See What It's Like To Get Pac's Back In Got Your Back (Got Your Back - Frank Alexander)

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Product:	Got Your Back - Frank Alexander
Date:	20/01/02 (69 review reads)
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Advantages: Previously unkown facts of Tupac Shakur revealed, Got Your Back sees a portrait of Tupac Shakur painted as he faces Thug Life's highs and lows.

Disadvantages: Frank Alexander is too emotionally involved

Got Your Back is the biography of Tupac Shakur written by his loyal bodyguard or Chosen One as Frank Alexander often refers to himself as. It is based around the life and times of the great rapper, not only does it inform readers about the professional side of the artist but also the personal side of him and backstage facts that only other artists and bodyguards are aware of. Got Your Back was written shortly after the death of Tupac Shakur, it is a respectful book in memory of the artist to help his fans come to terms with the loss of one of hip hop?s most prestigious icons. Unlike its other counterparts Got Your Back takes a very informal approach, swears and other gestures are used to provide a more realistic outlook on gangster life and the ghettos of America. Books?s such as the Killing Of Tupac Shakur by Cathy Scott tear away from this idea and are more matter of fact. This is mostly because Frank Alexander with all due respect isn?t a professional writer and therefore isn?t formal but instead is an eyewitness to the events of Tupac Shakur and in the book he simply presents what he knows and has felt about the artist. In retrospect then, Got Your Back is superior to other books as it has more personal and first hand experience whereas others are written by journalists or other people in the industry and are based on Newspaper releases etc.


Got Your Back does not immediately start with the introduction of Pac?s life, instead it steers away from this and has an introduction into Frank Alexander. But this introduction although interesting with the documentation of the ghettos and how they were ruled by blacks and Mexicans and the struggle that Frank as a young boy had to face to get out of them is too long. In total it lasts over 3 Chapters but however it is crucial in understanding how Frank Alexander came to be involved with security, Death Row Records and Tupac Shakur as a consequence.


At the start of the book Frank describes how
he escapes from the ghetto to work for a foreign prince as his bodyguard after shortly serving in the marines and the County Orange jail. With the escape of the prince the book starts to describe how Frank became involved with Death Row and their artists. It immediately starts not with the managing and protection of their greatest artist 2Pac, but instead how he protected other artists such as Kurupt and Snoop Dogg when they went on tour to promote their debut album as the Dogg Pound Gang, Dogg Food. As Frank performs several heroic tasks such as saving the artists from unknown gunfire when Snoop Dogg and the rest of DPG were smoking weed, to catch the attention of Tupac Shakur.


If you want knowledge of Pac?s life before he joined Death Row and was on the set of Grid? Locked then this book is not for you because this is the point when Frank becomes Pac?s personal bodyguard and the documentation of Pac?s life begins here.


At first Frank only documents on Pac?s professional side such as his tours and experiences on the Grid? Locked scene but then as Tupac begins to trust Frank more we see that Frank plays a bigger role in Pac?s life and the other artists as well. We see that although 2Pac was an exceptional, professional rapper as Frank documents upon saying that he often wrote the lyrics to an entire song in the limo to a concert or his house, we see that Pac was also infamous for his addiction to fighting.

Frank Alexander starts to meet up with the Outlawz and they become good friends, they would often play basketball together but then when 2Pac got into a crap it was Big Frank as Pac named him who always had his back.


This was not the only other side of Pac that we see. Frank also documents on how Pac was a player. He describes all Tupac?s sexual exploits ranging from Kidadda Jones ? Quincy Jones? daughter to the infamous such as Madonna. This is one of the funniest chapters in the book.


The book
finally ends with of course the death and aftermath of Tupac Shakur. It details of how millions of fans grieved over the artist and how Frank himself felt as though they were like brothers. This is a climatic end to a book that describes the life and times of the greatest rap artist ever to have lived in times of gangster rap, with his devastating and tragic but nevertheless inevitable death. Unlike Vibe magazines release on Tupac Shakur, Got Your Back is not a picture book although there are several pictures allocated towards the centre of the book it is mainly in the format of almost a diary account of Frank Alexander?s experiences with 2Pac.


Here are the statistics for the book:


Readability (10/10 ? the writing really flows with the context of the book and the language used creates a realistic picture of gangster rap)

Facts (9/10 ? Although there are a lot of facts within the book that otherwise are unknown and events in Pac?s life that only Frank Alexander knows bout, it is clear that Frank Alexander hasn?t been able to stay neutral and his opinions on the rapper really shine through)

Summary: