TUPAC SPEAKS UP FOR PRE-TEEN MUM

Rapper Tupac Shakur (1971-1996) may have passed away at a young age, but his songs reveal a profound political and social awareness that surpassed his years.

At the age of just 20, Tupac released the impactful track Brenda's Got a Baby, which tells the heartbreaking story of a 12-year-old girl who abandoned her baby boy in a garbage chute in New York City. While filming the crime movie ‘Juice' in Harlem, he came across a newspaper article detailing the tragic circumstances of the girl's life.

This young girl had lost her family nine years prior when they succumbed to toxic carbon monoxide poisoning after using their oven for heat. She ended up living with a great-aunt and later became pregnant by a second cousin, managing to keep it a secret until she gave birth alone.

With his roots in a community-oriented background, being the son of Black Panther member Afeni Shakur (1947-2016), Tupac recognised the significance of the girl's story, deeming it more important than the film he was working on at the time. Frustrated by the mainstream media's lack of urgency in covering the story, he decided to take action in the way he knew best. He wrote about ‘Brenda’ (a pseudonym) and eventually recorded the song with his friend Money B from Digital Underground. The music video for Brenda's Got a Baby was released in 1992 and received widespread praise.

According to UNICEF, around 13% of adolescent girls and young women worldwide give birth before the age of 18. African adolescent girls face heightened risks of unplanned pregnancies due to early marriage, abuse and rape. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reports that girls under 18 in Africa are twice as likely to die during childbirth compared to those over 20.

As Tupac powerfully stated, if we don’t advocate for our sisters, who will?

Sources:

https://rockthebells.com/articles/brendas-got-a-baby-tupac-true-story/

https://www.kqed.org/arts/13927810/brendas-got-a-baby-tupac-shakur-ethel-love

https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-health/adolescent-health/

https://esaro.unfpa.org/en/topics/adolescent-pregnancy