. Tupac/2Pac In The Belly Of The Beast

Born into the revolutionary Shakur family, 2Pac became a rapper-activist, actor, and veteran of the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion. Addressing the country during the heat of the uprising, then US president George Bush Sr. stated that he would “use whatever force is necessary” to reign in the protestors. “What is going on in L.A. must and will stop.” Thousands of active duty army and marine soldiers from the 7th Infantry Division, 1st Marine Division, and the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion were deployed to Black and Brown communities across in Los Angeles to put down a revolt against police brutality and other forms of structural racism following the brazen killing of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins and acquittal of all police officers in the Rodney King case.

According to John Potash, author of the book, The FBI War on Tupac Shakur, a US Justice Department worker inadvertently admitted to him that the FBI compiled over 4,000 pages of documents on 2Pac during his short life. Comparatively, Aretha Franklin’s FBI rap sheet contained 270 pages; John Lennon’s , 281 pages; Notorious B.I.G. (or Biggie Smalls) 359 pages; Phil Ochs, nearly 500 pages; the list goes on.

  1. 2Pac T-Shirts At Protests

My observances of music artist/band t-shirt-wearing preferences in Quito occurred while simply strolling about the Andean capital. It was nothing i intended to do. Mass demonstrations, such was the case in October 2019 where indigenous-led protests against austerity measures in exchange for a $4.2 billion U.S. dollar IMF loan shut down the country, marked pivotal but certainly not exclusive moments when 2Pac t-shirts prevailed. To the consternation of many, former Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno had promised wage cuts by 20 percent, annual vacation time slashed in half, and a mandatory days-wage paid to state coffers each month. The backbreaker was a fuel subsidy cut, one that guaranteed an increase in food prices and cost of living across the board. According to the government’s own figures, diesel more than doubled, increasing from $1.03 to $2.30 per gallon on the 3rd of October, and gasoline rose from $1.85 to $2.39. The subsequent groundswell was inevitable.

Asked why he had abandoned the capital of Quito for the coastal city of Guayaquil during the state of an emergency he himself had declared, then Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno told the BBC, “because, in the end, they (they meaning protestors) were coming after me.”

During twelve days of protests, t-shirts with 2Pac’s image emblazoned on them prevailed among the youth. More specifically, 2Pac clothing apparel came in second place, behind indigenous youths and adults wearing their traditional ponchos.

“Just look at any country that ain’t controlled by America and ask them what America did to them and I betcha it’s gonna be some pillaging, raping, taking, snatching, beating, shooting, killing, locking up, beating down.”

— 2Pac Shakur

October 2019 protests against austerity and a $4.2 billion U.S. dollar IMF loan in Quito, Ecuador. Photo: Julian Cola

  1. From T-Shirt Gazing to Conversational English

“i’m colonizing these people (my unwitting English language students),” I joked with a mentee one day. Virtually all of my pupils seemed less than inclined whenever i nudged them to wise up about linguistic colonialism. Likewise, they seemed bored if not bewildered whenever i hinted at using, even appropriating English to serve their own purpose, not to be swept aside entirely and blindly by toxic prosthetic memories and other ideological messaging conveyed by English language western media. Prosthetic memories, which refers to thoughts about people and/or events acquired vicariously through watching films and TV programs based on real events, are also hammered into society’s collective mind via other forms of media and educational systems. Still, it came as no surprise that none of my students ever wore anything remotely resembling a poncho or 2Pac t-shirt. Why would they?

This clothing store in Quito has an entrance sign that reads “God’s Blessing, American Clothes”. Photo: Julian Cola

When one student asked what do i think about Ecuador, I gave him a balanced, per usual answer, purposefully reinforcing his at-ease disposition in posing the question. Then, coarsely, i concluded, “It has a colonial mentality.” Why not? It’s beyond true. Evidence of this mindset and systemic impropriety are too many to spell out here.

Topographically, Quito, a city perched snugly in the Andes is an inspiring beauty to behold. Having deposited some of my grandfather’s, Willis Cola, ashes, as well as an extended family member nicknamed Tof who died here, in the heights of Pichincha Volcano, it’s a place I’ll cherish to my end. Quito, however, has so much more to offer than it does. But just as a casual reference to this insipid mentality, knowing that this student passes by a café and pastry shop named Dulceria Colonial (Colonial Sweets) in the historic center, I thought I’d test his sensibility on this touchy matter. Caught off-guard by what I said, he chuckled, brushed me off, and quickly transitioned to the next line of discussion. Typical.

English classes were just that, a mostly dull sidebar gig on one hand, a blunt exposé of deep class divisions, trite hang-ups and prejudices within the foreign language learning spectrum on the other. Never did i have a student wearing a poncho or 2Pac t-shirt because those who did—though i understand that those who wear ponchos and 2Pac t-shirts can transcend class lines—came from, primarily, poor, working-class communities. Budgeting for private English classes, even those at just $6 per one-hour session, remains a luxury amid Ecuador’s economic crunch. It’s precisely for this reason that the idea of taking private English classes in Quito is associated with middle to upper-class society, even high life, and this is nauseously evident by the grade of visual marketing campaigns promoted by many private English language schools.

How would my students fair if i simply played along, reading script from Cambridge’s English-teaching method while skirting each and every opportunity to develop my own educational curricula resources? Nerving out toxic English language instruction trends, albeit absolutely necessary in this day and age if youths are to develop a healthy sense of who they and their community are, as well as respect for their surroundings, will not come without conscious, serious struggle. Anyway, why learning one of the millenary languages of the Andes is, by-and-large, an afterthought to most people is a question that can take books to answer. Kichwa, the main indigenous group and language of Ecuador, doesn’t inspire thoughts of progress, advancement, might i add “civilization” in this society. This despite Kichwa being offered at Ecuador’s Central University and a few other public and private institutions or among informal groups.

Like foreign languages, I think they’re important but I don’t think they should be required. Actually, they should be teaching you English and then teaching you how to understand double-talk—politician’s double-talk, not teaching you how to understand French and Spanish and German. When am I going to Germany? I can’t afford to pay my rent in America. How am I going to Germany?”

— 2Pac Shakur

  1. Heading To Part II

My impression holds that 2Pac’s t-shirt popularity in the Andes clearly indicates his international fame as a lyricist extraordinaire. “We ain’t even really rapping, we’re just letting our dead homies tell stories for us,” he told Swedish radio host, Mats Nileskär, in 1994. “The ground is going to open up and swallow the evil. That’s how I see it … And the ground is a symbol for the poor people. The poor people is going to open up this whole world and swallow up the rich people because the rich people is going to be so fat and …  appetizing … wealthy … appetizing. The poor is going to be so poor and hungry … It’s gonna be like … there might be some cannibalism out this mufucka. They might eat the rich.”

2Pac Shakur signs autographs for fans in Harlem, New York City. [Source: 2paclegacy.net]

Mere fame, simply for fame’s sake, however, does no justice in explaining 2Pac Shakur’s mass appeal, particularly among disenfranchised youths. It’s my conviction that: whether it’s nearly 30 years ago after a hail of bullets prematurely ended 2Pac’s life in Las Vegas when he was only 25; or when Túpac met his revolutionary fate at the gallows; or when two additional Túpacs, one in Peru, the other in Bolivia, were dismembered; or when guerrilla movements named after one Túpac or another took up arms against oppression; the enunciation of Túpac/2Pac keeps the need for resistance against the status quo relevant, reincarnated, and rolling. A reminder that things haven’t changed all that much, youths instinctively know and treat this revolutionary honorific as such.

Do what you gotta do. And then, inside of you, I’ll be reborn.

—2Pac Shakur

Good night and until next time, “Keep ya head up.”

Julian Cola is a translator (Brazilian-Portuguese to English). A former staff writer at teleSUR, his bylines and editorial work also appears at Covert Action Magazine, African Stream, and elsewhere.

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