It was back in January 1992 when Tupac Shakur, the late-West Coast rapper, was inspired to write a song about the heartbreaking story of a 12-year-old Brooklyn girl who was raped by a relative, and in her desperation, threw her newborn in the trash. That real-life event inspired his hit “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” and it went on to become a classic. Decades later, a biographer connected the dots and located the newborn who inspired the track. Now, that baby— who grew up on the opposite side of the country— is breaking his silence for the first time in 33 years in a fascinating update.
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Let’s take it back to the set of Paramount’s movie “Juice.” Shakur, just 19, played the character Bishop alongside Q (Omar Epps) and Raheem (Khalil Kain) in 1992. Ever the reader, the rapper would read the “New York Daily News” everyday, according to author Jeff Pearlman, who just wrote Shakur’s biography.
One article in particular, “Cries in the Night,” stood out to Shakur about a “12-year-old girl in public housing in Brooklyn.” The girl, Pearlman recently recalled on the “All the Smoke” podcast, “was raped by a cousin, gave birth to the baby on the floor, wrapped the baby in an odd job plastic bag [and] threw the baby down a trash heap.” (The original newspaper article reported how the newborn was rescued from the trash after someone heard their cry.)
Pearlman remembered that Shakur told 17-year-old Epps “Holy sh*t,” asked for 30 minutes alone, then disappeared inside his trailer before returning with a piece of paper with the opening bars written in blue ballpoint pen of the now iconic track.
The black-and-white video was released shortly after, in which Ethel “Edy” Proctor played Brenda. The track went on to peak at No. 3 on Billboard’s US Hot Rap Songs.
But for one person, the story didn’t end with a hit record and powerful video — it was just the beginning. The real-life infant, Davonn Hodge, survived and grew up to become a man.
“I can’t guarantee,” Michele Soulli, Pearlman’s former classmate and researcher said after he asked her to track down the infant from the article. “But I think it’s Brenda’s baby.” Pearlman noted how Hodge’s, now 33, birthday and history aligned with the baby from the story.
Hodge, who was adopted by Robert and Marsha Hodge and lived in Las Vegas, appeared on the podcast alongside Pearlman. Hodge’s parents died 10 months apart which inspired him to find his birth family because “he was all alone. I wanted to find out who I really was.” And a $99 ancestry test led him to his discover his iconic connection to the song— and his birth mother.
Pearlman contacted Hodge’s mom, named Jeanette, who instantly cried on the phone, asked about her son and explained how she had been looking for him for 20 years. She lived in New Jersey, but happened to be in Sin City for a concert — 20 minutes away from Hodge.
The mom and son reunited that same night, eight-tenths of a mile from where Shakur was gunned down on Sept. 7, 1996.
“I lived 32 years without knowing,” Hodge, who was a fan of Shakur, said. “Listening to this song my whole life, you know what I’m saying?”
Pearlman also contacted Yaasmyn Fula, Shakur’s ex-business manager, and told him of Hodge and Jeanette’s reunion.
“He would have loved that one song brought those people together,” Fula said. “He would have really loved that.”
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