The subject behind one of 2Pac’s most iconic songs is telling his story.
Author Jeff Pearlman, whose upcoming biography about the hip-hop legend is due out later this month, opened up about the story of Davonn Hodge, the real baby from Pac’s “Brenda’s Got a Baby”.
In a sitdown with Matt Barnes for his All The Smoke podcast, Pearlman and Hodge discussed how “Brenda’s Got A Baby” came to be and how Hodge was eventually located and reconnected with his birth mother.
“2Pac was filming Juice, his first movie, and one day he gets an article, he reads the New York Daily News because he got the newspaper every day,” Pearlman said, revealing the incident occurred in 1990. “There’s an article, Cries in the Dark. He reads it and it’s about a 12-year-old girl in public housing in Brooklyn, who was raped by a cousin, gave birth to the baby on the floor, wrapped the baby in an odd job plastic bag, threw the baby down a trash heap.”
As revealed in the original article, the 12-year-old mother threw the baby down a garbage chute on disposal day. Luckily, someone heard the child’s cries and was able to rescue them.
“They take the baby to the hospital, and they later take the mother to the hospital,” Pearlman continued. “2Pac reads this article, and he says to Omar Epps, his co-star, ‘Holy sh-t.’ Goes into his trailer, he says, ‘Leave me alone for a little.’”
Eventually, Pac would return with the opening verse for “Brenda’s Got A Baby.” Pearlman eventually tracked down a genealogist who helped him track down the child who inspired one of Pac’s signature songs and within a week, Pearlman met with Hodge.
Hodge says it took a $99 ancestry DNA test to “unlock” the shocking truth. “I found out a little bit before Jeff,” Hodge said. “As soon as I did the ancestry test, I reached out to the closest family members on there. When you do an ancestry test, you never know what’s going to pop up. I wasn’t really doing it for the family side, it was more of the diaspora side.”
Hodge’s parents passed away months apart, prompting him to take the test. The news prompted him to call a relative, who later put him in contact with several other people who shared similar stories.
“They’re showing me the newspaper clips of back in the day and was telling me about what happened,” he said. “It would have been hard for them to find me, to be honest with you. My last name changed. … My mom did a good job sheltering me from that exposure.”
Hodge revealed his adoptive mother never revealed what happened to his biological mother or that she was raped. He also declined to name her due to increased media coverage surrounding the story.
“Me and my mom had visitation rights till I was around two,” Hodge said. “I lived 32 years without knowing, Listening to this song my whole life, you know what I’m saying?”
Pearlman didn’t stop with finding Hodge. He eventually found Hodge’s birth mother and the two reconnected in Las Vegas earlier this year, ending her 20-year search for her son.
Watch Hodge and Pearlman on All The Smoke below.
