the biography of 2pac

Tupac Shakur

Decades after his 1996 murder, artist and actor Tupac Shakur remains one of the top-selling and most influential rappers of all time.

We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back.

Latest News: Man Charged with the Murder of Tupac Shakur

Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a former member of the Crips street gang, was arrested and indicted on one count of murder on September 29, 2023, for his role in the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur. Davis previously claimed in 2018 that he was inside the car from which the fatal shots against Shakur were fired, but that the gun was in the hands of his now-deceased nephew Orlando Anderson. Davis was indicted by a grand jury in Clark County, Nevada, and is in custody, according to prosecutors. The arrest comes after the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department executed a search warrant at a home in Henderson, Nevada, in July 2023, in connection with the rapper’s unsolved murder.

Who Was Tupac Shakur?

Quick facts, early life: mom, siblings, and more, move to california and rise to fame, legal problems and serving jail time, joining death row records and ‘all eyez on me’, tupac and biggie smalls: the story of “hit ’em up”, movies and other work, romantic relationships: madonna, ex-wife, and more, murder investigation.

One of the top-selling artists of all time, rapper and actor Tupac Shakur embodied the 1990s gangsta-rap aesthetic and, in death, has become an icon symbolizing noble struggle. Tupac began his music career as a rebel with a cause to articulate the still-relevant travails and injustices endured by many Black Americans. The boundaries between his art and life became increasingly blurred, as Shakur faced legal problems and jail time. On his fourth album, All Eyez On Me , Tupac leaned fully into celebrating the thug lifestyle. It was the last album Tupac would live to see released. On September 7, 1996, the 25-year-old was gunned down in Las Vegas and died six days later. Police continue to investigate his murder.

FULL NAME: Tupac Amaru Shakur (born Lesane Parish Crooks) BORN: June 16, 1971 DIED: September 13, 1996 BIRTHPLACE: New York, New York SPOUSE: Keisha Morris (1995-1996) ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Gemini

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born Lesane Parish Crooks on June 16, 1971, in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. His mother, Afeni Shakur , had been a political activist and Black Panther Party member who was arrested in 1969 for allegedly planning coordinated attacks on police stations and offices in New York City. She became pregnant with Tupac while out on bail, and she was acquitted in 1971 after defending herself in court.

When Lesane was 1 year old, Afeni changed his name to Tupac Amaru after a Peruvian revolutionary who was killed by the Spanish. She said of the name : “I wanted him to have the name of revolutionary, indigenous people in the world. I wanted him to know he was part of a world culture and not just from a neighborhood.” Tupac later took his surname from his sister Sekyiwa’s father, another Black Panther named Mutulu Shakur. Tupac also had a stepbrother, Mopreme.

Tupac’s father, Billy Garland, lost contact with Afeni when Tupac was 5, and he didn’t see his dad again until he was 23. “I thought my father was dead all my life,” he told the writer Kevin Powell during an interview with Vibe magazine in 1996. “I felt I needed a daddy to show me the ropes, and I didn’t have one.” Raising Tupac and his half-sister alone , Afeni worked as a paralegal before developing a crack cocaine addiction in the early 1980s. The family had to move often, struggling for money and living off welfare because she couldn’t keep a job.

Friendship with Jada Pinkett-Smith

In 1984, the family moved to Baltimore, where Tupac enrolled at the prestigious Baltimore School for the Arts, where he said he was “the freest I ever felt.” This was also where Tupac met the future actor Jada Pinkett-Smith . He wrote poems about her, and she had a cameo in his music video for “Strictly 4 My Niggaz.” Pinkett-Smith later told reporters that she was a drug dealer when she met Tupac, and that she resented the way the movie All Eyez on Me (2017) later “reimagined” their relationship: “It wasn’t just about, oh, you have this cute girl, and this cool guy, they must have been in this—nah, it wasn’t that at all. It was about survival, and it had always been about survival between us.”

Tupac’s Baltimore neighborhood was riven by crime, so the family moved to Marin City, California. It turned out to be a “mean little ghetto,” according to Vanity Fair . It was in Marin City that Afeni succumbed to her crack addiction—a drug that Tupac sold on the same streets where his mother bought her supply. Her behavior led to a falling out between mother and son.

Tupac’s love for hip-hop steered him away from a life of crime (for a while, at least). At 17, in the spring of 1989, he struck up a friendship with Leila Steinberg, who he met when she was hosting holding poetry lessons in an Oakland park, according to Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur by Michael Eric Dyson. Already, Tupac had been obsessively writing poetry and convinced Steinberg, who had no music industry experience, to become his manager. She was eventually able to get Tupac in front of music manager Atron Gregory, who secured a gig for him in 1990 as a roadie and backup dancer for the hip-hop group Digital Underground.

He soon stepped up to the mic, making his recording debut in 1991 on “Same Song,” which soundtracked the Dan Aykroyd comedy Nothing but Trouble . Tupac also appeared on Digital Underground’s album Sons of the P that October. After Gregory also became Tupac’s manager, he landed the up-and-coming rapper a deal with Interscope Records. A month after Sons of the P hit the stores came 2Pacalypse Now , Tupac’s debut album as a solo artist.

Tupac often complained that he was misunderstood. “Everything in life is not all beautiful,” he told journalist Chuck Phillips. “There is lots of killing and drugs. To me a perfect album talks about the hard stuff and the fun and caring stuff... The thing that bothers me is that it seems like a lot of the sensitive stuff I write just goes unnoticed.”

As Tupac first began to achieve success as a rapper, Afeni was unaware of his career until friends told her. “I didn’t know what was happening to my son,” she said . “I thought, ‘What am I doing?’” Afeni became determined to break out of her drug addiction, which she finally did after moving back to New York City in 1991. Tupac and his mother later reconciled and remained close the rest of his life.

Tupac, who only released four albums in his lifetime, has 21 albums to his name, 10 of which have earned platinum, multiplatinum, or diamond certification. As of July 2023, the Recording Industry Association of America listed Tupac as the 45 th top-selling artist of all-time by album sales and streaming figures. Worldwide, more than 75 million Tupac records have sold to date, according to Forbes .

2Pacalypse Now

Tupac’s first album as a solo artist was  2Pacalypse Now  (1991). Although it didn’t yield any hits, it sold a respectable 500,000 copies and established Tupac as an uncompromising social commentator on songs such as “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” which narrates an underaged mother’s fall into destitution, and “Soulja’s Story,” which controversially spoke of “blasting” a police officer and “droppin’ the cop.” The song was cited as a motivation for a real-life cop killing by a teenage car thief called Ronald Ray Howard and was condemned by then–U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle,  who said , “There is absolutely no reason for a record like this to be published... It has no place in our society.” With those words, Tupac’s notoriety was guaranteed.

Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.

Tupac’s second album dropped in February 1993. It continued in the same socially conscious vein as his debut. On the hit song “Keep Ya Head Up,” he empathized with “my sisters on the welfare,” encouraging them to “please don’t cry, dry your eyes, never let up.” The single was gold-certified by the end of the year and reached platinum status in 2021. The album featured contributions from Tupac’s stepbrother, Mopreme. Mopreme became a member of the hip-hop group Thug Life, which Tupac started and which released the album  Thug Life: Volume 1  in 1994.

Me Against the World

When Tupac’s third solo album came out on March 14, 1995, he was in jail. Its title,  Me Against the World , couldn’t have been more apt. It reached No. 1 in the Billboard 200 chart and is considered by many to be his magnum opus—“by and large a work of pain, anger and burning desperation,”  wrote Cheo H. Coker  of Rolling Stone. But there was vulnerability, too. The lead single, “Dear Mama,” was a  tear-jerking tribute to his mother , Afeni, that hit No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1995.

All Eyez On Me

The final album Tupac released in his lifetime was 1996’s  All Eyez On Me , his first after signing to Death Row Records.  All Eyez on Me , which featured hit songs “California Love” and “How Do U Want I,” remains one of the rapper’s most successful albums.

Posthumous Albums

Tupac recorded six studio albums that were released following his death. The first,  The  Don Killuminati: The Seven Day Theory , dropped in November 1996, just eight weeks after he was killed, reaching No. 1 on the charts. Other posthumous albums included 1997’s  R U Still Down? (Remember Me) ,  Until the End of Time  (2001),  Better Dayz  (2002),  Loyal to the Game  (2004), and  Pac’s Life  (2006). Additional compilation and live albums have also been released. 

In April 2017, Tupac was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame , one of music’s highest honors. He was the first solo hip-hop artist to be inducted and was selected in his first year of eligibility.

In August 1992, Tupac was attacked by jealous kids in Marin City. He drew his pistol but dropped it in the melee. Someone picked it up, the gun fired, and a 6-year-old bystander, Qa’id Walker-Teal, fell dead. Although Tupac wasn’t charged for Walker-Teal’s death, he was reportedly inconsolable. In 1995, Walker-Teal’s family brought a civil case against Tupac but settled out of court after an unnamed record company—thought to have been Death Row—offered compensation of between $300,000 to $500,000.

In October 1993, Tupac shot and wounded two white off-duty cops in Atlanta, one in the abdomen and one in the buttocks, after an altercation. However, the charges were dropped after it emerged in court that the policemen had been drinking, had initiated the incident, and that one of the officers had threatened Tupac with a stolen gun.

Tupac noted the case illustrated the misrepresentation of Black men in America and the attitude of some police toward them, which he had been talking about in his music. What was portrayed as gun-toting “gangster” behavior by a lawless individual turned out to be an act of self-defense by a young man in fear of his life. All the while, Tupac’s star continued to rise.

