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20 pages 40 minutes read

Tupac Shakur

The Rose that Grew from Concrete

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1999

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Background

Literary Context

Although Tupac Shakur was and will likely always be more known as a rapper than a poet, the intersectionality of music lyrics and poetry, written about extensively in Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop by Adam Bradley, should not be overlooked. The lyricism in rap verses shares many parallels with poetry, and poetry at times can be both music and musical (consider ballads and lyrics—two poetry forms that are also musical terms—and even this poem), so there is little doubt that “The Rose That Grew from Concrete” has a place within the expansive artistic tradition that includes literature and music.

In many ways, Tupac’s poem fits the definition of an Imagist poem, in the sense that Tupac borrows from established forms and rhythms but also breaks the meter and creates his own, what Ezra Pound would call “absolute rhythm.” Imagism gave way to Modernism, meaning Tupac’s poem fits in nicely with Modernist poems in form. The poem mirrors Imagist guidelines in that Tupac makes use of an image (a rose) to render feeling and sentiment, precision of language, and other tenets that were important to the Imagists, who often get lumped in with their Modernist counterparts but really set the stage for what most now know as Modernist poetry.

Tupac also follows in the footsteps of great African American writers likes James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, and Maya Angelou, all of whom wrote (and write) about the struggles of Black people in America and the need to overcome racism and oppression. Tupac’s writing can be seen as activist art that also functions to inspire and celebrate oppressed peoples in America and around the world. The accessible language of the poem also follows in the footsteps of American poets like Walt Whitman.

Historical Context

The influence of Tupac’s writing and rap lyrics on successive generations of writers and lyricists has been immense. While as a poet he can be placed within the vein of Imagist poetry, he holds the throne as one of the greatest emcees of rap during what is now known as the Golden Age of Hip Hop. This is a time when, according to Adam Bradley, rappers broke from predictable end rhymes and began to incorporate more complicated techniques like slant rhyme, internal rhyme, assonance, and alliteration. Tupac pioneered a whole new sound in hip hop, and he used many of these poetic techniques in “The Rose That Grew from Concrete.”

As a poem written in the 1990s, when America’s inner cities faced not only violence but a crack epidemic that affected primarily minority communities, the poem speaks to the neglect and despair that grew in these communities from the lack of assistance at both the state and federal levels in dealing with these social issues. Tupac not only celebrates his own resilience and that of his people in “The Rose That Grew from Concrete,” he also shines a light on some of the problems affecting communities across the US. Written during his rise to fame, the poem also reveals that a rapper who gained notoriety for violent and profanity-laced lyrics also wrote tenderly about subjects that even people who don’t like rap music would and should consider important social issues.

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