Shadowing Practice: UNSEEN 2Pac: 1995 CNN Tapes - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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How's it been going so far?
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Excellent.
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Excellent.
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I've been out I think already eight, nine days.
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We've already finished 18 songs.
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We're gonna do a double album, release it this Christmas, called Life Goes On.
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We're gonna do the double album but sell it for like a single album.
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I'm giving my fans like an extra album just for supporting me, helping me go number one while I was locked down.
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I'm gonna just give them a double album for the price of wine.
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So we're working on that.
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It's real good.
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I got a song with Snoop and Nadal, Corrupt, Faith Evans, doing well with Operation From the Bottom and Rage and Dre.
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It's jam-packed.
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I think it's good.
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God, you've got everybody there.
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Yeah, I think so.
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I think so.
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That's great.
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Trying to do the best I can.
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How do you feel creatively?
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Do you feel like this is maybe the most creative time in your life so far? far?
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I think so.
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So far it's like now I'm coming with just brainstorm after brainstorm.
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It feels like everything is just dropping out of me.
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I've already written a movie called Live to Tell.
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I got the half of two other movies I already started writing about halfway through.
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I'm producing three groups simultaneously rapping on all of that.
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I'm involved with the market of this album with the other groups as well.
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I'm working on a project with Al Sharpton and some community leaders
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and some former gangbangers trying to like take the hood back
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you know get like a before maybe by next year we'll
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be having a like a rap league like Tupac will have his own football league my own basketball league my own
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everything every sport that you play in the hood and Tretcher have a league and
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Coolio have his league and Snoopa have his league and Dre have his league and we'll play against each other.
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Wouldn't that be wrong?
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Take the hood back.
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So we're going to do that.
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Have block parties again in all the neighborhoods.
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I'm going to get all the rappers together.
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I just want us to stop through the worst hoods in America and, you know, take them back.
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All of us, even the community, not like us going out to their neighborhood taking their hood, but people taking their own community back,
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feeling empowered by their own positive, their own positive points positive points, their own strength.
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I think if we do that, we'd be all right.
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Plus, at the same time, if we register all of those voters,
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by November, they'll have to recognize us as being important and as being somebody that they need to impress come election time.
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So I want to help organize that as well as do all this music and acting and things like that.
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God, you're a busy man.
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I try to be.
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I try to be.
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Let's hit on some of this.
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I want to know more about each of the individual things you talked about.
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Now as far as your music goes, are we going to see a different side?
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Has your music changed that much?
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It depends on who wants it to change.
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Has it changed as far as C.
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Delores Tucker and Bob Dole?
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No, it would probably be worse.
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Has it changed in terms of people who like my music, fans of my music?
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I believe so.
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I believe that I've grown.
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I believe that...
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When the last album was really sad and reflective and like almost talking about death in every song,
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this album is more celebratory of life, upbeat, energetic, fun, I think.
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But it's also harsher in terms of the language.
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Because I've been in jail for 11 and a half months, I wasn't about to come out and censor the thoughts that were in my head.
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They were like building on top of each other.
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So I just went in there and released it as is.
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However, what I will do to show how responsible I am now, to show how mature I am now, is I will release a clean album.
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With all of the songs I did, if I do a double album, I'll release a regular album with all clean songs for the kids.
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But besides that, this album is NC-17 all the way.
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Do you think that's a good compromise for, you know, for the maybe the smaller kids that aren't real comfortable with that, yet it's not ruining your integrity?
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Right.
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Right.
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What it is is that it, we were never unreasonable rappers.
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We were just never asked.
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They just attacked us, you know.
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And if we would have saw them attacking all kind kind of violent things like Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and Sylvester Stallone, it would have been a different thing.
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I would have said, oh wait a minute, we should change.
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But they just attacked us.
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And the reason that they attacked us is because we have no voting power.
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And because we don't give money to those presidential campaign and we don't know how to court those politicians,
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so therefore they turn their backs on us and they use us to give votes.
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Because right now, since there's no problem in Russia, there's no problem in the US,
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it's time to pick on the rappers because we are becoming a threat to the nation's security when we're not really.
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We are a part of this nation.
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So I believe that given the chance, we will always be responsible.
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As soon as I figured out that the way that this is happening is because we write for adults.
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Adults play the music.
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Adults like it.
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The little kids want to hear it, so they hear it.
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And they get to learning the words verbatim, not understanding what I'm saying in context of the song.
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They're just taking it as this is it.
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So if I say bitch, they're going just, you know, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, not knowing what I mean by bitch.
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They don't know how I make love to a woman.
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They don't know how I treat my mother.
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They don't know how I treat a woman.
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They only heard me say bitch in this one song and think that's how I treat all women when it's not true.
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So by having a clean album, I think we'll be able to do that.
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Also by explaining myself, talking, going to these schools, having a little league, doing the things that I want to do, I'll be able to talk more I'll be able to represent myself more not just for me
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but for all for all rappers because we are deeper
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and we are being portrayed through our protractors are the people who criticize us like Miss Tucker
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and this message across to your critics what would it be I'm not mad at you
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and I understand what you're doing you know I'm not like
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awesome you know I hate Delores Tucker I'm not mad at him I think
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that what they're doing like I said is using us to become somebody.
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Not that she wasn't anybody before, not that Dole wasn't anybody before, but let's look at who he was before.
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He was an over-the-heel politician who really, he was too harsh for the world.
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You know, for the United States really to pick as a president, we would look at Dole and go, he's too much to the extreme, plus he's too old.
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We've seen what Reagan did.
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We're not going through that again.
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However, If he becomes the man that says, I'll rid the world of these horrible, evil rappers, then he becomes somebody.
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And Miss Tucker, she was just another one of the ladies you see at church.
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They're going like, y'all give my respect.
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Y'all better who we give our respect to all the time anyway.
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But to make herself more important, she attacked us.
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Because now with a black person, especially a black woman, attacking rappers, oh, it's not just white people saying it.
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And so she's somebody.
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So I'm not mad.
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I'm glad that they can come up off of us.
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But all I'm saying is, be fair.
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And if it was just our music, then let's just talk about the music.
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But how can they ban my records?
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And they're talking about, I'm a gangster rapper.
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You can listen to my songs with Dear Mama and shed so many tears and keep your head up, I find that to be very responsible lyrics.
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More responsible even than some of these other groups who they're ignoring.
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You know, the rock groups, who I don't even want to get into a big, we get it bad, they don't, we're all musicians, but they even recognize
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that it's just like the rappers were getting too much power in terms of selling power and representation in the world, MTV, everywhere we was going,
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so they're going to cut it down.
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Instead of just snatching us away, they figure they'll cut down the topics we can talk about, but that won't make the things go away.
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I know I'm going on, but it's like if the guy that discovered AIDS, the guy that first found the virus, let's say he found the virus,
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but didn't talk about it.
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People would still be dying from AIDS, but no one would know what they were dying from, and no one would know what it was called.
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So that's the same thing.
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Thug life is not going to go away.
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I'm just a person that discovered it.
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I'm telling you about it.
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I'm telling you how it is.
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And you can figure out how to prevent yourself from either being in thug life or being a victim of thug life.
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Or at the best, at the worst, you'll understand us.
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You'll understand why these kids act this way.
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Why are they jeans sagging?
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Why are they so mad at the world?
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If you listen to the music, you'll understand.
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It's not taunting you.
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If anything, it's letting you see the type of life you live.
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As far as doing a clean album, do you think that there are some people who are going to look at that and say, it's a cop-out, it's trying to be commercial,
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trying to get in another part of the marketplace.
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How do you respond to that?
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I really don't care how they feel.
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The people who say you're a cop-out are the biggest cowards of the pack, usually.
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To me, it's that saying.
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How does that saying go?
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It's like some people see things happening, some people make things happen.
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And some people just talk about it.
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Something like that, you know?
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That's how I feel.
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I'm one of the people that make things happen.
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Then there are people that just sit and talk about the things that I make happen.
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And then there's other people who just wish they could make things happen.
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And that's how I feel, you know?
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There's some people that go, if I'm too hard, they go, oh, he's too hard.
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If I compromise and put out the clean, I go, oh, look, cop out, he ain't real, he ain't real.
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You know what I mean?
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If I say, lady, oh, look at him, he's sprung, they got him all, they changed him all.
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If I say, bitch, oh, he hates women, misogyny, so blah, blah, blah, blah.
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So you can't please everybody, nor do I want to.
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I just be myself.
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That's it, you know, I'm satisfied.
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As long as I'm satisfied, as long as I can play the album to my mother.
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I can play any one of my albums to my mother
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and my hardest homeboy and my hardest gangbanger friend and still be proud of what I play.
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You know how Hugh Hefner has a dream to be a playboy?
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And I have a dream to be a boss player.
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And that is just to play life to the fullest and get everything I want.
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You know, make a goal, accomplish it, make another one, accomplish it, and keep going higher and higher.
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And that's why I'm happy.
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I'm not mad.
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You know, I'm not mad at nobody.
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It's all good, whatever.
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You know, I learned my lesson.
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If we can just be even from here, I'm cool.
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Let's start part two of Tupac's life.
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I'm only 24.
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You know, the world has just begun.
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What am I going to say on my first interview?
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You know what I mean?
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That type of thing, honestly.
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Watching other people on TV, going, I'm coming back stronger.
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I'm going to reinforce my principles.
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I'm going to be more focused and deliberate about the things that I do.
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Also reading, like Maya Angelou helped me through.
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Listening to Dionne Farris' album.
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Sarah McLachlan, every night listening to her album, she got me through it.
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newest rap tapes, the video shows, comedians telling jokes about me
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and me wanting to get out there to make them sorry they ever chose me to be their laughing board.
