Jada

Acting, poetry, jazz, and ballet: When Tupac studied at the Baltimore School for the Arts starting in tenth grade, he met Jada Pinkett. The two became close friends, and the bond lasted until his death. In the book The Rose That Grew from Concrete, Tupac explicitly headed two poems “4 Jada”. The other is The Tears in Cupid’s Eyes.

An Ideal, Not a Conquest

The poem appears in the second part of the book, “Nothing Can Come Between Us”, amidst many love poems to girlfriends and crushes. Jada stands apart from the rest: it describes not a romance, but admiration. Right at the beginning, Tupac calls her the omega of his heart and the benchmark for what a Black woman should be to him. The image of the dignified, strong woman runs through the entire book, such as in Black Woman, and later through songs like Keep Ya Head Up (1993).

Behind this lies the fear of loss: Tupac worries that they will drift apart, and closes with the image of a friend who cannot be replaced. The poem deliberately separates closeness and sex: the affection is meant to be complete even without a physical relationship. For a teenager who would later be seen as the epitome of the hard rapper, this is an unusually vulnerable tone.

A Look Back from Marin City

Exactly when the poem was written is not documented. According to the preface by Afeni Shakur, the poems in the book date from the years 1989 to 1991-that is, from the period after Tupac’s move from Baltimore to Marin City. Jada is thus a look back at the Baltimore years from a distance.

As is customary throughout the book, the handwritten page is printed alongside the typed version, featuring Tupac’s characteristic abbreviations such as “u” and “4”. The introduction provides an overview of the entire book and all the poems.