"I'm approaching his lyrics differently in regards to his entire body of work and what he was saying in regards to hip hop," she reveals. An avid listener of Shakur's music throughout the years, the Atlanta native - who also starred in the Broadway productions of Fela!, Hair, The Color Purple, Wicked and Aida - says she's looking at his work with a more "critical eye" these days. "She's a young woman who is torn between her needs for change and her love for the people she holds most dear," says Sengbloh. She portrays Corinne, the female lead caught in a prickly relationship dynamic between John (Williams) and his best friend Vertus (Jackson). Saycon Sengbloh, who departed the Broadway box-office hit Motown last spring to join Holler, was already attached to the project during its workshop stages. He was a prophet and just a brilliant artist and wordsmith, like a Shakespeare."
He didn't allow himself to be defined by any genre within rap he made all kinds of rap from gangster rap, thug rap to political rap. "This is a brilliant mind, a brilliant articulate man. "He comes from a family of revolutionaries," says Pinkins of the rapper whose parents, Afeni Shakur (a producer of Holler) and Billy Garland, were members of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s. Known as 2Pac or just Tupac (and sometimes Makaveli), the Harlem native was also a poet and an actor, starring in movies like "Juice," "Poetic Justice" and "Above the Rim." He died at the age of 25, six days after being shot in Las Vegas in 1996. Though his career was short - roughly five years - Shakur is recognized as one of the most prolific hip hop artists of all time - one that brought gangster rap to the mainstream. His lyrics in 'Keep Ya Head Up' espouse everything women deserve and which the patriarchal society undermines and which government continues to try to control." "I always loved his music, and the I spent with him on the set of 'Above the Rim,' he impressed me in every way," Pinkins says of her brief time with the rapper.
Starring Saul Williams, Christopher Jackson, Saycon Sengbloh and John Earl Jelks, Holler is a non-biographical story that uses Shakur's music and poetry to tell an original tale. "Never before has this story been told on Broadway, and never has this kind of energy been on Broadway," says Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins, who stars as the story's matriarch, and who appeared in the 1994 film "Above the Rim" with the late rapper.
The ambitious new musical from Tony winner Kenny Leon and writer Todd Kreidler represents a first for hardcore hip hop and Broadway. "Raise Ya Head Up" and other Shakur songs like "Unconditional Love" and "Dear Mama" pepper the score of Holler If Ya Hear Me, currently playing the Palace Theatre, with words of encouragement for women amid a gritty urban tale replete with murder, prison, and a tempestuous love triangle. Original text at lyrnow.Tupac Shakur was 22 years old when he released the anthem "Keep Ya Head Up." In the song, dedicated to Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old African-American girl shot and killed at the outset of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Shakur implores women to know their worth, proclaiming: "And when he tells you you ain't nothin' don't believe him/And if he can't learn to love you, you should leave him/'Cause sista you don't need him."
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