MTV News released a fascinating interview with legendary rapper Tupac Shakur today, and he had quite a bit to say about the American economic and political system. He started off by name-checking current Republican Presidential front runner Donald Trump. "You wanna be successful? You wanna be like Trump? Gimmie gimmie gimmie," he said. He went on to explain how systematically oppressed people in the US need help. "Everybody's smart to know that we've been slighted and we want ours. And I don't mean by 'ours,' 40 acres and a mule because we're past that. But we need help. For us to be on our own two feet, us meaning youth or us meaning black people, whatever you want to take it for, for us to be on our own two feet we do need help."
Interestingly, a lot of what he had to say sounds like it would fit right into 2016's presidential campaign, especially Bernie Sanders' focus on income inequality. "Nobody should be hitting the lotto for $36 million when we've got people dying in the streets," Tupac said. "That's not idealistic, that's just real." He went on to explain that he wasn't hating on rich people, just saying they should help others more. "If they earned it I think that's good and I think they deserve it, but even if you earned it, you still owe. Look at me, I don't have that mega money, but I feel guilty walking by somebody... If I know I have $3,000 in my pocket, it's wrong to give that person a quarter. It's wrong."
Tupac was always outspoken about his political views, and this interview is just another example of that. It's amazing to see how little has changed despite it being more than 20 years since this interview was recorded. You can check out the whole clip above.
