Analyzing Tensions in 2Pac’s Music: An Application of Marcel Griaule’s Four Levels of the Word

Abstract

Tupac’s life has been frequently selected as a fertile text for scholarly examination; however scant attention has been given to systematically examining the underlying tensions that exist between Tupac’s publicly self-pronounced afrocentric orientation and his often misogynistic and countercultural musical lyrics. While the songs highlighted in this essay are not an exhaustive list of Tupac’s music discography, the selection of songs represents a sampling of Tupac’s music that reflects a dueling tension between Black cultural consciousness and misogyny. We will introduce an Afrocentric framework developed by French philosopher Marcel Griaule. This paradigm permits a rhetorical analysis of his lyrics by examining “four degrees of the word.”.