he and his family moved to Atlanta. She did not want to move. Her mother said that if she could find a place to live, she could remain in New York. She stayed awhile in New York and eventually joined her family in Atlanta.
When Set was eighteen she had her first child, a daughter she named N’Zhinga. Though she was a single mother, she says that she never felt like a single mother, because when she left N’Zhinga’s father, she always had a boyfriend. Within a short time, she had met the man who would become the father of her son, Malik, who was born when she was nineteen.
At this point, Set says that her brother had become a bigger part of her life inasmuch as his financial success allowed him to be more like a father and a protector. “He took care of me and my children and many of the children of our former ‘little rascals’ gang,” she says. But, when Set’s son, Malik, was nine months old, Tupac was killed in Las Vegas in a crime that was never solved. Shortly after Tupac’s death, Set’s God brother, Yaki, was murdered. He was one of the ‘little rascals. ’ He looked up to me,” Set says. “He taught me that I could be admired. Because I am so sensitive and emotional, his admiration bonded us.”
Insightfully, Set explains: “The absence of my father stamped everything in my life. It influenced my relationships with every boyfriend I ever had. I felt dingy and insecure, and that I had no firm ground to stand on. I was clingy and terrified of abandonment.” She also points out that she is proud of her father’s pride in himself. “He’s a Leo, and such a lion. He taught me how to have that pride, but his absence really affected me.”
Set was able to see her father infrequently after his arrest. When he was moved to the penitentiary in Atlanta, she was able to see him weekly. He is moved from time to time, which makes it difficult for Set to see him with any regularity. Though held in a maximum-security prison, Dr. Shakur continues to correspond with and talk to his children frequently; attempting to be the best father and grandfather he can be under the circumstances.
Set speaks in a straightforward way of the rage in her that would break through her more typical sweetness from time to time. “I’d have a huge rage at least once a month. It would happen when I would interpret something as abandonment. Maybe it would come out when Tupac would go out with friends, or when he’d have friends over and I might get teased. I didn’t know it, but I probably also had post-partum depression.” At any rate, shortly after Tupac and Yaki were killed, Set broke up with Malik’s father. She says that she felt fat and ugly. “I just felt that I could not go on without my brothers. I was beginning to have suicidal feelings, just wanting to be with my brothers. I called my mother and let her know this was it. There were other friends around me who were dying, and some by suicide; one of them cut her own throat. I just couldn’t understand it and I asked my mom, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ My mother said that some people were just sad beings, that they had a sad spirit. I asked her if there were any sad beings who ‘made it’. She was very quiet and then she thought of the name of one who had ‘made it’ and gave me her phone number. I had bought my first house and my mother hadn’t been there yet, but she came there and stayed up all night to keep me safe. During this stressful and confusing time, I believed that I saw God, and Tupac and Yaki, who had both died. I was thinking to myself that God would not be mad at me if I just wanted to come home and be with my brothers. But, what I saw was that all three turned their backs on me, and so I decided not to kill myself. My mother asked me if I wanted to go to a hospital or a spa. I said, ‘a hospital,’ and someone recommended Sierra Tucson in Tucson, Arizona.”
Sierra Tucson is a unique treatment center dedicated to the prevention, education and treatment of addictions, and behavioral and psychiatric disorders and Set does not remember how her mother found out about it.
This month-long hospitalization was to be the beginning of Set’s new life. But, it was not an easy experience. “I was one of a handful of urban black people they had treated, and they didn’t really understand me or my experience. I had to teach them, get help for myself, and be with all these white people and try to understand them, too. But, I was able to step away from the urban environment I had been in and find some peace. My friends and family coined a phrase about my volatile emotions. They would say of me, ‘Set trippin.’ I found out that that wasn’t the real me that was so crazy, it was a chemical imbalance in my brain. I learned I have a condition I can control, but I had to attack it the way I attacked my schoolwork. I have wished that my whole nuclear family could learn what I learned in that month. Sierra Tucson saved my life!”
After her discharge from Sierra Tucson, Set settled in Sausalito with her children. She attended intensive psychotherapy for two years, combining individual and group therapy with 12-Step meetings of Codependents Anonymous and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. She was determined to continue to heal herself and create a foundation of mental health. She says that her rages all but disappeared and she became more aware of herself. Set makes the point that some aspects of mental health can be hereditary as well as environmental. “If you are continuing to have emotional problems or are continuing to use drugs, or going to jail, look into it,” she says. “There is help available.”
Once Set’s emotional health stabilized, she felt ready to return to school. “I’m dyslexic,” she explains. “I was six before I could spell my own name and I couldn’t read well. I hated to read out loud the way you have to do in grade school. And for the longest time I didn’t believe I could have a career. I thought maybe I could do something simple. I tried going to cosmetology school after Tupac died. But, there was too much gossip and everyone always asking, ‘Who killed Tupac?’ I just couldn’t stay. But, I am ambitious and I decided I needed to get the basic skills I had missed in high school. I enrolled in The College of Marin, a local community college near where I was living in California, and I learned so much! In high school I had learned that I could be somebody, but now I learned academic skills I really needed.”
When Set returned to Atlanta, she gained entrance to Clark University. She remained a student for one year, and though she says that she doesn’t remember much of what she learned there, what she did get was the confidence to pursue a career. There were several fitful starts and stops, with Set gaining experience along the way. She opened a beauty salon, but had trusted the wrong person as a partner, and had to leave that behind. She loved fashion and wanted to design clothes, but didn’t find a lot of support. Even so, she persevered and created her clothing line, Madame Velli, based on her own designs. She was determined to bring her ideas to market. “Before I went to Sierra Tucson I was overweight, had no confidence, and didn’t think of myself as pretty,” she says. “My idea of myself was what I saw reflected from the men and what they said about me. I just thought I couldn’t compete. When I received money from my brother’s endowment, I began to wear high fashion clothes, and I saw how I was judged differently as a result. I could see that the clothes were a distraction from me. They held me in a particular way. I wanted to design clothes that empowered women to be themselves.”
Set says that she decided to continue recreating herself. She had some cosmetic surgery despite disapproval from others. “Its what I wanted, and I just didn’t care what others said about it.” She married Gregory Jackson, in a magnificent and meaningful ceremony in her mother’s backyard. “Greg is totally supportive of me,” she says. “He adds stability to my life and I enjoy being a stepmother to his children.”
Nowadays, Set is one of the proud owners of a boutique clothing store in Decatur, GA, called The Wild Seed, in honor of her favorite author, Octavia Butler, who wrote a book by the same name.
“I’m a girl who most people wouldn’t think I’d read Octavia Butler. But I began reading her stories and books when I was eighteen or nineteen years old. I wept when she died recently and I wanted to acknowledge her in this way.”
In addition to her work at The Wild Seed, Set serves on the Board of Directors of The Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts in Stone Mountain, GA. She is the liaison for “Pac’s Kids,” who are students at the Center, and