Unable to escape punishment entirely, Tupac went to jail for 15 days in 1994 for assaulting movie director Allen Hughes, who had fired him from the set of Menace II Society for being disruptive.

He faced much more serious charges in February 1995, when Tupac was sentenced to between 1.5 and 4.5 years of jail time for sexually abusing a woman. The case related to an incident that had taken place in Tupac’s suite in the New York Parker Meridien hotel in November 1993. Tupac maintained that he hadn’t raped the fan, though he confessed to the Vibe magazine journalist Kevin Powell that he could have prevented others who were present in the suite at the time from doing so. “I had a job [to protect her], and I never showed up,” he said .

While Tupac was in prison on rape charges, he was visited by Suge Knight, the notorious head of Death Row records. Knight offered to post the $1.3 million dollar bail Tupac needed to be released pending his appeal. The condition was that Tupac sign on to Death Row, which Tupac did. He was released from the high-security Dannemora facility in New York in October 1995. Even as he was glorifying an outlaw lifestyle for Death Row, Tupac was financing an at-risk youth center, bankrolling South Central sports teams, and setting up a telephone helpline for young people with problems, according to Vanity Fair .

Tupac’s debut for Death Row, the double-length album All Eyez on Me , came out in February 1996. With his new hip-hop group Outlawz debuting on the album, All Eyez on Me was an unapologetic celebration of the thug lifestyle, eschewing socially conscious lyrics in favor of gangsta-funk hedonism and menace. Dr. Dre , who had pioneered G-funk with NWA, produced the album’s first single, “California Love,” which went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remains Tupac’s best-known song. The third single from the album, “How Do You Want It,” also topped the chart. Within two months of its release, All Eyez on Me had been certified five-times double-platinum. It would eventually become diamond-certified, reaching more than 10 million combined sales and streams.

Before Tupac released his third album, he became a target. In November 1994, he was shot multiple times in the lobby of the Manhattan recording studio Quad by two young Black men. Tupac believed his rap rival Biggie Smalls was behind the shooting, for which nobody has ever been charged. Smalls always denied he knew anything about the incident. In 2011, Dexter Isaac, a New York prisoner serving a life sentence for an unrelated crime, claimed music executive James “Henchman” Rosemond paid him to steal from Tupac and that he shot the rapper during the robbery.

In June 1996, Tupac released a diss track, “Hit ’Em Up,” aimed at Biggie Smalls and his label boss at Bad Boy Records, Sean “Diddy” Combs . The song ratcheted up the tension between East and West Coast rap. In the inflammatory song, Tupac also spat venom at artists Lil Kim , Junior M.A.F.I.A., and Prodigy of Mobb Deep. Tupac and Biggie’s rivalry was fast becoming hip-hop’s most famous—and ugliest—beef.

“Hit ’Em Up” seemed to chillingly presage Tupac’s death and the ensuing conspiracy theories: “Grab ya Glocks, when you see Tupac; Call the cops, when you see Tupac, uh; Who shot me, but ya punks didn’t finish; Now ya bout to feel the wrath of a menace.”

Within three months, Tupac was murdered. Six months after that, Biggie was, too. Neither murder has been solved.

Along with his music, Tupac pursued an acting career. He appeared in several movies, among them starring roles alongside Janet Jackson in 1993’s Poetic Justice and Mickey Rourke in 1996’s Bullet .

After Tupac died, a collection of poems he wrote before becoming a rapper was also compiled and released in a 2000 book called The Rose that Grew from Concrete . “The world moves fast and it would rather pass u by / than 2 stop and c what makes you cry,” reads one verse he wrote as a teenager.

Tupac briefly dated pop star Madonna . However, while serving time in prison in January 1995, Tupac wrote a letter to Madonna ending their relationship because of her race. “For you to be seen with a Black man wouldn’t in any way jeopardize your career—if anything it would make you seem that much more open and exciting,” he wrote . “But for me, at least in my previous perception, I felt due to my ‘image,’ I would be letting down half of the people who made me what I thought I was.”

Tupac married Keisha Morris in April 1995 while he was still in prison. The couple had met several months earlier at a nightclub when Morris was 20 and Tupac was 21. Their marriage was annulled 10 months later after Tupac was released from jail. The pair remained friends until his death.

Soon after his marriage to Morris ended, Tupac began dating Kidada Jones . They had met at a club when Tupac apologized for insulting her father, Quincy Jones , for only dating white women. Jones was in Las Vegas with Tupac the night he was shot.

Tupac died in Las Vegas on September 13, 1996, from gunshot wounds inflicted six days prior. He was 25. His murder remains unsolved.

On September 7, Tupac was in Las Vegas with Suge Knight to watch a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand hotel. There was a scuffle after the bout between a member of the Crips gang and Tupac. Knight, who was involved with the rival Bloods gang, and members of his entourage piled in. Later, as a car that Tupac was sharing with Knight stopped at a red light, a man emerged from another car and fired 13 shots, hitting Tupac in the hand, pelvis, and chest. Tupac later died at the hospital. His girlfriend Kidada and his mother Afeni were both with him in his final days.

Tupac’s body was cremated. Members of his old band, Outlawz, made the controversial claim that they had smoked some of his ashes in honor of him. His mother announced she would scatter her son’s ashes in Soweto, South Africa, the “birthplace of his ancestors,” on the 10 th anniversary of his murder. She later changed the date to June 16, 1997—Tupac’s 26 th birthday as well as the anniversary of the 1976 Soweto uprising.

Police have yet to determine who killed Tupac, and his death remains an open homicide case.

In early 2018, BET aired an episode of Death Row Chronicles in which former Crips member Duane “Keffe D” Keith Davis admitted that he was riding in the car with the man who killed Tupac; he declined to identify the shooter in the interview, revealing only that the shots “came from the back seat,” though he had earlier told federal investigators that the gun was in the hands of his now-deceased nephew Orlando Anderson.

The revelation fueled the launch of a change.org petition that called for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to declare the case “cleared.” It also led to rumors that new arrest warrants were pending, but the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department denied those rumors.

In July 2023, news broke about a possible breakthrough in the investigation. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department executed a search warrant at a home in Henderson, Nevada, on July 17 in connection with the rapper’s unsolved murder. Authorities haven’t shared many details, such as what they were looking for and whether there’s a suspect, citing the ongoing investigation.

On September 29, Davis was arrested and charged with murder for his role in Tupac’s death. He was was indicted by a grand jury in Clark County, Nevada, and is in custody, according to prosecutors.

Tupac Conspiracies: Is Tupac Alive?

Tupac died of gunshot wounds in 1996. However, conspiracy theories have raged ever since he was shot, because his murder has never been solved. Fans have speculated that Tupac faked his death. On his song “Life Goes On,” Tupac rapped about his funeral. His song “I Ain’t Mad at Cha” was released two days after he died. There have been several reported potential Tupac “sightings” since his death, including in 2012 by Kim Kardashian .

In September 2017, music executive Suge Knight hinted that Tupac might be alive in an interview. “When I left that hospital me and ’Pac was laughing and joking. I don’t see how someone can go from doing well to doing bad,” he said , adding that “with Pac you never know” if he could be alive and living in secret somewhere.

In November 2017, A&E aired the six-part Biography Presents: Who Killed Tupac? , which followed civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump on his investigation into key theories behind Tupac’s 1996 killing.

• My mama always used to tell me, “ If you can ’ t find somethin ’ to live for, you best find somethin ’ to die for. ”
• No matter who committed the crime, they yell at me. And the media is greedier than most.
• I’m a reflection of the community.
• The only thing that comes to a sleeping man is dreams.
• Wars come and go, but my soldiers stay eternal.
• I feel close to Marvin Gaye , Vincent van Gogh , because nobody appreciated his work until he was dead. Now it ’ s worth millions.
• I’m doing this for the kid who truly lives a “ thug life ” and thinks it ’ s hopeless.
• During your life, never stop dreaming. No one can take away your dreams.
• When I die and they come for me, bury me a G.
• Live by the gun. Die by the gun.
• In my death, people will understand what I was talking about.

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us !

The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us

Colin McEvoy joined the Biography.com staff in 2023, and before that had spent 16 years as a journalist, writer, and communications professional. He is the author of two true crime books: Love Me or Else and Fatal Jealousy . He is also an avid film buff, reader, and lover of great stories.

