Chapter 2363: Gotham Music Festival (65)_1

Biggie and 2Pac reconciled.

This news caused a veritable earthquake in the rap community, just as their fallout had done, with countless media outlets and gossip tabloid reporters swarming in. However, their focus was not on how the two had reconciled, but on why they had fallen out in the first place.

Both claimed that the original incident had been a complete misunderstanding, now clarified thanks to an opportunity. Yet, they also hinted that the matter wasn't so simple at the time and that it was likely that someone had been stirring up trouble between them.

But when reporters pressed to know who was behind it, both started to keep silent, occasionally shaking their heads and sighing, which sparked endless speculation among fans.

However, another person was involved in this affair, a white rapper from the West Coast.

It was already quite rare for a white person to engage in rap, but this guy released an album just as the two giants from the East and West Coast were teasing their singles. What's more absurd was that his album was a massive hit.

Of course, the album's performance still couldn't compare to the breakthrough works of the two giants, but the guy was white, and relatively new to the scene. His first album garnered no attention, but his second album sales reached this level, which was nothing short of a miracle.

Within this album, there was a song called "The Great Continent," which was both the most important and popular song of the album. However, the tune and melody leaned towards classical, narrating from the perspective of a desperate gambler, displaying a life-or-death bet.

The narrative plot of the song wasn't important. What mattered was that it mentioned once there were brothers running a glorious kingdom together, which eventually turned into enemies due to some contradictions, leading to one dead and one injured, with the kingdom sinking into the sea.

At first listen, people thought it was a cliché story about a struggle for power, but the song reveals in the end that on land, some are laughing, some are laughing madly.

It suggested that these brothers might have been manipulated into their downfall, making one ponder about the song's story in light of Biggie and 2Pac's experiences.

The decisive evidence emerged in Biggie's single, "Who Built the High Walls?" which debuted at the top of the Billboard charts, and stayed at the top, then kept at the top, always at the top.

People expected to hear something related to 2Pac in this track because that's how rap artists usually are: you diss me, I respond. The majority of the lyrics involve attacks and insults.

But this time was different. Biggie spoke with a heavy tone about his childhood experience being isolated outside white communities, the first time this tough guy had ever mentioned his childhood.

Many black listeners didn't understand why he brought this up, wasn't it normal? How could black people possibly enter white communities?

Forget entering communities. In any public space, whether it's a bus or a smoking area, whites were seated while blacks stood. This was a common sight everywhere.

Blacks were no longer slaves; they were merely second-class citizens. Of course, poor blacks were third or fourth-class.

But Biggie delved deep into this issue in the latter part of the lyrics. He believed that something was keeping them separate, with no way out in society, and through various methods, making them think such barriers were normal.

However, he cried out a shattering roar that there should be no high walls in society; all walls are man-made, between blacks and whites, among blacks themselves, and among the poor.

Before the audience could even react to what was happening, 2Pac's single dropped like a bomb—"Astonishment Throughout." If there were one word to describe the explosive popularity of the song, it might be "universal."

The structure of the song was somewhat similar to Biggie's, but it didn't start from 2Pac's real perspective. Instead, the chorus kept repeating, "One day, he stood among the crowd and said, I'm just like you, and then there was astonishment throughout."

The lyrics delicately depicted the expressions of onlookers, intertwined with the author's own psychological descriptions, where from their faces alone you could tell who they were: the terrified were blacks like him; the scoffers were some successful individuals among blacks; the shocked were some uneducated, silly whites; and the angry were the successful among whites.

These lyrics were perhaps too straightforward, but many blacks spoke up for it; they'd done similar things as children, such as accidentally straying into a white neighborhood only to be beaten up, then going home without understanding why, with their parents just shaking their heads, saying nothing.

Whenever they encountered various forms of injustice in society and grievously asked what was the difference between them, they were met with all sorts of scornful looks, some from the opposition, some from peers.

This kind of doubt has always existed in the hearts of many blacks. Whenever they express any dissatisfaction in public, many people, including their families and friends, would say things are already good, what more do you want?

They themselves were wondering, what else did they want?

If you delve deeper, many would point to examples of successful blacks: Look, these blacks also made it, doesn't that mean if you're not successful, it's because you're not trying?

In many other countries, immigrants seeking equality are often ridiculed. To some extent, it makes sense. After all, if it's not an immigrant country, immigrants would take opportunities from the natives, who naturally would not advocate for equality because it was originally their land, their home, and the immigrants are the newcomers.