This song is deep. If you can’t see the video, look it up in your country. It’s called “Brenda’s Got a Baby” by Tupac. The song is based on a true story. In March of 1991, The New York Times published an article about a baby who was saved by maintenance men from a trash compactor (umbilical cord still attached) where his 12-year-old mother put him. The maintenance men heard the baby’s cries and called the police—the baby was ultimately placed in Foster Care.
The girl got pregnant as a result of being raped by her cousin. The inspiration for the song came when Tupac read the story in the NYT when he was filming the movie Juice. They filmed the music video in January 1992.
This isn’t the first time Pac’s done this either. He dedicated lyrics to Robert “Yummy” Sandifer, the 11-year-old who died in Chicago and garnered National Attention (the catalyst for the tearing down of the Chicago Projects, read more about him in my post here.) And the killing of Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old Black girl killed by a Korean store owner in 1992, where he dedicated the song “Keep Ya Head Up”, saying in his sophomore album, “because a bottle of juice is not something to die for.” Latasha’s death, along with the beating of Rodney King that same year, became detonators of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Like I said on this blog before, black music and television are also part of black history. I put the most powerful lyrics (in my opinion of course) of the song in bold below.
But no one seems to notice any change in her figure
She’s 12 years old, and she’s having a baby
In love with the molester, who’s sexing her crazy
…he left her, and she had the baby solo
She had it on the bathroom floor and didn’t know so
She didn’t know what to throw away and what to keep
She wrapped the baby up and threw him in the trash heap…”
The PBS Blog 