Black History

Kamala Harris

Donald Glover

MLK Almost Didn’t Say “I Have a Dream”

Ray Charles

Whoopi Goldberg

Stevie Wonder

Sylvia Rivera

Jesse Owens

Opal Lee: The “Grandmother of Juneteenth”

13 Powerful Marsha P. Johnson Quotes

• Instrumentals
• Rare Projects
• Guest Appearance
• Official Albums
• Official Mixes
• Official Singles
• Original Soundtracks
• Original Versions
• Posthumous Albums
• Promo Singles
• Unofficial Albums
• Unreleased Projects
• Unreleased Songs
• Documentary
• Fan made Mix
• Live performance
• Music Videos
• Timeline 1970-1990
• Timeline 1991
• Timeline 1992
• Timeline 1993
• Timeline 1994
• Timeline 1995
• Timeline 1996
• 2Pac Interviews
• Handwritten
• Holla 2 ‘Pac
• Pac’s Death
• Pac’s Life
• Who Killed Tupac?
• Pac’s Family
• Pac’s Homiez
• Digital Underground
• Stretch (Randy Walker)
• Big Syke (Tyruss Himes)
• Mopreme (Maurice William)
• The Rated R (Walter Burns)
• Macadoshis (Dirion/Dave Rivers)
• Outlawz Albums
• Kastro (Katari Cox)
• Napoleon (Mutah Beale)
• Storm (Donna Harkness)
• Yaki Kadafi (Yafeu Fula)
• Death Row Artists

DL: 2Pac – O.H. 2 N.O. (Live)

Dl: dante presents og vibe series, evil mind gangsta’s – all hell breakin’ loose [1992] [cd],  dl: ultimate death row video compilation (dvd) iso, 2pac pre death row approximate recording dates + complete producer credits, the outlawz – penitentiary bound – napoleon, kastro, e.d.i. mean, komani & prince ital joe, 2pac – outlaw immortalz feat. hussein fatal, yaki kadafi, e.d.i. mean & big syke (oct. 1996), e-40 – million dollar spot feat. 2pac & b-legit (1996), never-heard 2pac’s 1991 interview with michael small, 1996-06-29 / tupac interview in italy with paola zukar of “aelle rap magazine”, dl: 2pac video collection 3 dvd discs (iso) by deathrowrecords.com, new exclusive leaks of 2pac mugshots, november 18, 1993, 2pacalypse now notebook, 1995-09-10 / 2pac loves tronya, rare photo at clinton correctional facility, 1991-06-29 / 2pac and digital underground during the “budweiser superfest”, tupac’s shooter from ’94, walter ”king tut” johnson was released from a prison, 2pac’s artists projects timeline, most valuable 2pac collectibles, how tupac shakur changed hip-hop, dr. mutulu shakur, tupac’s stepfather, dies at 72, tupac’s biological father billy garland opens up on how he felt after the ”dear mama” track, tupac and jada pinkett smith: the never-ending story, after 36 years behind bars: mutulu shakur speaks out for the first time since being released, dl: suge knight: on the real death row story (2001) (dvd), dl: if my homie calls (rnb & street mix) cassette tape prod. by greg beasley, dl: dj cochise – makaveli 2 the remix album – volume 8 (coc 522) (us) [flac], 2pac – love ya future (1992) (unleaked), 2pac – blunt time feat. method man, the lady of rage, roger troutman (unreleased), napoleon & big syke – bitch nigga (march 12, 1996) (unfinished & unreleased), when record promoter was attacked by suge knight and death row crew, dl: digital underground – raw uncut [dvd], rare interview reveals 2pac’s emotions behind the scenes of “poetic justice”, unseen tupac interview reveals why he decided to star in gridlock’d, a rare interview with tupac during the shooting of the movie “gang related” emerges, 2pac’s original studio reel-to-reel unreleased [august 05, 1994], 1996-06-19 / day 6 – ”one nation” project. the last pac’s day in l.a., tupac is holding a baby bottle. rare photo from baltimore, 1987, surprising facts about tupac shakur, ”nothing 2 lose” handwritten lyrics, 2pac’s influence on street art: a graffiti journey, tupac’s favorite hobbies, the story of tupac’s godmother assata shakur and why she’s on the fbi’s most wanted list, who was biggie smalls aka big dric from 2pac’s ”god bless the dead”, candyman 187 talks about the havenotz group and the savior tupac, sekyiwa ‘set’ shakur – what it’s like to be tupac’s sister.

Tupac Shakur Biography

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City, New York. He was named after  Tupac Amaru II , an Incan revolutionary who led an indigenous uprising against Spain and subsequently received capital punishment. The names “Tupac Amaru” and “Shakur” mean Shining Serpent or Royal Serpent in Quechua and Thankful (to God) in Arabic, respectively.

His mother,  Afeni Shakur , was an active member of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s; Tupac was born just one month after her acquittal on more than 100 charges of “Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks” in the New York Panther 21 court case Tupac grew up around nothing but self-delusion. His mother, thought she was a “revolutionary. ” She called herself “ Afeni Shakur ” and associated with members of the ill-fated Black Panther Party, a movement that wanted to feed school kids breakfast and earn civil rights for African Americans.

During her youth she dropped out of high school, partied with North Carolina gang members, then moved to Brooklyn: After an affair with one of Malcolm X’s bodyguards, she became political. When the mostly white United Federation of Teachers went on strike in 1968, she crossed the picket line and taught the children herself.

After this she joined a New York chapter of the Black Panther Party and fell in with an organizer named Lumumba. She took to ranting about killing “the pigs” and overthrowing the government, which eventually led to her arrest and that of twenty comrades for conspiring to set off a race war. Pregnant, she made bail and told her husband, Lummuba, it wasn’t his child. Behind his back she had been carrying on with Legs (a small-time associate of Harlem drug baron Nicky Barnes) and Billy Garland (a member of the Party). Lumumba immediately divorced her.

Tupac said, “I never knew where my father was or who my father was for sure.” His godfather, Geronimo Pratt, was also a high-ranking Panther. His step-father, Mutulu, was a drug dealer who, according to Tupac, was rarely present to give him the discipline he needed.

Tupac had a half-sister, Sekyiwa , two years his junior, and an older stepbrother, Mopreme “Komani” Shakur , who appeared on many of his recordings.

At the age of twelve, Shakur enrolled in Harlem’s famous “127th Street Ensemble.” His first major role with this acting troupe was as Travis in A Raisin in the Sun . In 1986 Tupac’s mother brought him and his sister to live in Baltimore, Maryland. The Shakurs lived on Greenmount Ave. in East Baltimore. There, Tupac was disliked because of his looks, name, and lack of trendy clothing. He attended Roland Park Middle School, then spent his freshman year at Paul Lawrence Dunbar High.

For his sophomore year Tupac was accepted to the Baltimore School for the Arts. He enjoyed his classes there, studying theater, ballet, and other arts. It was during this time that Tupac became close friends with another student named Jada Pinkett. Even at this young age, Tupac was outspoken on the subject of racial equality. His teachers remembered him as being a very gifted student. He was an avid reader, delving into books on eastern religions, and even entire encyclopedia sets. Hiding his love of literature from his peers, he gained the respect of his peers by acting like a tough guy. Tupac composed his first rap in Baltimore under the name “MC New York”. The song was about gun control and was inspired by the fatal shooting of one of his close friends.

From childhood, everyone called him the “ Black Prince .” For misbehaving, he had to read an entire edition of The New York Times. But she had no answer when he asked about his daddy. “She just told me, ‘I don’t know who your daddy is.’ It wasn’t like she was a slut or nothing’. It was just some rough times. “When he was two, his sister, Sekyiwa, was born. This child’s father, Mutulu, was a Black Panther who, a few months before her birth, had been sentenced to sixty years for a fatal armoured car robbery.

With Mutulu away, the family experienced hard times. No matter where they moved-the Bronx, Harlem, homeless shelters Tupac was distressed. “I remember crying all the time. My major thing growing up was I couldn’t fit in. Because I was from everywhere. I didn’t have no buddies that I grew up with.”

At the age of twelve, Tupac enrolled in Harlem’s 127th Street Repertory Ensemble and was cast as the Travis Younger character in the play A Raisin in the Sun, which was performed at the Apollo Theater. In 1986, his family moved to Baltimore, Maryland. After completing his second year at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, he transferred to the Baltimore School for the Arts. There he studied acting, poetry, jazz, and ballet. He performed in Shakespeare plays, and in the role of the Mouse King in the ballet The Nutcracker.

In June 1988 , a drug-addicted Afeni was having trouble finding work (her Panther past did not help, either). She uprooted the family again and brought Tupac and Sekyiwa to live with a family friend in Marin City, California,  where Tupac attended Tamalpais High School . He joined the Ensemble Theater Company (ETC) to pursue his career in entertainment.

Tupac move into Leila Steinberg’s home with his friend Ray Luv at the age of seventeen and he eventually dropped out of high school. Leila Steinberg acted as a literary mentor to Tupac, an avid reader.

In August of 1988, Tupac’s stepfather Mutulu was sentenced to sixty years in prison for armed robbery after being on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for several years. Shakur soon moved in with a neighbor and started selling drugs on the street, but also made friends who helped spark his interest in rap music. One of these was Ray Luv, and with a mutual friend named DJ Dize (Dizz-ee), they started a rap group called Strictly Dope . Their recordings were later released in 2001 under the name Tupac Shakur: The Lost Tapes. Their neighborhood performances brought Tupac enough acclaim to land an audition with Shock G of Digital Underground.

Steinberg has kept copies of the books that he read, which include J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Jamaica Kincaid’s At the Bottom of the River, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Eileen Southern’s Music of Black Americans, and the feminist writings of Alice Walker and Robin Morgan. Most of these books were read before the age of twenty. It has been said that Tupac was, in fact, more well-read and intellectually well-rounded at that age than the average student in the first year class of most Ivy League institutions In 1989, Leila Steinberg organized a concert with Tupac’s group, Strictly Dope . The concert lead to him being signed with Atron Gregory who set him up with Digital Underground .

Tupac’s professional entertainment career began in the early 1990s, when he debuted his rapping skills on “ Same Song ” from the Digital Underground album ” This is an EP Release ”. He first appeared in the music video for “ Same Song “. After his rap debut, Tupac performed with Digital Underground again on the album ” Sons Of The P ”.

Later, he released his first solo album, 2Pacalypse Now . Initially he had trouble marketing his solo debut, but Interscope Records ‘ executives Ted Field and Tom Whalley eventually agreed to distribute the record.

