Tupac's song 'Brenda's Got A Baby' was based on a true story. Now Brenda's baby has been found.

Jacalyn Wetzel
Tue, 21 Oct 2025 21:37:29 +0000
80s, 90s, Adoption, America, Brooklyn, Childhood, Death, Genealogist, Generational, Interviews, Juice, Music, New york, Red hot chili peppers, Struggles, True story, Tupac, Brenda's got a baby

If you're a child of the '80s and '90s, Tupac was likely a popular figure you couldn't escape hearing about. Not only did he make prolific music addressing the struggles of the times, but he also gave brilliant interviews about the state of the country. Of course, there were some songs mixed into his repertoire that wouldn't fall into the category of profound, but the majority of his music had a message. A message that often crossed generational and racial barriers.

It's hard to believe Tupac was only in the music industry for such a short period of time before his tragic death. And one of the songs that captured America's attention was based on a real-life case that did the same. "Brenda's Got A Baby" took the radio by storm, and the visual depiction of the story unfolding in the music video added more emotion to the sad tale.

The song was based on an article Tupac read while he was filming the movie Juice, according to author Jeff Pearlman, who wrote a new biography called Only God Can Judge Me about the late rapper. Recently, the biographer appeared on the podcast All the Smoke with Davonn Hodge, the baby at the center of Tupac's song. Yes, Brenda's baby is all grown up and seemingly thriving after having a good childhood despite how his life began.

Brenda's story caught Tupac's attention because she was just a child herself when she gave birth to her son. Pearlman tells the podcast hosts about the events that took place in 1991, sharing, "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," he says. "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."

Tupac with group of people in music videoTupac/YouTube

According to reports from the time, the girl did indeed give birth on her apartment floor in Brooklyn and threw the baby down a trash chute. It was trash day, so maintenance workers were making their rounds to turn on the trash compactors when McArthur Williams says he heard the infant crying, according to the Roanoke Times. The baby, now known to be Davonn Hodge, was transported to the hospital and later adopted.

"Man, who would've thought a $99 Ancestry DNA test would literally unlock a whole Tupac revelation of a song that was one of his first hits," Hodge says to the podcast hosts. "My mom and dad died 10 months apart. When things like that happen, you try to reinvent yourself and find a way. As soon as I called one of the people within the close range of my family member, she knew exactly who I was and put me on the phone with about 10 different people, showing me the newspaper clips from back in the day, and was telling me about what happened."

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Hodge explains that he was adopted as a newborn, unable to stay with his biological mother due to the circumstances around his birth. But he says he did have visitation with his birth mother until he was in first or second grade, when his last name was officially changed to match his adoptive parents. It was then that all contact between Brenda and Hodge was cut off, and they lost touch with each other until the DNA results uncovered the truth. Hodge says he never fully understood what happened surrounding his birth, as his adoptive parents only said his mother was too young and couldn't care for him.

Brenda wasn't charged with a crime due to her age, and eventually, the cousin who assaulted her and fathered her child was convicted. When a genealogist reached out to Brenda, Pearlman says she was frantic trying to find out if the genealogist knew where her son was, as she had been looking for him for over 20 years. Hodge flew out to Las Vegas, where Brenda was attending a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert, to meet her. He tells the cohosts that he's stayed in touch with Brenda and they're working on building their bond as mother and son.

Watch the entire interview below: