STOP Chasing Money. Do THIS Instead | Tupac

I'm trying to find my way in the world, you know, trying to be somebody instead of just make money off everybody.

If there's something on my mind, speak it.

I think being humble is sexy.

I know you rich, I know you got $40 billion, but can you just keep it to one house?

And that's our job, it's to spark.

I just quit my job today actually because I wanted to come and do this.

I think everybody shines in different things.

We are hungry, please let us in. We are hungry, please let us in.

But I love my childhood, even though it was bad, I love it.

You!

I mean, you need to do something.

He was an American rapper, author, actor, and poet.

He sold over 75 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time.

He consistently ranks as one of the greatest rappers ever.

He's Tupac, and here are his top 10 rules for success.

What do you think you're most known for? Your acting, your music, or the controversy that surrounds you?

My big mouth. My big mouth. I got a big mouth, can't help it.

I talk from my heart, I'm real, you know what I'm saying? Whatever comes, comes. But my controversy, probably. And it's not my fault. I'm trying to find my way in the world, you know? I'm trying to be somebody instead of just make money off everybody, you know what I'm saying?

And so I go down paths that haven't been traveled before, and I usually mess up. But I learn, you know what I'm saying?

I come back stronger.

I'm not talking ignorant, you know what I'm saying?

So I obviously put thought into what I do. So I think my mouth, my controversy.

I have not been out of the papers since I joined Digital Underground. I've been in all, you know what I'm saying? It's never, my name has not been not uttered, you know what I'm saying? And that's good for me because I don't want to be forgotten. If I'm forgotten, then that means I'm comfortable. And that means I think everything is okay.

My mother taught me 3 things, respect, Knowledge, search for knowledge. It's an eternal, eternal journey. That's like my haircut, the line, 360 degrees, find knowledge, always. And she taught me to not be quiet. If there's something on my mind, speak it. That's what God, that was the breath. She always taught, but also to listen. And she always, she told me this little joke that God gave you. Two ears to listen and one mouth to speak. Two ears and one mouth. Common sense. One mouth, you should speak, but you should also listen. And that's where the knowledge comes from, listening. And once you get the knowledge, then you can speak, and it helps you. So she taught me respect, knowledge, and understanding mostly, you know, just listen a lot.

One of the characterizations made of rappers often is that they're very boastful. It seems like right now you're taking pains to be humble and look at things from a very realistic perspective. Is that accurate?

Mm-hmm.

I think being humble is sexy.

It's too much money here.

I mean, nobody should be hitting lotto for $36 million and we got people starving in the streets. That is not idealistic, that's just real. That is just stupid. There's no way Michael Jackson should have, or whoever Jackson, should have a million thousand druple billion dollars and then there's people starving. There's no way, there's no way that these people should own planes and their people don't have houses, apartments, shacks, drawers, pants. I know you rich, I know you got $40 billion, but can you just keep it to one house? You only need one house. And if you only got two kids, can you just keep it to two rooms? I mean, why have 52 rooms and you know there's somebody with no room? It just don't make sense to me.

It don't.

And then these people celebrate Christmas. They got big trees, huge trees, all the little trimmings. Everybody got gifts, and there's somebody starving. And they're having a white Christmas.

They're having a great Christmas, eggnog and the whole nine.

That's not fair to me.

All the society is doing is leeching off the ghetto. They use the ghetto for their pain, for their sorrow, for their culture, for their music, for their happiness, for their movies, to talk about Boyz n the Hood. You know what I'm saying? I don't want to be another young— I don't want to be 50 years old at a BET We Shall Overcome achievement awards. You know what I'm saying? Uh-uh, not me. I want when they see me, they know that every day when I'm breathing, it's for us to go farther. Every time I speak, I want the truth to come out. Every time I speak, I want to shiver. I don't want them to be like, they know what I'm gonna say 'cause it's polite. They know what I'm gonna say. And even if I get in trouble, you know what I'm saying? Ain't that what we're supposed to do? I'm not saying I'm gonna rule the world or I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world. And that's our job, is to spark somebody else watching us. We might not be the ones, but let's not be selfish.

And because we're not going to change the world, let's not talk about how we should change it.

I don't know how to change it, but I know if I keep talking about how dirty it is out here, somebody's going to clean it up.

I can't hold a job. I just quit my job today, actually, because I wanted to come and do this, and they wouldn't let me. And I felt like it was important, and It was more important than serving pizza, and we had enough people, so I felt like since I'm an actor, they should understand. They should have let me do it, but they didn't. And then I had a cold, so they were making me work in a freezer. And I'm really not one to be disrespected, and I felt like that was disrespectful because I asked to go, you know. So I quit, and he told me I couldn't quit. And that even made me hyper. I'm arrogant, so when he told me I couldn't quit and we had all these customers, I chose that time to jump on a soapbox, grab my leather jacket, light a cigarette in front of them, smoke, and leave in the middle of a rush. So that was natural. That's arrogance at the top.

I can't explain why I shine and no one else shines. I think everybody shines in different things, and a lot of things I can't do. I can't play basketball like every other black person in America, but I can act. I know how to go to that true spot in myself because I'm there every day. I can be me. I can be whoever because I'm true to me. I can go to neutral easily. A lot of people, black, white, Mexican, young or old, fat or skinny, have a problem being true to theyself. They have a problem looking in the mirror and looking directly into their own souls. The reason I sell 6 million records, the reason I could go to jail and come out without a scratch, the reason I could walk around, the reason I am who I am today is because I can look directly into my face and find my soul. It's there. It's not sold. I didn't sell it.

