I choose a picture of Biggie Smalls and Tupac as my starting piece. It is a picture of them while they were still friend, before they got ‘beef’ and became enemies. It is a pretty well known picture that has been shown countless time on VH1 and MTV. The picture is very significant, especially in hip hop, because it shows two young rappers who were best of friends, but tragically both lost their lives over an argument that divided the rap nation. Biggie was from the east, and Tupac was from the west and they were at the center of east coast-west cost rap war.
When I started with the picture I knew I wanted to tell a story. I wanted to make a collage like our class did during the semester. I don’t like clutter so I wanted it to be clean but there was such an in depth story to tell choosing what to include would be difficult. I wanted to show what their relationship started as, what drew them apart, and what was a result of their ‘beef’.
My first draft of the collage was pretty simple. Between the two was a broken heart to show they there friendship fell apart. On the corners I showed which coast each of them represented. Besides that there was just red arrows pointing toward the corners. When I showed my roommates they thought it was too boring and needed more explanation of what went on between the two. I agreed with them.
I decided to add more so I added two pictures at the bottom to show that both of them had died young and violently. The one under Tupac is a popular mural in Oakland that is well known in the hip-hop world. The words “live my the gun… die by the gun’ explain very well what happened to Tupac, as he was gunned down in LA in 1996. Under Biggie is a simpler picture that just says “RIP Notorious B.I.G.”. This also shows that Biggie had died; as he was gunned down also in LA just a year after Tupac was. I removed the Red arrows because I thought they were kind of pointless and took too much attention away from the more important part of the collage. Finally I added the saying ‘Whets beef?’ to show that they died over stupid ideas and an unneeded hip-hop rivalry that separated the world of hip-hop into two coasts.
A philosophy that could go with my collage is truth. What really happened between these two young rap starts? There are many rumors about why they first had ‘beef’ but the real truth is not known. Also both of their murders are still unsolved. The truth behind these two is still very blurry and will probably never truly come out for sure. In the end the tale of Biggie and Tupac should serve as a lesson for who love hip hop that it is not worth dying over a dis song or stupid differences. I believe my collage shows this. The background picture is where they started, and in the end, as my college tries to show, they both lost their lives tragically.

First draft comments:
Alex: Too bland, I wanna know more, it should show what happened two them, it should show tell more of a story. I do like the broken heart in the middle.

Matti: I like th broken heart. I don’t like the arrows. Add some words to give the viewer some hints

Anna: The arrows seem cheesy, Add some guns and bullets. Some lyrics on the sside might be cool to show that they dissed eachother in rap songs.

Final (original unaltered picture)

I choose to look at the philosophy of truth. In my slide show I used two pictures from New England sports moments and two pictures from other real world realities. I wanted to show sports as an ultimate form of truth. In sports like football and baseball, by the end of the game there is an absolute winner. There is not a question of who won a game because it can be easily measured in the score. The doesn’t mean the best team won however, it just means that on that day one team won and one team lost. No one can argue against that reality. The other two pictures are of icebergs in Antarctica and the New York Stock Exchange. Both of them are faced with much debate about how real they both are. Many believe that global warming is a planet threatening issue and other think it is not the emergency many assume it to be. The stock market is controversial especially in the last 6 months or so with the economic downturn. Many think the capitalist fundamentals this country is run on are faulty and not true, while other believe it is a source of innovation and competition.
Truth to me is very individual in the sense that what one may think is true, another may find to be non-sense. Some things, like sports, may be more concrete and absolute when it comes to judgments of truth. Other things are seen from numerous sides, which makes finding an absolute truth or judgment almost impossible.
What is most important about truth is thinking for ones self. When an individual thinks for him or herself and is free to make decisions then there judgment and results are true to them. Being true to yourself is what truth really is.