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Analyzing Tupac's song "Changes"

 In Tupac's song "Changes", the singer/songwriter addresses a variety of social, economical, and political issues in the African American community such as the obligation to make money by stealing or selling "dope", the substance usage, police brutality, racism, etc. illustrating the need for a change of power, prejudice and security within the community. In the song, the songwriter mentions the struggle of being a person of color. In the third and fourth line of the song, "Is life worth living? Should I blast myself? I'm tired of being poor and even worse black.", the writer presents the internal conflict of whether or not being dead is better than being alive and black. Already the reader gains a feeling of  As the reader goes down the song lyrics, the songwriter mentions, "Cops give a damn about a negro? Pull the trigger, kill a ni**a, he's a hero". He also continues to mention more about how police brutality such as "the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks". Both of these lines can be interpreted as pure prejudice. When reading this, the reader can experience the feeling of fear from the police as police tend to make assumptions that people of color are always up to atrocity. In addition, Tupac implies the struggle of making money being of color in phrases such as "I'm looking for a purse to snatch" as well as "'I made a G today' but you made it in a sleazy way" and "sellin' crack to the kids, 'I gotta get paid'" can all denote the execrable ways people made money. This can imply the inequality between the white people and black people as we don't assert white people with going to these extremes for money. His diction throughout the song suggests that he's part of the African American community as he mainly speaks with AAVE. 


When taking all of these points into consideration, it can be concluded that the song "Changes" suggests a change of power, prejudice and security within the African American community towards the issues he addresses.  

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