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Reading The Prince by Machiavelli and The Art of War by Sun Tzu and what else did I read?
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I read a lot of good books.
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I mean a lot of like crime novels, everything.
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I got into Dean Kuntz in there.
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So that type of thing like helped me to just look at the world differently and just be like, oh I want to write books now, I want to do movies, I want to write an autobiography.
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I like to just really shake the world more.
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I shook the world before with my anger
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and now I want to shake the world with my ambition
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and with my love for my music and my acting and generally for my comrades.
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What was the hardest part?
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The hardest part was knowing that I had the number one record in the country all across the boards.
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I mean pop, rap, everything.
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And I was in jail.
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You know what I mean?
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Knowing that I loved music and I couldn't be a part of it.
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No more touring.
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That sound of the crowd out there and no more common room service.
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No more showering when you want to shower.
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waking up and the noise and I can't tell this guy be quiet because it's not my house.
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I'm in a house with hundreds of people and not being able to have my own space was the hardest part.
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Not having any private space.
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I'm very private.
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I like to write in the bathroom, on the toilet alone, you know, just to get that privacy.
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So imagine never having that privacy.
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That was the hardest part.
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I had a very...
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How did you get treated in there?
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I got treated to both extremes.
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There were guards who hated me because I was black.
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There was guards who hated me.
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I mean, these are separate things.
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One, just because I'm black.
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One, just because I'm a rapper.
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The other, because I got money.
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You know what I mean?
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And then I had prisoners who hated me for the same reasons.
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Then I had prisoners who loved me.
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as far as, you know, as much as love as they thought they was giving me
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because of the things that I did and the way
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that I did it and my music and the things that it said.
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I had that type of thing.
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I had people who were jealous because they knew I'd be back and they could see the fire, you know.
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I had people who were as happy as me that I would be back.
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You know I mean and they took it upon themselves to guide me
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and to train me to say things And I remember man when you get out there you got to do this
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Gotta do this everyday guys would tell me okay, why did you get in trouble and make me tell them
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because I did this I did this and I did this and go now.
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How are you not gonna do that again and make me say
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Well the next time I'll do this I'll do this and I appreciate that
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 244 sentences and 2730 words to shadow. The speech runs for 14:20. The speaker talks fast, about 190 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- rapper /ˈɹæpɚ/ (noun) — The knocker of a door.
- shake /ˈʃeɪk/ (verb) — To cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly.
- virus /ˈvaɪ.ɹəs/ (noun) — A submicroscopic, non-cellular structure that consists of a core of DNA or RNA surrounded by a protein coat, that requires a living host cell to replicate, and…
- discover /dɪˈskʌvə/ (verb) — To find or learn something for the first time.
- privacy /ˈpɹaɪ.və.si/ (noun) — The state of being secluded from the presence, sight, or knowledge of others.
- prisoner /ˈpɹɪzənə/ (noun) — A person incarcerated in a prison, while on trial or serving a sentence.
- politician /ˌpɑ.ləˈtɪʃ.ən/ (noun) — One engaged in politics, especially an elected or appointed government official.
- compromise /ˈkɑmpɹəˌmaɪz/ (noun) — The settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions.
- harsh /ˈhɑɹʃ/ (adjective) — Unpleasantly rough to the touch or other senses.
- accomplish /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/ (verb) — To finish successfully.
- satisfy /ˈsætɪsfaɪ/ (verb) — To be enough (for)
- topic /ˈtɑpɪk/ (noun) — A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.
- ignore /ɪɡˈnɔː/ (verb) — To deliberately not listen or pay attention to.
- everyday /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/ (adjective) — Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions.
- lesson /ˈlɛs.ən/ (noun) — A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided.
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- talk about (verb) — Used to draw attention to the speaker's characterization of someone or something.
- look at (verb) — To observe or watch.
- figure out (verb) — To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
- get in (verb) — To get into or inside something, literally or figuratively.
- get into (verb) — To move into (an object), such that one ends up inside it.
- get out (verb) — To leave or escape.
- go away (verb) — To depart or leave a place.
- go on /ˈɡoʊˌɒn/ (verb) — To continue in extent.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 100 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shake /ˈʃeɪk/, politician /ˌpɑ.ləˈtɪʃ.ən/, harsh /ˈhɑɹʃ/, accomplish /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/, representation /ˌɹɛp.ɹə.zɛnˈteɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: politician /ˌpɑ.ləˈtɪʃ.ən/, representation /ˌɹɛp.ɹə.zɛnˈteɪ.ʃən/, differently /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/, integrity /ɪnˈtɛɡɹəti/, simultaneously /ˌsaɪmlˈteɪnɪəsli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like rapper, shake, virus.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if we do that, we'd be · if I do a double album, I'll release · If you listen to the music, you'll understand |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've been · We've already finished · I've already written |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who like · people who criticize · people who are |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was locked · were just never asked · being portrayed |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.