Got Your Back: Protecting Tupac in the World of Gangsta Rap by Frank Alexander, Cuda Alexander, Heidi Siegmund Cuda, Heidi Siegmund Cuda (With)

From the Publisher

On September 13, 1996, Tupac Shakur was shot and killed in Las Vegas. Millions of fans wept, while many critics claimed it was the inevitable result of a thugged-out lifestyle. The mystery surrounding the shooting-a suspect has yet to be named-has increased, and rumors of gang wars, disloyalty, and government conspiracies continue to linger. Only Frank Alexander, Tupac's bodyguard druing the last year of his life, knows the real story.

Got Your Back details the exploits of one of the most famous rappers of all time. The drugs, the women, the violence, the money-all provided fuel to the fire that was Tupac's life. As his platinum-selling, posthumously released albums prove, Tupac lives on through his music. Complete with exclusive new interview material with Tupac's mother, Afeni, Got Your Back provides an insider's view of a life gone awry.

Publishers Weekly

Alexander--ex-Marine, bodybuilder and professional bodyguard--began working for Suge Knight, president of Death Row Records, in 1995 and soon became the friend and chief bodyguard of Tupac Shakur, who was recording for the record company. Aided by Cuda, coauthor with Ice T of The Ice Opinion, Alexander recounts his year with the famous rapper, leading up to September 13, 1996, when Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas, Nev., by a killer who has never been identified. Written in gangsta style ("I thought to myself 'Fuck, I can't park here.' It was so nasty, I didn't want to get my Benz all messed up"), the book presents a stunning picture of the "Thug Life," as one of Shakur's tattoos read, replete with drugs, sex and brawling. Alexander admired Shakur for his daring, humor and sexual prowess, and shows him to have been driven, complex and tempestuous as well as generous and caring--"both poet and warrior." A cloyingly sentimental conclusion dwells on Alexander's pride in having worked for Shakur. It also includes Alexander's lament that, although there was nothing he could have done to save his hero, he was abandoned by the Death Row family after the killing, becoming the fall guy who will always be known as "the brotha who let Tupac get shot." Eight pages of b&w photos, not seen by PW. (Aug.)

Kirkus Reviews

This memoir of the last year in rapper Tupac Shakur's life tries to give the inside story but is hampered by the writers' falling into the very trap they set out to disarm. Before entering the world of Death Row—the name of Shakur's record label, run by the notorious Marion "Suge" Knight—Alexander had escaped the ghettoes of Chicago by serving in the Marines and later as a prison guard in southern California. Maybe partly because of this, he gives a point of view different from the tabloids of the principal figures in the East Coast/West Coast rivalry largely regarded as responsible for fueling the murders of Shakur and rival "Biggie" Smalls. The author genuinely sees Shakur as a human being and wants to separate him from the "thug life" aura that he emanated. Ultimately, though, Alexander fails because he devotes too much attention to the thug. For instance, a whole section of the book is dedicated to Shakur's exploits with women, most often termed "bitches": "Salli is a very pretty girl, a complete package. Her hair and skin were the same color of caramel brown, and she had a fine little body." The disrespect shown for Shakur's principal "girlfriend" during this time, Kidada Jones, daughter of music-industry superstar Quincy Jones, is astounding. Alexander makes it quite clear that Shakur used her to get to her father and really didn't care for her ("He wasn't all up on that girlfriend shit, after all"). The book is too weighed down with guilt over Alexander's inability to prevent Shakur's death, a theme endlessly repeated in the closing pages. Finally, Alexander and coauthor Cuda (who also coauthored Ice T's The Ice Opinion, not reviewed) will leave some readerswrestling with the idiom of the world they are writing about and in which their narrative is couched.

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