Tupac claimed his first album was aimed at the problems facing young black males, but it was publicly criticized for its graphic language and images of violence by and against law enforcement.In one instance, a young man claimed his killing of a Texas-based trooper was influenced by the album. Former Vice President Dan Quayle publicly denounced the album as having “no place in our society” 2Pacalypse Now did not do as well on the charts as future albums, spawning no top ten hits.

His second record, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z… , was released in 1993. The album, produced mostly in part by Randy “ Stretch ” Walker (Shakur’s closest friend and associate at the time) and the Live Squad , generated two hits, “ Keep Ya Head Up ” and “ I Get Around “, the latter featuring guest appearances by Shock G and Money-B of the Digital Underground .

Shakur’s profile was raised considerably by his acclaimed role in the Ernest Dickerson film Juice, which led to a lead role in John Singleton’s Poetic Justice the following year. By the time the film hit theaters, 2Pac had released his second album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z… , which became a platinum album, peaking at number four on the R&B charts and launching the Top Ten R&B hit singles “I Get Around” and “Keep Ya Head Up,” which peaked at number 11 and 12, respectively, on the pop charts. Late in 1993, he acted in the basketball movie ”Above the Rim”.  Tupac was filming ” Menace II Society ” in the summer of 1993 when he assaulted director Allen Hughes; he was sentenced to 15 days in jail in early 1994. Although Tupac was selling records and earning praise for his music and acting, he began having serious altercations with the law; prior to becoming a recording artist, he had no police record.

By the time he was twenty, Tupac had been arrested eight times, even serving eight months in prison after being convicted of sexual abuse. In addition, he was the subject of two wrongful-death lawsuits, one involving a six-year-old boy who was killed after getting caught in gang-war crossfire between Tupac’s gang and a rival group.

In late 1993, Shakur formed the group Thug Life with a number of his friends, including Big Syke , Macadoshis , his stepbrother Mopreme Shakur , and Rated R . The group released their first and only record album Thug Life Vol. 1 on September 26, 1994. The group usually performed their concerts without Tupac.

The concept of “Thug Life” was viewed by Tupac as a philosophy for life. He developed the word into a backronym standing for “ The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody “. He declared that the dictionary definition of a “thug” as being a rogue or criminal was not how he used the term, but rather he meant someone who came from oppressive or squalid background and little opportunity but still made a life for himself and was proud. In 1994, he was found guilty of sexual assault . The day after the verdict was announced, he was shot by a pair of muggers while he was in the lobby of a New York City recordings studio. Shakur was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison on February 7, 1995.

He married his long-time girlfriend, Keisha Morris , while serving his sentence. This marriage was later annulled. While imprisoned, Shakur read many books by Niccolo Machiavelli, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and other works of political philosophy and strategy.

Read for Keisha Morris, here .

He also wrote a screenplay titled ” Live 2 Tell ” while incarcerated, a story about an adolescent who becomes a drug baron.

After serving eleven months of his one-and-a-half year to four-and-a-half year sentence, Tupac was released from the penitentiary, due in large part to the help and influence of Marion “ Suge ” Knight, CEO of Death Row Records. Knight posted $1.4 million bail pending appeal of the conviction, in exchange for which Shakur was obligated to release three albums for the Death Row label.

It debuted at number one upon its February release, and would be certified quintuple platinum by the fall. Although he had a hit record and, with the Dr. Dre duet “California Love,” a massive single on his hands, Shakur was beginning to tire of hip-hop and started to concentrate on acting. During the summer of 1996, he completed two films, the thriller Bullet and the dark comedy Gridlock’d, which also starred Tim Roth. He also made some recordings for Death Row, which was quickly disintegrating without Dre as the house producer, and as Knight became heavily involved in illegal activities.

The album presents a stark contrast to previous works. Throughout the album, Tupac continues to focus on the themes of pain and aggression, making this album one of the emotionally darker works of his career. Tupac wrote and recorded all the lyrics in only three days and the production took another four days, combining for a total of seven days to complete the album (hence the name). The album was completely finished before Shakur died and Shakur had complete creative input on the album from the name of the album to the cover, which Shakur chose to symbolize how the media had crucified him. The record debuted at number one and sold 663,000 copies in the first week. Tupac had plans of starting Makaveli Records which would have included Outlawz, Wu-Tang Clan, Big Daddy Kane, Big Syke, and Gang Starr.

On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur attended the Mike Tyson – Bruce Seldon boxing match at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. After leaving the match, one of Suge Knight’s associates spotted 21 year-old Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson , a member of the Southside Crips, in the MGM Grand lobby and had Shakur aware. Shakur immediately rushed Anderson and knocked him to the ground. Shakur’s entourage, as well as Knight and his followers assisted in beating down Anderson. The fight was captured on the hotel’s video surveillance. A few weeks earlier, Anderson and a group of Crips robbed a member of Death Row’s entourage in a Foot Locker store, precipitating Shakur’s onset. After the brawl, Shakur went to rendezvous with Knight to go to Death Row-owned Club 662 (now known as restaurant/club Seven).

He rode in Knight’s 1996 black BMW 750i sedan as part of a larger convoy with some of Tupac’s friends, Outlawz, and bodyguards. At 10:55 p.m., while paused at a red light, Shakur rolled down his window and a photographer took their photo at around 11:00-11:05 p.m., they were halted on Las Vegas Blvd. by Metro bicycle cops for playing the car stereo too loud and not having license plates. The plates were then found in the trunk of Knight’s vehicle; they were released without being fined a few minutes later.

At about 11:10 p.m., while stopped at a red light at Flamingo Road near the intersection of Koval Lane in front of the Maxim Hotel, a vehicle occupied by two women pulled up on their right side. Shakur, who was standing up through the sunroof, exchanged words with the two women, and invited them to go to Club 662. At approximately 11:15 p.m., a white, four-door, late-model, Cadillac driven by unknown person(s) pulled up to the sedan’s right side, rolled down one of the windows, and rapidly fired around twelve to thirteen shots at Tupac.

At the time of the drive-by, Tupac was riding alongside Knight, with his bodyguard following behind in a vehicle belonging to Kidada Jones, Shakur’s then-fiance. The bodyguard, Frank Alexander, stated that when he was about to ride along with the rapper in Knight’s car, Shakur asked him to drive Kidada Jones’ car instead just in case they were too drunk and needed additional vehicles from Club 662 back to the hotel. Shortly after the assault, the bodyguard reported in his documentary, ” Before I Wake” , that one of the convoy’s cars drove off after the assailant but he never heard back from the occupants. After arriving on the scene, police and paramedics took Knight and a fatally wounded Shakur to the University Medical Center. According to an interview with one of Shakur’s closest friends and music video director Gobi, while at the hospital, he received news from a Death Row marketing employee that the shooters had called the record label and were sending death threats aimed at Shakur, claiming that they were going there to “finish him off”.Upon hearing this, Gobi immediately alerted the Las Vegas police, but the police claimed they were understaffed and no one could be sent.Nonetheless, the shooters never arrived.At the hospital, Shakur was in and out of consciousness; heavily sedated, breathed through a ventilator and respirator, was placed on life support machines, and was ultimately put under a barbiturate-induced coma after repeatedly trying to get out of the bed. Despite having been resuscitated in a trauma center and surviving a multitude of surgeries (as well the removal of a failed right lung), Shakur had gotten through the critical phase of the medical therapy and had a 50% chance of pulling through Gobi left the medical center after being informed that Shakur made a 13% recovery on the sixth night.While in Critical Care Unit on the afternoon of September 13, 1996, Shakur died of internal bleeding; doctors attempted to revive him but could not stop his hemorrhaging.

• Pac's Stuff
• Tupac Stuff

Similar Articles

How Many Songs Does Tupac Have? (Updating…)

Who Tupac Really Was? 50+ Rare Facts

Dear Mama – The Saga Of Afeni & Tupac Shakur Biography...

How To Write a Biography Essay About 2Pac: Seven Points To...

2Pac, Salt’s Daughter And The Story of ”Keep Ya Head Up”

How Tall Was Tupac?

Why Tupac Was Named Tupac Amaru Shakur?

Five Reasons Why Tupac Is The Greatest Rapper Of All Time

Tupac’s Messages Teach Business Founders

How do Teenagers React when they Hear 2Pac’s Music?

The Rape Case: Ayanna Jackson’s Story

Faith Evans – The Notorious B.I.G.’s Former Wife | Tupac’s Girlfriend

Tupac’s Tattoos

1994-11-30 / Tupac’s Shooting, New York

Who is Walter ‘King Tut’ Johnson? Tupac’s Shooter in N.Y., 1994

Where Did Tupac Live? 2Pac’s Home & Houses in Baltimore, Marin...

2Pac’s Cars & SUVs Collection. When ‘Pac Ride

Why Was Tupac Named Lesane Parish Crooks?

Who is Jacques “Haitian Jack” Agnant?

New Information About Tupac’s Sexual Abuse Trial

2Pac and the Wild Horse Spirit: How Shakur’s Lyrics Symbolize Strength...

Tupac Shakur

• Born June 16 , 1971 · East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
• Died September 13 , 1996 · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (homicide)
• Birth name Lesane Parish Crooks
• Height 5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
• Born in New York City, Tupac grew up primarily in Harlem. In 1984, his family moved to Baltimore, Maryland where he became good friends with Jada Pinkett Smith . His family moved again in 1988 to Oakland, California. His first breakthrough in music came in 1991 as a member of the group Digital Underground. In the same year he received individual recognition for his album "2Pacalypse Now," but this album was also the beginning of his notoriety as a leading figure of the gangster permutation of hip-hop, with references to cop killing and sexual violence. His solo movie career also began in this year with Juice (1992) , and in 1992 he co-starred with Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice (1993) . However, law confrontations were soon to come: A 15-day jail term in 1994 for assault and battery and, in 1995, a conviction for sexual assault of a female fan. After serving 8 months pending an appeal, Shakur was released from jail. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Bruce Cameron <[email protected]>
• Notorious 25-year-old gangsta MC and actor Tupac Shakur was shot and killed before he had a chance to fulfill the promise of a successful career in both fields. He was born in New York City and his mother, Afeni Shakur , was a member of the Black Panther Party. Shakur spent much of his youth in Harlem, then Baltimore, Maryland. In 1988 his family moved to Oakland, California, where he first gained notice as an MC in 1991 with the group Digital Underground. Later that year, he released a solo album, "2Pacalypse Now." Filled with violent lyrics that promoted cop killing and misogyny, it earned both notoriety and acclaim for fans of the genre. Shakur began his acting career in the late 1980s with an appearance on the television series A Different World (1987) . He made his feature film debut in 1992 with the film Juice (1992) and followed it up, co-starring with Janet Jackson , in Poetic Justice (1993) in 1993. Shakur had a certain charisma that always made him stand out in his films. This was especially true in Gridlock'd (1997) which proved that the versatile young artist had the makings of being a major star. Unfortunately, he was murdered during a drive-by shooting outside a Las Vegas, Nevada, hotel a few months before its release. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Gilbert Lee
• Tupac Amaru Shakur (born Lesane Parish Crooks; June 16, 1971 - September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. Shakur sold over 75 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. His double-disc albums All Eyez on Me (1996) and his Greatest Hits (1998) are among the best-selling albums in the United States. Shakur is consistently ranked as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all time, and he has been listed and ranked as one of the greatest artists of any genre by many publications, including Rolling Stone, which ranked him 86th on its list of The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. On April 7, 2017, Shakur was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. Shakur began his career as a roadie, backup dancer and MC for the alternative hip hop group Digital Underground, eventually branching off as a solo artist. Most of the themes in Shakur's songs revolved around the violence and hardship in inner cities, racism, and other social issues. Both of his parents and several other people in his family were members of the Black Panther Party, whose ideals were reflected in his songs. During the latter part of his career, Shakur was a vocal participant during the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry, becoming involved in conflicts with other rappers, producers, and record-label staff members, most notably The Notorious B.I.G. and his label, Bad Boy Records. Aside from his career in music, Shakur was also an actor, starring in six films and one TV show in the 1990s, including Poetic Justice (1993), Gang Related (1997) and Gridlock'd (1997). On September 7, 1996, Shakur was fatally shot four times in a drive-by shooting at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was taken to University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, where he died from his injuries six days later. Shakur was born on June 16, 1971, into an African-American family in the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City. His birth name was Lesane Parish Crooks. The following year, he was renamed after Túpac Amaru II, the 18th-century Peruvian revolutionary who was executed after leading an indigenous uprising against Spanish rule. His parents, Afeni Shakur (born Alice Faye Williams in North Carolina) and Billy Garland, were active members of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lesane was born a month after his mother was acquitted of more than 150 charges of "Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks" in the New York Panther 21 trial. Many people in Shakur's life were involved with the Black Liberation Army; some were convicted of serious criminal offenses and imprisoned, including his mother. His godfather, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a high-ranking Black Panther, had been convicted of murdering a school teacher during a 1968 robbery, although his sentence was later overturned. His stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, spent four years at large on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, beginning in 1982. Mutulu was wanted for having helped his friend (no relation) Assata Shakur (also known as Joanne Chesimard), Tupac's godmother, to escape from a penitentiary in New Jersey in 1979. She had been imprisoned since 1977 for killing a state trooper in 1973. She lived as a fugitive for several years before gaining asylum in Cuba in 1985. Mutulu was caught in 1986 and eventually convicted and sentenced to prison for the 1981 robbery of a Brinks armored truck, during which two police officers and a guard were killed. Shakur had an older stepbrother, Mopreme "Komani" Shakur, and a half-sister, Sekyiwa, two years his junior. Mopreme performed in many of his recordings. In 1986, the family moved from New York to Baltimore, Maryland. After completing his second year at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, Shakur transferred to the Baltimore School for the Arts. There he studied acting, poetry, jazz, and ballet. He performed in Shakespeare plays and in the role of the Mouse King in the ballet The Nutcracker. Shakur, accompanied by one of his friends, Dana "Mouse" Smith, as his beat box, won many rap competitions and was considered to be the best rapper in his school. He was remembered as one of the most popular kids in his school because of his sense of humor, superior rapping skills, and ability to mix with all crowds. Shakur developed a close friendship with Jada Pinkett Smith that lasted until his death. In the documentary Tupac: Resurrection, Shakur says, "Jada is my heart. She will be my friend for my whole life." Pinkett Smith calls him "one of my best friends. He was like a brother. It was beyond friendship for us. The type of relationship we had, you only get that once in a lifetime." A poem written by Shakur titled "Jada" appears in his book, The Rose That Grew from Concrete, which also includes a poem dedicated to Pinkett Smith called "The Tears in Cupid's Eyes." During his time in art school, Shakur became affiliated with the Baltimore Young Communist League USA. He began dating the daughter of the director of the local chapter of the Communist Party USA. In 1988, Shakur and his family moved from Baltimore to Marin City, California, a small unincorporated suburban community located 5 miles north of San Francisco. He attended Tamalpais High School in nearby Mill Valley. Before using his first name as his rap name, Shakur went by the alias MC New York when starting his career in Baltimore. Although Shakur began recording in 1987, his professional entertainment career did not take off until the early 1990s when he debuted in Digital Underground's "Same Song" from the soundtrack to the 1991 film Nothing but Trouble, and also appeared with the group in the film. The song was later released as the lead song of the Digital Underground extended play (EP) This Is an EP Release, the follow-up to their debut hit album Sex Packets. Shakur appeared in the accompanying music video. After his rap debut, he performed with Digital Underground again on the album Sons of the P. Shakur went on to feature Shock G and Money-B from Digital Underground in his track "I Get Around", which ranked #11 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. In November 1991, Shakur released his debut solo album, 2Pacalypse Now. Though the album did not generate any hit singles, 2Pacalypse Now has been acclaimed by many critics and fans for its underground feel, with many rappers such as Nas, Eminem, Game, and Talib Kweli having pointed to it as inspiration. Although the album was originally released on Interscope Records, the rights to its distribution are now owned by Amaru Entertainment, the label owned by Shakur's mother. The album's name is a reference to the 1979 film Apocalypse Now. In late 1993, Shakur formed the group Thug Life with a number of his friends, including Big Syke (Tyruss Himes), Macadoshis (Diron Rivers), his stepbrother Mopreme Shakur, and the Rated R (Walter Burns). The group released their only album Thug Life: Volume 1 on September 26, 1994, which went gold. The album featured the single "Pour Out a Little Liquor", produced by Johnny "J" Jackson, who went on to produce a large part of Shakur's album All Eyez on Me. The group usually performed their concerts without Shakur. The album was originally released by Shakur's label Out Da Gutta Records, though Amaru Entertainment has since gained the rights to it. Among the notable tracks are "Bury Me a G", "Cradle to the Grave", "Pour Out a Little Liquor" (which also appears on the soundtrack to the 1994 film Above the Rim), "How Long Will They Mourn Me?" and "Str8 Ballin'". As a result of criticism of gangsta rap at the time, the original version of the album was scrapped and re-recorded with many of the original songs being cut. The album contains ten tracks because Interscope Records felt many of the other recorded songs were too controversial to release. Although the original version of the album was not completed, Shakur performed the planned first single from the album, "Out on Bail" at the 1994 Source Awards. Thug Life: Volume 1 was certified Gold. The track "How Long Will They Mourn Me?" later appeared on 2Pac's posthumous Greatest Hits album. Shakur's third album, Me Against The World, was released in March 1995 and was very well-received, with many calling it the magnum opus of his career. It is considered one of the greatest and most influential hip-hop albums of all time. It is Shakur's fourth-best-selling album with 3,524,567 copies sold in the United States as of 2011. Me Against the World won best rap album at the 1996 Soul Train Music Awards. All Eyez On Me was the fourth studio album by 2Pac, recorded in October 1995 and released on February 13, 1996, by Death Row Records and Interscope Records. The album is frequently recognized as one of the crowning achievements of 1990s rap music. Steve Huey of AllMusic stated that "despite some undeniable filler, it is easily the best production 2Pac's ever had on record". It was certified 5× Platinum after just 2 months in April 1996 and 9× platinum in 1998. The album featured the Billboard Hot 100 number one singles "How Do U Want It" and "California Love". It featured five singles in all, the most of any 2Pac album. Moreover, All Eyez on Me (which was the only Death Row release to be distributed through PolyGram by way of Island Records) made history as the first double-full-length hip-hop solo studio album released for mass consumption. It was issued on two compact discs and four LPs. Chartwise, All Eyez on Me was the second album from 2Pac to hit number one on both the Billboard 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. It sold 566,000 copies in the first week of its release and was charted in the top 100 for one-week Soundscan sales since 1991. By the end of 1996, the album had sold 5 million copies. The album won the 1997 Soul Train R&B/Soul or Rap Album of the Year Award. Shakur also won the Award for Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist at the 24th Annual American Music Awards. In October 1995, Shakur was released from prison after serving nine months of a sentence for sexual assault and formed a new group called Outlaw Immortalz. Shakur joined the Death Row label, under which he released the single "California Love". On February 13, 1996, Shakur released his fourth solo album, All Eyez on Me. This double album was the first and second of his three-album commitment to Death Row Records. It sold more than nine million copies. The record was a general departure from the introspective subject matter of Me Against the World, being more oriented toward a thug and gangsta mentality. Shakur continued his recordings despite increasing problems at the Death Row label. Dr. Dre left his post as in-house producer to form his own label, Aftermath. Shakur continued to produce hundreds of tracks during his time at Death Row, most of which would be released on his posthumous albums Still I Rise, Until the End of Time, Better Dayz, Loyal to the Game and Pac's Life. He also began the process of recording an album, One Nation, with the New York-based Boot Camp Clik and their label Duck Down Records. On June 4, 1996, he and Outlawz released the diss track "Hit 'Em Up", a scathing lyrical assault on The Notorious B.I.G. and others associated with him. In the track, Shakur claimed to have had sexual intercourse with Faith Evans, the wife of Wallace, Shakur's former friend and rival, and attacked Bad Boy's street credibility. Shakur was convinced that some members associated with Bad Boy had known about the 1994 attack on him due to their behavior that night and the information that his sources gave to him. According to a 2005 interview with Jimmy Henchman, in Vibe magazine, after the attack, Shakur immediately accused Henchman, an associate of Bad Boy CEO Sean Combs, of orchestrating the attack. Shakur, therefore, aligned himself with Suge, Death Row's CEO, who was already bitter toward Combs over a 1995 incident at the Platinum Club in Atlanta, Georgia, which culminated in the death of Jake Robles, the friend and bodyguard of Suge Knight; Knight was adamant in voicing his suspicions about Combs' involvement. In the years following their killings, associates of both Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. made comments indicating the pair, were it not for their deaths, would have reconciled. When Shakur recorded "Hit 'Em Up", a diss song toward Biggie, he recruited three members from the former group, Dramacydal, with whom he had worked previously and was eager to do so again. Shakur, with the three New Jersey rappers and other associates, formed the original lineup of the Outlawz. When 2Pac signed to Death Row after his release from prison, he recruited step brother Mopreme Shakur and Big Syke from Thug Life. Hussein Fatal, Napoleon, E.D.I. Mean, Kastro, Yaki Kadafi, and Storm (the only female Outlaw) were also added, and together they formed the original lineup of the Outlaw Immortalz that debuted on 2Pac's Multi-Platinum smash All Eyez on Me. They later dropped the Immortal part of their name after the untimely deaths of 2Pac and Yaki Kadafi and moved on as Outlawz without the members of Thug Life. Young Noble was later added and appeared on 2Pac's second Death Row release The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory. It was on 2Pac's Makaveli album that Outlawz first came to the greater rap community's notice, appearing on a few songs. The idea behind the group was for each member to have a rap name coinciding with the names of various tyrants or enemies of America, past, and present. Outlawz chose in later years to make a backronym out of the letters of their group name Operating Under Thug Laws as Warriorz although it does not stand for the group's name and is used infrequently. - IMDb Mini Biography By: ahmetkozan
• Spouse Keisha Morris (April 29, 1995 - 1996) (annulled)
• Parents Afeni Shakur Billy Garland Mutulu Shakur
• Relatives Sekyiwa Shakur (Half Sibling) Mopreme Shakur (Sibling) Nzingha Shakur (Niece or Nephew) Malik Shakur (Niece or Nephew) Billy Lesane (Cousin) Greg Lesane (Cousin) Kenny Lesane (Cousin) Scott Lesane (Cousin) Dante Powers (Cousin) Rose Belle (Grandparent) Walter Williams Jr. (Grandparent) N'Neka Garland (Half Sibling) Gloria Cox (Aunt or Uncle) Jamala Lesane (Cousin)
• Socially conscious lyrics
• Shaved head and goatee
• 'Thug Life' tattoo across stomach
• Wearing a bandana tied at the front
• Nostril piercing
• Recorded close to 150 songs during the final year of his life, and often completed three songs per day in the same period. Shakur also wrote lyrics in the studio and often performed his verses in one take. He felt that rappers who could not perform their verses properly on the first take weren't ready to be rappers. R&B music, on the other hand, was worthy of multiple takes for the vocal tracks, he felt.
• He read for the role of Bubba Blue in Forrest Gump (1994) , which went to Mykelti Williamson .
• 10 albums have been released after his 1996 death; all have gone platinum.
• Shakur renamed his publishing company to "Joshua's Dream" in honor of a young, terminally ill child whose dying wish was to meet him.
• A huge fan of Tim Roth , Shakur was excited when he found out he was going to be in a movie with Roth. However, Roth didn't like the idea of a rapper being in the movie with him, as he didn't know he was an actor before he became a rapper. Roth's attitude changed, when they tested together and the two were very good friends until Shakur's death.
• Everybody's at war with different things...I'm at war with my own heart sometimes". In Vibe interview 2/96
• Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.
• The only thing that comes to a sleeping man is dreams.
• The reason why I could get into acting was because it takes nothing to get out of who I am and go into somebody else.
• I'm not saying I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.

