Released November 12, 1991 Length 4:20 Writer(s) Tupac Shakur, Pogo | Recorded 1991 Label Interscope Records | |
Genre West Coast hip hop, political rap, gangsta rap | ||
"I Don't Give a Fuck" is a song by American rapper 2Pac and the fourth track of his debut studio album 2Pacalypse Now (1991). The song, which features R&B singer Pogo, deals overtly with police brutality and racism. In the song, he narrates how the black community in the United States face harassment by racists, including police.
Contents
Overview
In the intro, Tupac receives phone calls from one of his friends about the police beating them for no apparent reason and various crimes that are directed at them, after which he starts to rap. The theme of the song is strongly anti-racist and anti-police, and the lyrics tell about racism, such as store owners following him in the store, and crime in the ghetto.
This was one of the songs that a youth in Texas blamed for his shooting of a state trooper, as outro of the song, Tupac questions the authority for not dealing with these issues and he curses out the CIA, the FBI, and then president George H.W. Bush in the spoken-word outre of "I Don't Give a Fuck".
He says:
"Fuck you to the San Francisco Police Department
Fuck you to the Marin County Sheriff Department [sic]
Fuck you to the FBI
Fuck you to the CIA
Fuck you to the B-u-s-h
Fuck you to the Amerikkka
Fuck you to all you redneck prejudice motherfuckers"
Media appearances
The song appeared in the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in the radio station Radio Los Santos.
2Pac mentioned the phrase used for this song later as a major turning-point line in his big screen debut Juice (1992) while in
an verbal altercation with "Q" (Omar Epps) in their school hallway.
The song was later sampled by American rapper Eminem in his song, "Just Don't Give a Fuck".