Poverty

Poverty is one of the central themes in The Rose That Grew from Concrete as well as in Tupac Shakur's music. Shakur grew up in the East Harlem section of New York City, a part of the city known for extreme poverty and violence. Throughout Shakur's youth, poverty was a way of life and the Shakur family routinely struggled to make ends meet. There were many times when there was not enough food to eat and the family's friends and neighbors are not in any position to offer assistance.

Want shapes a person. One can easily see a common thread in Shakur's work regarding reaching for dreams yet fearing that they will become real only long enough to elevate him out of poverty and then cast him back down. There is a fear associated with poverty and the struggle to survive whether it regards having a roof over...