Contribute to this page

• Learn more about contributing

More from this person

• View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro

More to explore

Recently viewed.

BlackPast is dedicated to providing a global audience with reliable and accurate information on the history of African America and of people of African ancestry around the world. We aim to promote greater understanding through this knowledge to generate constructive change in our society.

Tupac shakur (1971-1996).

Listen while you learn!

Hear a soundtrack specially chosen to enhance your learning about tupac shakur (1971-1996).

Let it play in the background as you study and immerse yourself in this topic!

Tupac Shakur, the son of two Black Panther members, William Garland and Afeni Shakur, was born in East Harlem, New York on June 16, 1971, and named after Jose Gabriel Tupac Amaru II, an 18th century political leader in Peru who was executed after leading a rebellion against Spanish rule. Tupac’s parents separated before he was born.  At the age of 12, Shakur performed in A Raisin in the Sun with the 127th Street Ensemble. Afeni and Tupac later moved to Baltimore, Maryland where he entered the prestigious Baltimore School for the Arts as a teenager.  While at the school, he began writing raps and poetry.  He also performed in Shakespearian plays and took a role in The Nutcracker.

In June 1988, Shakur and his family moved to Marin City, California where he joined the Ensemble Theater Company (ETC) to pursue a career in entertainment. Seventeen-year-old Shakur became an avid reader absorbing books such as J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Jamaica Kincaid’s At the Bottom of the River , Herman Melville’s Moby Dick , and the feminist writings of Alice Walker and Robin Morgan.

Shakur’s professional career began in 1991 with his hit single “Same Song.”  Later that year he appeared in Sons of the P , the first of his eight films.  He also recorded his first solo album 2Pacalypse Now .  In 1993, Shakur formed the group Thug Life with a few of his friends and his stepbrother Mopreme Shakur.  The group released their only album, Thug Life: Thug Life Vol 1 on September 26, 1994.  Despite his short five-year professional career (1991-1996) Shakur became the best selling hip-hop artist in the world with over 75 million albums sold including 44 million in the U.S.

Tupac Shakur also gained notoriety for his violent life and his conflicts with the law. In October 1993, in Atlanta, Georgia, Shakur shot two off-duty police officers who he claimed were harassing a black motorist.  The case was dropped when it was disclosed that the officers were intoxicated.  The following year he was convicted of assaulting a former woman employer while on a music video set. The day before the guilty verdict was handed down on December 1, 1994, Shakur was shot five times in a Manhattan recording studio.  Entering the courthouse in a wheelchair, he was sentenced to 15 days in jail with additional days on a highway work crew as community service, and a $2,000 fine. In April, 1996 he served 120 days in jail for violating the terms of his probation.  On September 7, 1996, shortly after attending the Mike Tyson –Bruce Seldon boxing match in Las Vegas, Nevada Shakur was wounded in a drive-by shooting. He died of his wounds six days later at the age of 25.

Do you find this information helpful? A small donation would help us keep this available to all. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone.

BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Your donation is fully tax-deductible.

Cite this entry in APA format:

Source of the author's information:.

Jonathan Jones, T upac Shakur Legay (New York: Atria Books, 2006; Jacob Hoye, Tupac: Resurrection (New York: Atria Books, 2003; Jonathan Jones, “Tupac Comes to Life for Bay Area Teens”. Northgate News Online , U.C.-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Nov. 18, 2003. Retrieved from http://journalism.berkeley.edu/ngno/stories/001588.html on Apr. 9, 2006; “Rapper Is Sentenced To 120 Days in Jail”. New York Times . April 5, 1996;.

OLD PAGINATION BELOW

Why Tupac Never Died

In just five years of stardom, Tupac Shakur released four albums, three of which were certified platinum, and acted in six films. He was the first rapper to release two No. 1 albums in the same year, and the first to release a No. 1 album while incarcerated. But his impact on American culture in the nineteen-nineties is explained less by sales than by the fierce devotion that he inspired. He was a folk hero, born into a family of Black radicals, before becoming the type of controversy-clouded celebrity on the lips of politicians and gossip columnists alike. He was a new kind of sex symbol, bringing together tenderness and bruising might, those delicate eyelashes and the “ fuck the world ” tattoo on his upper back. He was the reason a generation took to pairing bandannas with Versace. He is also believed to have been the first artist to go straight from prison, where he was serving time on a sexual-abuse charge, to the recording booth and to the top of the charts.

“I give a holla to my sisters on welfare / Tupac cares, if don’t nobody else care,” he rapped on his track “Keep Ya Head Up,” from 1993, one of his earliest hits, with the easy swagger of someone convinced of his own righteousness. On weepy singles like “Brenda’s Got a Baby” (1991) and “Dear Mama” (1995), he was an earnest do-gooder, standing with women against misogyny. Yet he was just as believable making anthems animated by spite, including “Hit ’Em Up” and “Against All Odds”—both songs that Shakur recorded in the last year of his life, with a menacing edge to his voice as he calls out his enemies by name. That he contained such wild contradictions somehow seemed to attest to his authenticity, his greatest trait as an artist.

He died at the age of twenty-five, following a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, in 1996. Until last month, nobody had been charged in the murder, despite multiple eyewitnesses—a generation’s initiation into the world of conspiracy theories. An entire cottage industry arose to exalt him. Eight platinum albums were released posthumously. His mystique spawned movies, museum exhibitions, academic conferences, books; one volume reprinted flirtatious, occasionally erotic letters he’d mailed to a woman while incarcerated. There appears to be no end to the content that he left behind, and it has been easy to make him seem prophetic: here’s a clip of him foretelling Black Lives Matter, and here’s one warning of Donald Trump ’s greed. Every new era gets to ask what might have happened had Shakur survived.

Discover notable new fiction and nonfiction.

This plenitude is the challenge faced by “ Tupac Shakur: The Authorized Biography ” (Crown), a book that the novelist and screenwriter Staci Robinson began working on nearly a quarter century ago. She first met Shakur, who attended the same Bay Area high school that she had, when he was seventeen. In the late nineties, at his mother’s behest, Robinson began interviewing his friends and family, though the project was soon put on hold. She was asked to return to it a few years ago, and was given access to unpublished materials.

It’s a reverential and exhaustive telling of Shakur’s story, leaning heavily on the perspective of his immediate family, featuring pages reproduced from the notebooks he kept in his teens and twenties. The biography’s publication follows “Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur,” a documentary series that premièred, on FX, in April. Robinson was an executive producer on “Dear Mama,” which drew on the same archive of estate-approved, previously unreleased materials as her book, and the works share a common purpose: to complicate Shakur without demystifying him.

She begins, as the artist himself would have preferred it, with his mother. Afeni Shakur was born Alice Faye Williams on January 10, 1947, in Lumberton, North Carolina; about twelve years later she moved to the South Bronx. Williams was academically gifted and attended the High School of Performing Arts, in Manhattan, though she felt out of place among her more affluent classmates and eventually dropped out. In the late sixties, she became interested in Black history and Afrocentric thinking, took the Yoruba name Afeni, and joined a local chapter of the Black Panthers. In 1968, she married Lumumba Shakur—and into a family of political radicals. His father, Salahdeen Shakur, was a revolutionary leader who’d worked closely with Malcolm X. The Shakurs were such a force that others in their circle adopted their surname as a mark of allegiance.

In April, 1969, prosecutors charged her and twenty other Black Panthers with participating in a plot to kill policemen and to bomb police stations and other public places throughout the city. The police relied on undercover informants, one of whom Afeni had long suspected. As Robinson writes, this “was the beginning of what would become a lifelong ‘trust nobody’ mentality.”

The defendants became known as the Panther 21. Supporters raised enough money to get Afeni out on bail. “Because I was articulate, they felt that I would be able to help get them out if I got out first,” she recalled. When the case went to trial, in 1970, Afeni, who was pregnant, defended herself and supported her comrades from the stand. She was clever, charismatic, and relentless in the courtroom, helping her fellow-Panthers gain acquittal in May, 1971. The journalist Murray Kempton, who covered the trial, wrote that Afeni spoke “as though she were bearing a prince.”

Her “trust nobody” mentality was encoded into Tupac Shakur’s very identity. He was born Lesane Parish Crooks in East Harlem in June, 1971, and Robinson explains that the name, borrowed from Afeni’s cellmate, Carol Crooks, was meant to protect him from being seen as a “Panther baby.” Meanwhile, Afeni’s marriage collapsed when Lumumba learned that she had been seeing other men; Tupac’s biological father, whose identity would remain a mystery for years, was a man named Billy Garland.

From the beginning, Afeni saw her son—whom she would rename Tupac Amaru, for the Peruvian revolutionary—as a “soldier in exile.” Robinson depicts her as a devoted, and at times demanding, mother. She enrolled him at a progressive preschool in Greenwich Village—but withdrew him after she came to pick him up and saw him standing on a table and dancing like James Brown. “Education is what my son is here for, not to entertain you all,” she told his teacher. Later that night, as she spanked her son, she reminded him, “You are an independent Black man, Tupac.”

In 1975, Afeni married an adopted member of the Shakur clan, the revolutionary Mutulu Shakur, with whom she had a daughter, Sekyiwa. Despite gestures toward a conventional life, Afeni couldn’t shake her experiences in the sixties, especially her sense of mistrust and vulnerability. She split from Mutulu in the early eighties and moved with Tupac and Sekyiwa to Baltimore, where she struggled with addiction and a larger sense of disillusionment. “It was a war and we lost,” she later explained. “Your side lost means that your point lost. . . . That the point that won was that other point.”

Shakur sometimes felt that his mother “cared about ‘the’ people more than ‘her’ people.” He attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, with the hope of becoming an actor, and fell in with an artsy crowd that included Jada Pinkett. Robinson sees this as a period of self-discovery. He was into poetry and wore black nail polish, recruited classmates for the local chapter of the Young Communist League, and obsessively listened to Don McLean’s “Vincent,” a feathery tribute to the misunderstood genius of van Gogh, who had “suffered” for his sanity: “This world was never meant for one / As beautiful as you.”

Just before his senior year of high school, Tupac and Afeni moved to California, where they would be closer to Sekyiwa, who had gone to live with family friends just north of San Francisco. “He taught us a lot about Malcolm X and Mandela,” a local d.j. recalled, “and we taught him a lot about the streets.” Shakur eventually befriended members of Digital Underground, an Oakland hip-hop group that took inspiration from the energy and the eclecticism of seventies funk. He worked primarily as a dancer before earning a guest verse on Digital Underground’s 1991 hit “Same Song.”

In the early nineties, making it through hip-hop’s hypercompetitive gantlet didn’t guarantee stability. Robinson writes that Shakur considered leaving music for a career in political organizing. His modest, local fame got him a record deal, but it didn’t insulate him from the troubles facing most young Black males. In October, 1991, he was stopped by the police for jaywalking in downtown Oakland. After a brief argument, in which the officers made light of his name, the rapper was put in a choke hold, slammed against the pavement, and then charged with resisting arrest. (He sued the city of Oakland, settling out of court.)

That November, he released his début album, “2Pacalypse Now,” drawing on the slow-rolling, synthesizer-driven funk of the West Coast. His political convictions gave shape to his anger; there was a brightness to his voice which made tales of police brutality, such as “Trapped” (“too many brothers daily headed for the big pen”), seem like an opportunity to organize, not a reason for resignation. “2Pacalypse Now” gained notoriety when Vice-President Dan Quayle demanded that the rapper’s record label recall it, after a self-professed Tupac fan shot a state trooper in Texas. Among aficionados, meanwhile, Shakur became better known for “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” which he wrote after reading a newspaper story about a twelve-year-old Black girl who put her newborn down a trash chute. Shakur avoids judgment, instead pointing to larger forces at play: “It’s sad, ’cause I bet Brenda doesn’t even know / Just ’cause you’re in the ghetto doesn’t mean you / Can’t grow.”

At the heart of the Tupac Shakur mythology is how much of his artistic persona was the result of moments in which he imagined what it might be like to walk in another’s shoes. It speaks to how empathetic—but also how impressionable—he could be. It’s something his fans often debate: Were there simply some poses he could never shake? While working on what became his début album, he had been filming “Juice,” Ernest Dickerson’s movie about four young men juggling friendship and street ambition in Harlem. He played Roland Bishop, whose devil-may-care drive distinguishes him from his pals, and leads him to betray them. Shakur studied Method acting while in high school, and some believe Bishop was the beginning of a series of more sinister characters that Shakur absorbed into his persona.

There are a few clips on YouTube of speeches that Shakur delivered in the early nineties, and they are among the most riveting performances he ever gave. In one, he addresses the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement at a banquet in Atlanta. Shakur, introduced as a “second-generation revolutionary,” regards the room of middle-aged activists, some of whom might have fought alongside his mother, with a punk irreverence. “It’s on, just like it was on when you was young,” he says, casting himself as the new face of the struggle. “How come now that I’m twenty years old, ready to start some shit up, everybody telling me to calm down?” He keeps apologizing for cursing before cursing some more, making light of their respectability politics. “We coming up in a totally different world. . . . This is not the sixties.”

He talked about an initiative called 50 N.I.G.G.A.Z.—a backronym for “Never Ignorant, Getting Goals Accomplished”—in which he would recruit one young Black man in each state to build a community-organizing network. This eventually became T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. (“The Hate U Gave Little Infants Fuck Everybody”). The approach was inspired by the Black Panthers and sought to mend the divisions engendered by gang life. By the time he released his triumphant 1993 album, “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.,” he seemed resolute in his pursuit of politics by other means.

That fall, he went to New York to film “Above the Rim,” the story of a talented basketball player trying to steer clear of a local drug dealer who has taken an interest in his success. Shakur was the villain, and to shape the role he spent time with Jacques (Haitian Jack) Agnant, a local gangster. Agnant was present on a night that became pivotal to Shakur’s life. That November, Shakur, Agnant, and two others were accused of sexual assault by a woman the rapper had met a few days earlier at a club. Shakur claimed to have fallen asleep in an adjoining room, and to have played no role in the alleged abuse.

