Tupac Shakur Dear Mama Analysis

The song Dear Mama by Tupac Shakur relates to the ongoing struggle and hardships that numerous lower class single mothers endure, where Shakur describes how he learned to appreciate his mother and the sacrifices that she made for him as he became older. By formatting the lyrics with verses around a repeating chorus, Shakur was able to emphasize his personal narrative within the verses and allow for a recollection period between each verse to allow listeners to reflect on and comprehend what they just experienced. The form of Dear Mama is consistently strophic, where at the end of each verse Shakur repeats the emblematic phrase, “There's no way I can pay you back, but the plan is to show you that I understand, you are appreciated.” Appealingly,

In homophonic songs, a melody is accompanied by a voice or group of voices contain chords, where the melody in Dear Mama remains constant throughout the entirety of the song while Shakur speaks over it. Homophonic songs are quite common and appear often in popular 21st century hip-hop, pop and rap music such as what Shakur created before he passed away in 1996. Many current and former listeners of Shakur believe that the slow dynamics of this particular song contributes the spiritual feeling that they experience whenever listening to it. Due to the commonality of judgement on rap and hip-hop music, this song by Shakur partially rid of the “gangster” stereotype placed upon him and allowed listeners to understand that certain unfortunate events in his life and childhood determined how he had to live. Within this song, he described horrific aspects of his life such as living with a single mother, growing up poor and selling drugs, which illustrates that many of the frowned upon actions that Shakur engaged in were simply to survive in the treacherous environment he was exposed