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    1. The 1990s: 2Pac ft. Talent—Changes

      Setting the scene: the song was recorded in 1992 and released six years later in 2Pac's posthumous album Greatest Hits. It features Talent, an R&B trio formed by Ernest “Bishop” Dixon, Marlon “Castor Troy” Hatcher and Keith “Casino” Murrell. As mentioned earlier, the song samples Bruce Hornsby and the Range's The Way It is and addresses the same social themes.

      A dive into the historical context: what happened in the 1990s? * A new President, the Democratic Bill Clinton, was elected and stayed in charge from 1993 to 2001. in 1996, he promoted the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act which restricted governmental assistance to families in distress. Presidente Bill Clinton * In the early 1990s, the country entered a severe recession, which was apparently overcome by the mid-1990s. * Black businesses bloomed and Black celebrities (such as Micheal Jackson, Michal Jordan and Oprah Winfrey) started to appear and constituted the first "Black bourgeoisie". However, this was not the reality of common, middle or lower-class African-Americans: in some inner cities, between 30% and 43% of the population in poor neighborhoods (such as East New York, the South Bronx, South Central Los Angeles, Chicago's South Side) was jobless. Many of those "who had once held stable blue-color jobs, low-wage service jobs, such as in the fast-food industry" relied on occasional and informal activities (braiding hair, childcare, car repair...). * The abuse of drugs that had exploded the previous decade went on, especially among poors. * Mass incarceration persisted: in 1990, prisoners reached one million. "By 2000, one-third of all black males in their twenties were under the control of the criminal justice system—either in prison or jail, on parole, probation, or awaiting trial. The major reason for this disproportion in incarceration is the stark racism that continues to pervade the criminal justice system. […] The socio-economic and political consequences of mass incarceration for the black community have been profound. Hundreds of thousands of households have been destroyed". (https://www.amistadresource.org/the_future_in_the_present/social_and_economic_issues.html). As a consequence, in many instances, there were one-parent families: mothers were left to raise their children alone. La gente sta visitando il corridoio di una prigione. https://www.amistadresource.org/the_future_in_the_present/social_and_economic_issues.html https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/united-states-1990s#:~:text=Labor%20unions%20believed%20it%20would,countries%20with%20weak%20pollution%20controls