"Ballad Qualified"

The song "Brenda's Gotta Baby" by Tupac Shakur [2Pac] is undoubtabley a true modern ballad.  In the ballad, Tupac tells the story of young Brenda; he recounts the tragic sequence of events that occur after Brenda becomes pregnant by her much older cousin.  Brenda is a twelve year old African American girl who was raised in the ghetto of some unknown inner-city.  She is very uneducated, but has the potential to do something with her life.  She loses that option, when her significantly older boyfriend, who is also her cousin, gets her pregnant.  Brenda struggles to 'keep her head above water', but one bad situation only leads to a worse one.  The most obvious thing that the song and traditional ballad share is the fact that they tell a story, they are sung, and they are written in rhymed verse.  Most ballads express the theme of tragic accidents or sudden disasters;  Brenda's pregnancy was definitely a sudden disaster in her adolescent years.  Another frequent theme is that of jealous sweethearts or unrequited love; Brenda harbored unrequited love due to the fact that the guy she loved simply walked out when she became pregnant.  Lastly, Tupac's song and a traditional ballad both share the theme of murderous acts and the desire for revenge.  By the end of the ballad, Brenda decides turning to prostitution as a solution, and she ends up being violently slain in the process.