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Comedian Ali Siddiq appeared on Club Shay Shay for a conversation with Shannon Sharpe and spoke about Tupac Shakur. The video uploaded on YouTube on May 7 captured Ali sharing his take on a number of topics. Talking about Shakur, Ali said that he didn't think of the former as a "thug" like many others did.
The topic about Shakur came up when Shannon asked Ali about his first meeting with the rapper. Shannon Sharpe asked if Ali first met the rapper when the latter was with Digital Underground. To which, Ali stated:
"Yeah, I see who now Tupac, I didn't know that was him. I didn't know that was him, he's a dancer, you know... With Digital Underground. But it wasn't this, it wasn't that thug persona. And how would it be a thug persona to somebody who's already thugging in the streets. Like I'm already a wild man. So I didn't see him like everybody else saw him."
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Ali went about saying that since he already was a "wild man", he didn't think Tupac Shakur was a "thug." He further added:
"Even when I was locked up, I used to be like, man that kid wasn't no thug like that."
Netizens noticed this conversation between the comedian and Shannon. They soon flooded social media platforms like X with their reactions. One user commented:
"Everybody trying to tear down Pac legacy now that him and his mother is gone."
Another user wrote on X:
"2Pac didn't masquerade. Dude is just a hater that knows nothing."
"This n***a don't got the credentials to be speaking on Pac," added another netizen.
"How come he didn't say that when pac was alive?" questioned one netizen.
While many disagreed with Ali's perspective, some had a different approach. A user tweeted:
"N***as really be mad when they discover 2pac was a whole gimmick 😂😂😂."
"Why do people want to believe Pac was this hardcore thug?" another person said.
Director Allen Hughes previously claimed that Tupac Shakur was "not a street kid"
Allen Hughes, the director of the 2023 mini series Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur, had previously shared his take on the late rapper. In a September 2022 interview with Hell and High Water podcast host John Heilemann, Allen called 2Pac an artist but claimed that he wasn't a street kid.
During the interview, Allen first compared 2Pac with Snoop Dogg, who was the rapper's Death Row labelmate. According to Allen, Snoop was being his true self, unlike Shakur. Allen Hughes continued:
"On the other hand, while he came up in the inner city or the urban f**ked up ghetto, he’s not a street kid. He’s an artist and an activist. He’s a performance arts kid and he’s delusional. He’s just delusional in a positive way. You have to be delusional to be a great artist."
The 53-year-old director further added:
"If you’re fortunate, maybe a third of your delusions become art. Two thirds of it is bulls**t, and I think we saw two thirds of Tupac’s delusions that weren’t the art."
For context, Tupac Shakur was shot to death on September 7, 1996, at the age of only 25. The shooting happened when the rapper's car stopped at a signal in Paradise, Nevada.
