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Dr. Jamal Bryant, a renowned pastor and activist, is a passionate supporter of HBCUs, with all three of his daughters attending historically Black colleges. However, he recently made an inaccurate claim, stating that iconic rapper Tupac Shakur attended an HBCU for a semester before moving to the West Coast.
Bryant made the claims in an appearance on The GAUD Show podcast and even pushed for Clark Atlanta to grant him a posthumous honorary degree.
“I grew up with Tupac in Baltimore,” Bryant said. “He went to the Baltimore School for the Arts. Then came to Atlanta. I went to Morehouse, he went to Clark. We were at homecoming together. Digital Underground performed. He volunteered as a roadie, dropped out, and moved to California. That’s how he got in the game.”
The statement was puzzling at face value, given the fact that Shakur's biography has been presented in several different forms in various mediums such as books, films, YouTube essays and podcasts. 2Pac being HBCU educated, especially at an HBCU such as Clark Atlanta that boasts several successful alumni across the entertainment industry, would certainly have been highlighted even if it was just for a semester.
But, it is in fact false that Shakur attended Clark Atlanta although he does have an interesting history with both the institution and the city.
Jeff Pearlman, the author behind the book-turned-HBO Max series Showtime about the 1980s Lakers, is set to release a new book titled Only God Can Judge Me. Scheduled for release in October, the book delves into the life and legacy of 2Pac, offering a definitive portrayal based on nearly 700 interviews and exclusive insights. Via comments obtained by AllHipHop, he quickly refuted Bryant's claims.
“None of that happened,” Pearlman said. “Tupac never went to Clark. He didn’t even graduate high school.”
In fact, Pearlman says the only known contact that Shakur had with Clark Atlanta was an infamous performance in 1993.
“He performed at their homecoming once. That show, by all accounts, was a disaster,” Pearlman said in a different online post. “He was drunk, high, disoriented, didn’t perform his known songs, and about 70 percent of the crowd walked out. That same night, he shot two off-duty police officers in Atlanta.”
