The contemporary thug messiah and prophet, Tupac Amaru Shakur.

Certain black gangsters revere the African god of war, iron, and fire Ogun, Shakur in his adaptation of gang culture also began to revere this demon god.

The MOB Piru tattoo that Shakur had was a tacit acknowledgement of his (honorary), induction into the gang. On the ecoli.com boards there is a member with the handle MOB-Heron in honour of his uncle the original Mob Piru member Aaron “Heron” Palmer, with the moniker Heron.

Here is a photo of Aaron Palmer aka Heron and Shakur.

Shakur said the following of his Thug Life “movement”: An interview with Shakur conducted by Rob Mariott for VIBE in 1996 for its November issue is excerpted herein it will shed light into his mindset at the time: “Are you where you wanna be right now in your career?” I’m at a point where I’m in charge. I don’t have to answer to anybody; I’m in total control. I’ve got another album droppin next month under an alias name under Makaveli.  It’s called Killuminati. I’m not the king am not the teacher or nothing like that, but I feel, like I don’t have no peers. I’ve been out less than a year, convicted of allegations that usually end niggas’ careers. Shot five times in the nuts and the head. I came out and in less than a year outsold Biggie, almost three times. I sold more records than his whole record label. Whats with this Makaveli why name yourself after a 16th century philosopher and politician? That’s what got me here my reading. It’s not like I idolize this one guy Machiavelli, I idolize that type of thinking where you do whatver’s gonna make you achieve your goal. I’m gonna change the rules in this rap game. This new Makavelli album I got coming out I’m takin on niggas .It’s like my dopest album ever. Its twelve tracks. I talk about my shooting in New York. I say the names of the niggas that set me up……Everything I couldn’t say I said it in a rap. I also dis Dre, Mobb Deep. All them niggas: Jay- Z, Puffy, Biggie. My album cover is me on the cross being crucified, and the cross is the map, it’s got New York, Harlem, Brooklyn, everything. And am on the cross being crucified for keeping it real.

Nobody respects a man that don’t do for himself; so I’m here on Death Row to put my time into this army. It’s not like they got me out of jail and now I gotta do for them.

It’s because they believed in me when no one else did so now, I believe in this company when no one else will. I truly believe I’ve been blessed by God, and God walks with me. Me and my

Niggas are on some Black Jesus (expletive).  Not a new religion or anything like that but, the saint for thugs and gangstas, not killers and rapist’s but thugs. I lived and almost died for Thug Life and after that VIBE article, people said “Tupac I thought Thug Life was dead.”  Yeah but read the rest of the article. Puffy in that article gave me some advice that brought me back to the Thug Life (expletive). He said you can’t be a thug for a second or a minute and get in and out of it, you gotta be in it forever. Shakur went on to proclaim his “Black Jesus”, philosophy and indeed today he has emerged as that “saint”, of many street youth today who proudly claim him as their “prophet”.

I will reveal a little known secret and I hope that the young people reading this won’t take my word for it but they would research the material themselves.

The Hindu demon god Kali is also a war god this demon is also portrayed as a god of iron, fire and war people must understand that the source of mythology is not human beings, but familiar spirits, that bring information to particular persons at particular times in order to influence nations and people into a particular way of life. The dominant lifestyle amongst young people worldwide today is the gangster or thug lifestyle. Alternative titles: sthaga; ṭhag; ṭhag; ṭhagī; thags; thuggee.

Thug, Hindi ṭhag, Sanskrit sthaga (“thief,” “rogue”, “concealment”, “deceiver”), member of a well-organized confederacy of professional assassins who traveled in gangs throughout India for several hundred years. (The earliest authenticated mention of the thugs is found in Ẓiyāʾ-ud-Dīn Baranī, History of Fīrūz Shāh, dated about 1356.) The thugs would insinuate themselves into the confidence of wayfarers and, when a favorable opportunity presented itself; strangle them by throwing a handkerchief or noose around their necks. They then plundered and buried them. All this was done according to certain ancient and rigidly prescribed forms and after the performance of special religious rites, in which the consecration of the pickaxe and the sacrifice of sugar formed a prominent part. Although the thugs traced their origin to seven Muslim tribes, Hindus appear to have been associated with them at an early period; at any rate, their religious creed and practices as worshipers of Kālī, the Hindu goddess of destruction, showed no influence of Islam. The fraternity possessed a jargon of its own (Ramasi) and signs by which its members recognized each other.

There are young children globally perpetrating what Tupac and his peers made palatable to the children of the world, today the main gangster idol is, Fifty Cent. The video game Grand Theft Auto a popular series available on most of the well-known consoles is a great example of gang and street culture made palatable for mass consumption.

The game is a virtual role-playing game in which the player can play a variety of roles including the criminal role. In the game, a player can kill police, innocent civilians, some games the player can commit rape (in graphic detail) and other physical assaults on civilians, thus remaining true to the criminal friendly theme of many games on the market today. The effects that such games are having on young children today are manifold and negative, aside from their desensitizing children to violence they actually allow children to acclimate themselves psychologically to violence and to view this as normal.

This culture i.e. “Gang-culture” is now the preferred pop-cultral trend globally adapted by most youth today. Gang culture has literally transformed Caribbean life rendering, places like St Croix and St Thomas, once considered Caribbean tourist meccas economic failures within a “tourism” oriented market model. Hence NGO’s like Soualiga Youth and many others, in the (Thought Leadership) market now adapting solutions and strategies geared toward social uplift, democratization in the Caribbean context, increased regional integration, intra-cooperation and regional trade.

This article is an example of awareness building within the Caribbean as an agent, in combatting the wanton violence caused by the adaptation of , gang culture regionally through the influence of the American corporate media.