Brenda's Got a Baby
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"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 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 baby's 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 did not want her parents to know about the baby, threw it in a trash can. Kevin.[citation needed]
Lyrics
The opening consists of a duet singing the song’s 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 Brenda’s 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 older cousin, but she is successfully able to hide her pregnancy. Tupac explains that it wouldn’t matter to her family if she gave birth, as long as they got their cut of the government assistance.
Although she believes that her cousin will stay with her and help her raise the child, he is merely a molester, and abandons her before she gives birth to her baby on a bathroom floor. Brenda disposes of it by throwing it in a trash bin but later retrieves it as she hears the baby's crying. Her mother scolds her severely, and Brenda becomes so ashamed of herself that she runs away from home.
Brenda now begins a life on her own, and unsuccessfully seeks employment. Her attempt to sell crack cocaine results in robbery, and eventually she views prostitution as her only way to make money. This life path leads to her to being murdered. What becomes of other characters, such as her family, her boyfriend, and the baby itself, is uncertain. The final minute or so of the song consists of a chorus singing “don’t you know she’s got a baby” repeatedly.
Music video
The video of the song is in black-and-white. It was made to visualize what Shakur narrates. The first part shows Shakur and Money-B talking about Brenda, and then the actual story starts.
The video begins with "based on a true story," although the characters themselves are fictitious, Shakur wrote the song after reading a story in the newspaper of a twelve-year-old girl getting pregnant from her cousin and trying to dispose of the baby in a trash can.
Parts of the video were included in Tupac: Resurrection, a 2003 documentary on 2Pac's life, in a television show later in the music video of Ghetto Gospel, in the music video of Changes and appears as a bonus in its entirety on the film's DVD.
The video was directed by the Hughes Brothers.
In popular culture
The Game refers to the song in his single "Hate It or Love It" in the line "Pac is gone, and Brenda still throwing babies in the garbage."
In 1998 it appeared on 2Pac's greatest hits album Greatest Hits.
The song was mentioned in Scary Movie. When the character Brenda Meeks was with her boyfriend Ray, a song from 2Pacalypse Now turned on. She then went on to say that she had a shout-out on the album, hinting to her throwing a baby in the trash.
North Carolinian rapper Median released a sequel to "Brenda's Got A Baby", aptly titled "Brenda's Baby". The story follows Brenda's baby, who has been named "Rose" in reference to Shakur's poem, "The Rose That Grew From Concrete". Kendrick Lamar references the song in "Keisha's Song (Her Pain)" with the line "To make you fiend for more, she play Mr. Shakur, that's her favorite rapper, bumping "Brenda's Got a Baby" while a pervert yelling at her." Papoose wrote a "sequel" to the song on his 2013 song "Pimpin' Won't Die" where the baby grows up to be a Prostitute.