Author’s 15-City Book Tour to Coincide with Fifth Anniversary of Shakur’s Death

A double CD that debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums Chart and another disc to be released later this year make the urban credo “Tupac Lives!” hardly debatable when such evidence abounds that Shakur’s presence looms as large in death as it did in life. For those hungry to explore this intrigue – from urban youth to pop culture critics – Michael Eric Dyson, DePaul University’s Ida B. Wells-Barnett professor, offers soul-stirring discourse in his latest book, “Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur” (Basic Books).

Dyson, who timed the publication of the book to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Shakur’s death September 13, recalls how a statement made by his son Michael II caused him to reflect long and hard on the 25-year-old rapper, actor and poet who was gunned down in Las Vegas while riding the crest of popularity and fame.

“Michael and I were just sitting and rapping like we always do – talking about music, what’s happening on the hip-hop scene – and he suddenly tells me, ‘Dad, I think if you had met Tupac, he wouldn’t have died,’” said Dyson. “It was a sweet, innocent statement that typifies the kind of thing that a son might say to his father, but it caused me to settle on the myriad reasons why someone as extraordinarily gifted as Tupac Shakur would die so violently and meaninglessly.”

Dyson’s extensive search climaxed in a powerful tome that reveals the complexity of Shakur and makes it easy to understand why, five years after the artist’s death, the music, poetry and films of this prophetic, revolutionary icon live on. In 268 pages, Dyson’s remarkable crusade for black youth is fused with his tender probe of Shakur’s difficult childhood, his distinctive artistry and his irrepressible intellectualism.

Most rap music superstars rise to the top by distinguishing themselves in one area, such as mastery of rhythmic patterns, timing, poetic intensity, enunciation or the ability to flow. According to Dyson, Shakur managed to outshine his peers and transform rap music by being more influential and compelling. “Tupac was a transcendent force of creative fury who relentlessly articulated a generation’s defining moods – its confusion and pain, its nobility and courage, its loves and hates, its hopelessness and self-destruction,” Dyson writes. “He was the zeitgeist in sagging jeans.”

In “Holler If You Hear Me,” Dyson proves to be as adept at interviewing as he is at critical examination. The book is enlivened with insightful comments from more than 60 personalities, including Quincy Jones, Toni Morrison, Stanley Crouch, Most Def, John Singleton and Jada Pinkett Smith. Through the author’s visit with Leila Steinberg, Shakur’s former manager and close friend, readers can explore the subject’s personal library and learn that Shakur fed his nimble mind by reading hundreds of books in his short lifetime. However, the most searing interviews are those with Afeni Shakur, Tupac’s mother and a former Black Panther revolutionary. In chapters entitled “Dear Mama” and “The Son of a Panther” Dyson painfully reveals how Afeni’s descent into drug abuse hell had an unfortunate collision with young Tupac’s self-awareness as a budding writer and thespian.

In his acute analyses, Dyson unfolds for his readers how Shakur’s experiences and beliefs birthed obsessions in his life and music with such themes as his own death, God and spirituality, poverty, hopelessness, thug life, betrayal and racial and economic inequality. The author dissects the truth-speaking, conflicted persona of Shakur that allowed him to pay homage to his mother in video and song while making reference to her as a “crack fiend.” Dyson goes on to interrogate Shakur’s often-contradictory beliefs concerning women, sin, spirituality and death. Finally, Dyson deconstructs the very flesh of Shakur as well as the messages tattooed on it in a haunting chapter entitled, “I Got Your Name Tatted On My Arm.”

In describing Shakur’s body, Dyson writes: “It bled into the hungry ink of a media bent on deifying, destroying or dissecting his reputation, sometimes in the same breath. His limbs stretched across the Cineplex as he attacked his craft with imploding intensity. His sturdy black back provided carriage for a slew of relatives and fictive kin who rode his notoriety to banquet tables and casino halls. The state even pinched a piece of his hide, parceling him among jails and prisons on either coast.”

One of the most remarkable accomplishments of “Holler If You Hear Me” is its ability to give a substantial voice to Shakur through a series of excerpts from video recordings made public for the first time. The recordings include a vintage video of Shakur while still in high school, as well as a hard-hitting prison interview in which he espouses his political views and waxes eloquent on American terrorism. The September-October issue of Black Issues Book Review states of “Holler If You Hear Me”: “Unlike most of his colleagues, Dyson makes a concerted effort to interact with Tupac’s artistic peers, to listen to them, and to understand the hip-hop culture in which they exist. He is thus the most qualified scholar to pen such a work, and he has outdone himself.” “Holler If You Hear Me” is a must-read, not only for Tupac’s many followers, but for anyone seeking to understand the impact of the black experience on American culture.”

“Holler If You Hear Me” comes just one year after Dyson’s controversial, Blackboard bestseller, “I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr.” The 42-year-old public intellectual is also the author of “Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X,” “Between God and Gangsta Rap” and “Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line.” An ordained Baptist minister, Dyson holds a Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University.

Dyson will conduct book signings in Chicago: October 2 at Afrocentric Bookstore, 333 S. State St., from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m., and at African American Images, 1909 W. 95th St., from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.; and October 3 at Borders Books & Music, 830 N. Michigan Ave., from 7:30 pm. to 9 p.m. For information about Dyson’s book tours of other cities, contact Jamie Brickhouse, director of publicity, Basic Books, 212/207-7653 or via e-mail at jamie.brickhouse@perseusbooks.com.