Textual Analysis of "I wonder if heaven got a ghetto"

In this post I will be analysing the music video "I wonder if heaven got a ghetto" by the late rap artist Tupac Shakur, the music belongs to the hip hop/rap genre and was released in the mid 90's when rap music was just beginning to fall off its peak in the 90's as the dominant music genre. The characteristics of this genre in the video are major figureheads in the black community (Hip hop and rap being predominantly seen as a black genre of music), people playing the likes of Martin Luther King, Ray Charles, Jimi Hendrix, Snoop Dogg (another major rap artist), there is also an appearance of someone playing Elvis Presley, the video also begins with Shakur stumbling to a nunnery after he was shot and a woman portraying Mother Teresa appears in the video.

In the video Tupac is in heaven, or a Mexican town called Rukahs (Shakur backwards) and the song's title is I wonder if heaven got a ghetto, the song is also a posthumous track refering to Tupac's death and the line "I wonder if heaven got a ghetto" is repeated by Tupac.

The video doesn't go along to the beat, the camera angle is a first person view of Tupac after his death walking around in the fictional town, meeting people and he helps out a young boy after a group attack him, gives the boy his trademark black bandana and disappears, he .

The record company are looking to sell the track by showing the death of Shakur and showing it as a hard hitting song, as if Tupac had foreseen his death and this would make people want to buy the artists tracks because they would be interested to see the video/songs lyrics and content. Tupac's image is being shown as a figure who was wrongly targeted, by him helping out the boy he is shown as a helpful person instead of a criminal or gangster that he was shown as in the media before he died, they tried showing him as changing from the underground rap/gangster rap scene then going into music which was seen as more mainstream then going into more hip hop and more politically based tracks and less offensive to some audiences. This video was the first Tupac video not to show him in the video directly, obviously because of his death he wouldn't be able to make a direct appearance in it, however it's more of a video showing things from his point of view, which is a clever move from the record company.

Because of the context of the video there is only one sexually implication in the video when Tupac goes into the room with the girl, seemingly has intercourse with her then has to leave because the police arrive at the location, this again showing Tupac as being a person on the run or as a criminal but nobody knows what for. The video is one big reference of looking because it is looking from the point of view of Tupac.

There are intertextual references throughout the video, the town's name is Rukahs which is Tupac's name backwards, in the first 5 seconds of the video there is a radio report which says "rapper Tupac Shakur shot multiple times" (reporting the shooting of Tupac) and his character stumbles to the nunnery and is taken care of for 6 days, (Tupac was in hospital for 7 days before he died). The video is also based on September 14th, the day after Tupac died. The number plate on the man's car in the video is 61671, which is 16th June 1971, which was Tupac's birth date. When Tupac helps the boy who is getting beaten up he gives him the trademark black bandana which Tupac wore as a mark of comfort towards the boy and Tupac letting go of his gangster persona. The time on the clock in the motel Tupac goes into is 4:03, which is the time Tupac died, the diner he goes in right at the end of the video is called "Amaru Diner" and Amaru is Tupac's middle name.

The video is narrative based because it's telling a story of Tupac's death and the aftermath with a creative twist to it and adding in lots of subliminal messages.

This video being released after Tupac's death, therefore not being able to show him directly is done very cleverly by the director by telling a story just from Tupac's point of view, not showing him directly but from his eyes, and putting alot of references of his death into it, almost like telling the story step by step. It is a narrative video, which tells this story and how it unfolds.