2Pac – Brenda’s Got A Baby

“Brenda’s Got a Baby” is the solo debut single by Tupac Shakur, and tenth track from his debut album, 2Pacalypse Now. The song, which features R&B singer Dave Hollister, is about a fictional twelve-year-old girl named Brenda who lives in a ghetto, has a baby, and is incapable of supporting it. The song explores the issue of teen pregnancy and its effect on the young mothers and their families. Like many of Shakur’s songs, “Brenda’s Got a Baby” draws from the plight of the impoverished. Using Brenda to represent young mothers in general, Shakur criticises the low level of support from the babies’ father, the government, and society in general. Shakur wrote the song when he read a newspaper article about a twelve-year-old girl who got pregnant from her cousin and, because she didn’t want her parents to know about the baby, threw it in a trash can. The opening consists of a duet singing the songs title repeatedly. Much of the rest of the song is one long verse performed by Tupac. The verse begins with him telling a group that he has heard about Brendas pregnancy. He also notes that the girl has had virtually no education in her life, having only barely obtained minimal skills in writing, and calls this a “damn shame”, criticizing and has little hope in life. Her family is very poor, and her father is a heroin addict. Brenda is impregnated by her unnamed boyfriend, who is her cousin, but she is successfully able to hide her pregnancy. Tupac explains that it wouldnt matter to …