Rebel for the Hell of It: The Life of Tupac Shakur

Rebel for the Hell of It came out just a year after Tupac’s death, making it one of the first books about him. Its author is Armond White (born 1953), a combative New York film and music critic. White was arts editor of the weekly The City Sun, became lead film critic of the New York Press in 1997 and chaired the New York Film Critics Circle several times; he is known for verdicts that often run against the consensus. The book is in English.

The facts

What it’s about

White traces Tupac’s life from his birth and a childhood with Afeni Shakur in the orbit of the Black Panther Party, through frequent moves and drama school, to his time as a dancer with Digital Underground, his albums, film roles such as Juice and Poetic Justice, prison and death. His real interest, though, is interpretation: he reads the “Thug Life” persona as part of an African American musical tradition, compares Tupac to artists as different as Stephen Sondheim and Merle Haggard, and even gives his tattoos a political reading.

Verdict

An early critic’s biography, more essay than research. Publishers Weekly credited White with some sharp connections but faulted “fuzzy thinking and pretentious writing” likely to put off fans and general readers alike. The Library Journal review complained that White had interviewed few people and done little secondary research. For fans interested in Tupac as a political figure, it is a document of its time; as a source of facts, later biographies have overtaken it. More titles: Books.