My Adventures with Tupac...Brainchild gone ROGUE - Part I

These are only short excerpts of accounts of My History with ‘Tupac’. For full disclosure, look forward to a book release.

by Donovan Niccolo Henry





(the Don!)


In 1989 on the Nitro Tour, I Donovan Niccolo Henry was a Dancer/Choreographer for Platinum selling rapper, LL Cool J. Walking with a Panther was the third studio album by him and as it was released in 1989, the album was a commercial success with several charting singles ("Going Back to Cali," "I'm That Type of Guy," "Jingling Baby” "Big Ole Butt," and "One Shot at Love"). The album however was criticized by the hip-hop community as being too commercial and materialistic and for focusing too much on love ballads. LL Cool J was set to headline his first major tour and I was hired as the only male dancer & choreographer for the six girl dancers & LL. The entire Def Jam Tour at that time included Slick Rock, Big Daddy Kane, Del La Soul, EPMD & Public Enemy. In 1990 we joined the budweiser super fest tour. Digital Underground joined the tour on the second leg for spot dates at first but then got picked up for rest of the tour.

"However, the 1990 follow up, Mama Said Knock You Out was almost immediately accepted as Cool J's best album yet, through which he "reclaimed his persona as the most articulate of homeboys above uncluttered funk riffs assembled by the producer Marley Marl" as New York Times columnist Jon Pareles assessed.





(Killuminati!)

Tupac Shakur began his career as a roadie, backup dancer, and MC for the alternative group, Digital Underground. Digital Underground's leader and mainstay was Greg "Shock G" Jacobs (also known as Humpty Hump). Shock G formed the group in 1987 with Jimi "Chopmaster J" Dright of Berkeley, California and Tampa hip-hop radio deejay Kenneth "Kenny-K" Waters in the summer of 1989. The band would soon gain popularity by way of their song "the Humpty Dance" in 1990. Digital Underground had toured nearly every year up until 2008; this consisted of thousands of shows in Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, and the U.S. While the group's origins lay mostly in Oakland and Berkeley, California, various characters and voices from around the U.S. appeared on the band's albums while Shock G and Money-B were the only individuals to appear on every album. The enigmatic Tupac began attending poetry classes of Leila Steinberg in 1989. That same year, Steinberg organized a concert with a former group of Shakur's, "Strictly Dope" & the concert led to him being signed with Atron Gregory who set him up as a roadie and backup dancer with the young rap group, Digital Underground, also in 1990.

For whatever reason, fate seemed to have brought me & Pac on the same tour; I was working with then headlining LL Cool J as choreographer & stylist/image consultant and Pac was with the opening band, the Digital Underground. Dancing with the DU, Pac would drag me on stage to do the Humpty Dance with the band. I would often get to the venue early enough to see the opening acts and Pac was doing everything & willing to do whatever to be on that tour. At the first meeting held, Pac let me know that he wasn't as good a dancer as me but wanted to learn. I saw the bigger picture for his charisma which lit up whatever room we entered. Believe it or not, Pac was a naive, happy go lucky personality searching for his way in the world! To boot, I had a new road dawg & so the adventures began with us; two male dancers for much of the tour or two 18 year olds on a Def Jam Budweiser Super Fest Tour! Imagine the GROUPIES, the PARTIES & the HOTEL ROOMS. As we partied like rock stars, Pac would drink me under the table as we roamed from hotel room to room linking with the ladies/groupies. He would clown me for nursing 8 oz drinks while everyone else had a 40 oz. We sought out adventures in a no holds barred fashion while living the vida loca.


This was my second tour around the country and so I knew all the best places, parties, malls, clubs and groupies. One day on tour, ninjas asked me where my shadow was and I looked around confused. I had no clue whom they meant and so they inquired why Pac and I spent so much time together. Not thinking about all that & before I knew it, Pac shows up and we broke out to that night's festivities. Nicknaming Pac my shadow made me aware that ninjas were watching even going so far as to questioning what we were planning. I always rolled solo or with eye candy and so ninjas were not accustomed to seeing me rolling out with another dude. I always felt a level of comfort when the life of the party aka Pac was around as I knew he would always be part of my life.


Trapped In A Lineup

A small town show in the back woods of Minnesota set the scene for a police lineup in search of dudes involved in a gang rape & we were eyewitness or suspects in the alleged crime. David "Chief Rocker Busy Bee" Parker was riding high in 1989 as he had already made history as one of hip-hop's first solo MCs since arriving on the nascent scene in 1977. He had been immortalized playing himself in the seminal 1982 documentary, Wild Style and was performing on the Nitro Tour headlined by LL Cool and then came...............the arrest on the Nitro Tour which was headlined by LL Cool J, Public Enemy and NWA where Busy was accused along with two other suspects of sexually assaulting a woman out there in Minnesota. Hang on as it get's interesting.



(Young Pac)


Pac & I were making our daily rounds in the hotel when we came across Busy Bee, one of our new bodyguards & a roadie just hired for the second leg of the tour. It was their first day on the tour & they brought a contest winner back to the hotel, a 17 year old white girl. Pac & I were in the room about 10 minutes before its started to get hot & we made eye contact to bounce like checks. We moved on to the next room that had a party vibe going on because our hotel was in the middle of nowhere and everybody stayed at the hotel to party. One hour later, the state police & helicopters were surrounding the hotel and all the males were being escorted outside to the parking lot for a lineup. It was pitch black outside and surrounded by woods. Pac is in line behind and me we both sweating mad bullets. As we step closer to the van parked in the parking lot, we held our breath for what seemed like hours. Although we didn't do anything wrong, we were there in the room & now surrounded by police in da middle of the night with nowhere to run. When my turn to step in front of the head lights came, I could see a mom & daughter in the van pointing. I stepped in front of the van's bright headlights and it's blinding me. I'm told to keep moving. I look back to make sure Pac gets cleared & he does. Later that night we got into talking about the experience and how the cops treated us. It set a tone for us on how quickly our rights could be taken away and rounded up like pack animals. We were trapped and didn't have a voice! Such life experiences made for great lyrics. What a way to go!


(Busy Bee)


As it took six months to clear his name, "I could've been bitter," Busy said. "But I knew God was protecting me the whole time. And I found out who my true friends were. To this day, Russell Simmons and Ice-T are two of the most stand-up dudes I ever met in my whole life. They put money on my commissary, sent me clothes, took my calls and kept my spirits up. They never once doubted my innocence."

by Donovan Niccolo Henry

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                                                              - to be continued -