Spark the Brain Matchboxes

Sets of 3, 5, or 10 Matchboxes
Factory Printed

Price Varies by Quantity

I didn’t know anything about Tupac or his music when he died. I loved rap at the time but I was paying attention to a different section of the rap world. I didn’t understand who he was or what he represented to American culture.

After he died though, I saw huge, powerful shockwaves move through our culture… Black people were grieving in a way that I didn’t expect or understand and it was clear that something really important had come and gone before white people could understand it…To a large degree we still don’t.

When I did finally give myself to his music and put effort into listening to it, I figured out one thing pretty quickly… His mind was marked by extremes and remarkable contradictions, and he somehow expertly navigated these extremes and these contradictions with honesty, ease and grace.

Obviously, this can be said of a lot of rappers but there is something special happening with him. He spent time in the most impoverished slums as well as giant opulent mansions. He was confined to prison for periods, and carried across every part of the globe on tour. His music was at times disturbing and aggressive and at other times the height of tenderness and love, sometimes crude and inelegant, other times poetic and refined, sometimes vulnerable, sometimes blustering… Always honest! …something very special.

Like so many other mythological characters throughout history, he lives on!