"They both was Geminis, so they both had the same personality, the same persona. They kind of looked at shit the same way. They were both book smart-and both went to great extremes to downplay the fact with their homeboys. Both men loved weed and Hennessy, and both had a spontaneous, powerful gift for storytelling. Moreover, each of them represented something that the other-in his own perverse way-envied."(Page 120) This quote completely represents the relationship between Notorious B.I.G and Tupac Shakur. These two men, B.I.G from the Eastside (Brooklyn, New York), Tupac from Westside (Oakland), had so much in common but had one thing from each side that made them have beef with each other. In the quote it states that both of them loved weed and hennessy. This can be interpreted that both of them had a rough life and they turned to these things to give them some comfort. In B.I.G's song Juicy, he raps about how his life was before he became a rapper, which was a very harsh and unfortunate life, but then he became a rapper. But becoming a rapper brought new pains, and he started to smoke weed to cover it up. It is very unfortunate that a man like B.I.G was involved in dirty business such as weed. Tupac Shakur had a very similar unfortunate life, and sadly he decided to turn to weed also. In his song No More Pain, he raps about how all the pain in his life has become so much that it makes who he is, and the stuff he does to cover it up has become a hobby. As the quote states, both rappers look at stuff the same way, and both of them have a powerful gift of storytelling. Storytelling in this context means they both have an excellent talent of rapping. The rapping back then was just like storytelling; through rap they told their life story, and presented a problem in their lives, or problems they have seen around them. Todays rap is completely different, so I would politely like to ignore everything of new school rap. But back to the quote, the ending of it says that they both represented something that the other rappers envies. In my opinion, B.I.G's way of getting what he wanted wherever he went without any trouble was envied through Tupac, and Tupac's easy going, thug life attitude was envied by B.I.G because the life B.I.G went through caused him more pain than what Tupac went through, because Tupac was able to suppress the pain more. Both had an equal amount of pain in them, but it affected B.I.G much more. So to conclude, the quote says that both these rappers were so similar, but at the same time those similarities became the reason why they went against each other.
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