It's still within me.

I still feel it. My heart is still connected to my body. So I could— any character, I'm gonna bring that intensity, that truth, that honesty to it because I have to repay for that blessing from Black Jesus, from God. I have to pay for that by shining. If he give you the voltage and you waste it, that's the curse. He gave me the voltage.

I'm gonna shine.

It's not mine. It's from God.

It's God.

Not that it's so special that nobody got it, but all of our gifts and blessings and our strengths and our weaknesses come from God, come from Black Jesus, or whoever comes from within you, you know what I mean? So it's not really tricky. Everybody can do it if they just can go to that spot. I guess all the things that happened to me in my life allow me to go there easier.

The intensity of the music has built to the no hope, the I don't give a attitude. How did we get from Grandmaster Flash, the message, to where we are now in hip-hop?

Again, you have to be logical.

If I know that in this hotel room they have food every day, and I'm knocking on the door every day to eat, and they open the door, let me see the party, let me see like them throwing salami all over the— I mean, just like throwing food around, but they're telling me there's no food in here. You know what I'm saying? Every day I'm standing outside trying to sing my way in. You know what I'm saying? We are hungry, please let us in. We are hungry, please let us in. After about a week, that song is gonna change to, we hungry, we need some food. After 2, 3 weeks, it's like, you know, give me all the food, we're breaking out the door. And after a year, you just like, you know what I'm saying? I'm picking the lock, coming through the door blasting. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you hungry, you reached your level, you don't want anymore. We asked 10 years ago, We was asking with the Panthers. We was asking with them, you know, with civil rights movement. We was asking, you know. Now, those people that were asking, they're all dead and in jail. So now what do you think we're going to do? And we shouldn't be angry. And my raps that I'm rapping to my community shouldn't be filled with rage.

You know what I'm saying?

They shouldn't be filled with the same atrocities that they gave to me. In the media, they don't talk about it. So in my raps, I have to talk about it. And it just seems foreign because there's no one else talking about it.

Right. Well, playing devil's advocate, somebody might say, well, what does Tupac have? He's a movie star. He's got, you know, hit records. What does he have to complain about?

And I'm gonna tell you, um, it's like being the last person alive, you know what I'm saying? After 3 days, you can't do anything. What can I do? Where can I go? There's no— there's no black neighborhood You know what I'm saying? With black people who have the same amount of money as me. You know what I'm saying? There's richer and there's poorer. There's no just, you know, did a movie, got a little bit of money, living okay black neighborhood. I have to be in a white neighborhood. So I don't fit in. That's hell. It's hell when you can't be around your peers. All my life I grew up around black people, poor people. But I can't live around poor people now because they'll rob me. And why would they rob me? Because they're starving. Because there's no money here. But they're telling me, now that I made a little money, I have to move here. So it's not like no one's ever trying to deal with this section. They're just moving away from it. And we're gonna have more stars coming from the ghetto, but they're gonna all move this way.

If you grew up happy, too happy, you know, like in fairy tale land— not fairy tale, I mean, if you grew up where, you know, every Christmas you got a present and every birthday you got a present and every holiday was a holiday and everything was peachy, your parents took care of everything and You just grew up. I don't think that prepares you for the world. You know, my mother had a really bad childhood and my father had a bad childhood and I had a bad childhood, but I love my childhood. Even though it was bad, I love it. I feel like it's taught me so much and I feel like nothing can faze me. You know, nothing in this world, nothing can surprise me. It might set me back, but only momentarily, only to spring back. And I think it's helped me to learn. It really did help me to learn. And since my mother had a bad childhood, she knows the importance of being honest and the importance of facing each situation as it comes and not dealing in fairy tale land. Being realistic about the problem and analyzing it and solving it. See what you can do to solve it. So if you have a happy childhood, you tend to want your child to have a happy childhood. So you tend to want to keep the bad things out and I don't think that's good because you don't prepare them for the world.

So basically you have to be realistic with your kids.

Right, you definitely have to be realistic. You should tell them.

But don't get the wrong idea.

I feel like I'm being gloomy. I don't mean just be like, "Damn it, it's bad out there." But I mean when the good things come and they are going to come and everybody knows that good things are going to come and you're going to see them for yourself, you're going to see that they're good. But it's harder to see the bad things and everybody wants to shield the bad things and that's where it gets complicated and it gets real That's when everybody gets surprised and, "Oh my God, I'm committing suicide. That's too much overwhelming." If you know about it, it won't be so overwhelming. You know, so that's what I think about that.

All BS aside, it all comes down to we got to survive.

I mean, even warriors put their spears down on Sundays.

We got to survive here in this country, because I'm not going back to Africa. We got to survive here. For us to survive here, white folks, black folks, Korean folks, Mexican folks, Puerto Ricans, we got to understand each other. We gotta take a bigger chance.

And when I say Americans, people think I'm talking about Uncle Sam.

I mean like actually Uncle Sam with the gray hair and the flag. I mean you.

You.

You.

The guy, you know, you.

The mechanic, wherever. You.

I mean you need to do something.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I'd love to know which of Tupac's top 10 rules meant the most to you, had the biggest impact. Leave it in the comments below and I'll join in the discussion.

And tell us which entrepreneur you want us to feature on this channel next time. Thank you guys for watching. Continue to believe.

And we'll see you soon.