“When the charge first came up,” he explained in an interview for Vibe magazine, “I hated black women. I felt like I put my life on the line. At the time I made ‘Keep Ya Head Up,’ nobody had no songs about black women. I put out ‘Keep Ya Head Up’ from the bottom of my heart. It was real, and they didn’t defend it. I felt like it should have been women all over the country talking about, ‘Tupac couldn’t have did that.’ ”

This is a challenging moment to weave into a largely flattering biography. Biographies tend to make a life into a series of inevitable outcomes. At times, Robinson’s book invests more in exhaustive detail than in a sense of interiority. We get the family and friends lobbying on Shakur’s behalf. “He was not just angry, but insulted by the charge,” his aunt explains to Robinson. The author continues, “Afeni felt sympathy for the woman, but she never doubted that Tupac was innocent.” (Robinson notes that his accuser “would tell a different story.”)

A song like “Wonda Why They Call U Bitch” (addressed to a “sleazy,” “easy” gold-digger) might be rationalized as so much toxic bravado. It’s much harder to explain away acts of coercion. Fans and journalists struggled with this question at the time. In June, 1995, Vibe printed a letter from his accuser. She denied that Shakur was, as he insisted, in an adjoining room. “I admit I did not make the wisest decisions,” she writes, “but I did not deserve to be gang raped.”

The episode marked the beginning of Shakur’s paranoid descent. In late November, 1994, almost exactly one year later, he was beaten up and robbed in the lobby of a recording studio in New York. During the scuffle, he was shot five times. The following day, he was found guilty of first-degree sexual abuse, a lesser charge among those he faced, but one that still carried a sentence of eighteen months to four and a half years in prison. “It was her who sodomized me,” he declared of his accuser at the time of the trial. (Agnant pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and got probation.) A person of extremes, he expected extremes of those around him. “He definitely believed there were two kinds of women,” Jada Pinkett Smith told Michael Eric Dyson, whose 2001 book, “ Holler if You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur ,” helped bring Shakur to the academy. “He had a way of putting you on a pedestal and, if there was one thing you did wrong, he would swear you were the devil.”

Shakur was sentenced in February, 1995. He became convinced that Christopher Wallace (better known as the Notorious B.I.G.) and Sean Combs (then Puffy), who were at the studio the night he was shot, were part of a setup; he thought Agnant was in on it, too. (All three denied involvement.) In the meantime, his legal bills had left him with precarious finances. Suge Knight, the bullying head of Death Row Records, a label with ties to L.A.’s gang underworld, persuaded Shakur to sign with him; soon afterward, its parent label posted bail, so that Shakur could go free while he appealed his conviction. Knight preyed on Shakur’s growing persecution complex. By this time, it was hard to recall that his famous “ THUG LIFE ” tattoo, which was inked across his abdomen in 1992, had once held a political meaning. The struggle was no longer against an unjust establishment; it was between “ridaz and punks,” his fast-living crew and its “bitch” rivals.

He was feverishly productive, sometimes setting up two studios at once and bouncing between them, working on different songs at the same time. Months after his release, Shakur put out a double CD—the first by a solo rapper—called “All Eyez on Me.” Joining Death Row gave his music a fearless and foreboding feel; it sounded both harder and more radio-ready than anything he’d previously done, his raps toggling from hell-raising party boasts to taunting sing-alongs. But there were also moments of penitence, like “Life Goes On” and “I Ain’t Mad at Cha,” which some fans later interpreted as prophecies of his demise.

In the ten months following his release, he recorded two additional albums and worked on two films. He had plans for restaurants, a fashion line, a video game, a publishing company, a cookbook, a cartoon series, and a radio show. In her introduction, Robinson explains that Shakur had couch-surfed at her apartment when he was younger and visiting Los Angeles to meet with record labels. He never forgot her kindness. He told her that he was forming a group of women writers to work on screenplays with him. Their first meeting was to be at his Los Angeles condo on September 10, 1996.

The writers’ group would never meet. On September 7, 1996, Shakur attended a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas. Afterward, he caught four bullets from a drive-by near the Strip. His death, six days later, mired in mystery, seemed instantly significant. Chuck D, of Public Enemy, soon floated a theory that the rapper was still alive. When Shakur’s first posthumous album was released, in November, fans combed it for clues that he had faked his own death.

Others tried to reconcile the vengeance rap he recorded for Death Row with the conscious ideals with which he’d started out. “It is our duty to claim, celebrate and most of all critique the life of Tupac Shakur,” Kierna Mayo wrote a few months after his demise. In 1997, Vibe published a book collecting its coverage of the artist. “Wasn’t Tupac great when he wasn’t getting shot up? Or accused of rape?” the editor Danyel Smith asks in the introduction. “Wasn’t he just the best when he wasn’t falling for Suge Knight’s lame-ass lines and dying broke? Couldn’t Tupac just have been your everything?” In the Village Voice ,the critic dream hampton wrote, “I believed he’d get his shit together and articulate nationalism for our generation.”

For years, the most plausible explanation for Shakur’s murder was that he fell victim to a feud between two Los Angeles gangs, the Mob Piru Bloods, with which Death Row was associated, and the South Side Compton Crips. In 2019, a Crips leader, Duane (Keffe D) Davis, published “ Compton Street Legend ,” in which he detailed the mounting tensions that led to Shakur’s killing. “Tupac was a guppy that got swallowed up by some ferocious sharks,” Davis wrote. “He shouldn’t have ever got involved in that bullshit of trying to be a thug.” Davis explained that, although he didn’t pull the trigger, he was in the car and supplied the murder weapon. In September of this year, he was finally arrested by the Las Vegas Police Department, and he now faces murder charges. (A former lawyer of his told the New York Times that Davis plans to plead not guilty.)

Rap music has a particular relationship with death—a reminder of the precariousness of Black life. In a recent essay on hip-hop’s long trail of deceased, Danyel Smith lamented that “so much of Black journalism is obituary.” The one-two punch of Shakur’s death in September, 1996, and the Notorious B.I.G.’s the following March taught a generation how to mourn: loudly, defiantly. Perhaps Shakur’s contradictions—the gangster poet who was never exactly a gangster, the actor who could never break character—would have found resolution had he lived longer. At the heart of things was always the question of how to distinguish the persona from the person.

That Shakur left so much behind—a vault of unreleased songs, a startling trove of videotaped interviews, from his high-school years to the last hours of his life, the speeches and performances—is one reason that his career can appear to be a solvable mystery. He could have been a political leader or gone on to even greater success as an actor or a recording artist. What he wanted, however, seemed always to elude him. I remember seeing the February, 1994, issue of Vibe , which featured Shakur in a straitjacket, and the question “ Is Tupac crazy or just misunderstood? ” Maybe a little of both? He took on the world because he was young, convinced that he could turn the pain around him into something else. He trusted nobody; he wished to love everybody. He was, for a long cultural moment, incandescent. But he was never free. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

The killer who got into Harvard .

How Steve Martin learned what’s funny .

Growing up as the son of the Cowardly Lion .

The light of the world’s first nuclear bomb .

A thief who stole only silver .

Amelia Earhart’s last flight .

Fiction by Milan Kundera: “ The Unbearable Lightness of Being .”

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

FAMOUS AFRICAN AMERICANS

• Tupac Shakur

Tupac Shakur (also known by his stage name of 2Pac) was legendary rap and hip-hop musician. He was born in New York City in 1971 to Billy Garland and Afeni Shakur, both activists of a revolutionary black nationalist organization named “Black Panthers”. His name, Tupac Amaru Shakur, means “shining serpent”. His mother was in jail when she was expecting Tupac, but she was later acquitted of all charges. His father was largely absent from his life. He grew up in the Bronx and Harlem, where he faced the grim realities of gang life, violence, drugs and sexual abuse at an early age. He joined a theater company by the name of 127th Street Ensemble, where he learned to act.

He also attended the Baltimore School for the Arts where he learned ballet and other forms of dance. As a teenager, he moved with his family to the West Coast where he joined the hip-hop and rap group Digital Underground. He recorded two albums with them, that is, “This is an E.P.” and “Sons of the P” before leaving the group to go solo. In 1991, he was signed by the label “Interscope Records” and shortly released his debut album “Tupacalypse Now”. Although, it did not make it to the Top 10 charts, it definitely helped him to make his presence felt. In fact, this album has been quoted by many famous rappers to be their inspiration, including Eminem and Nas . The album had a very real, underground feel to it and included the hit single “Brenda’s Got a Baby”.

His second studio album was released in February 1993 and titled “Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.”. The album debuted at number 24 on the Billboard 200 and the deep, meaningful and sometimes excessively profane lyrics were both the subject of praise, as well as controversy. Tupac spoke of his political and social views in his songs, and described the thug life he used to live. The album was commercially successful, and achieved Platinum status. Tupac also formed the group “Thug Life” with some of his friends. The group released one album called “Thug Life: Volume 1” which achieved Gold status. Tupac’s third album, “Me Against The World” became a huge hit and is regarded by some critics as his best work. It sold more than 3.5 million copies in the U.S. and won the award for best rap album at the 1996 Soul Train Music Awards.

Tupac’s fourth studio album, titled “All Eyez on Me” was released in February 1996 by Death Row Records and Interscope Records. This was his best selling album, achieving 9X Platinum status. This was his second album to reach No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts, and won the 1997 Soul Train “R&B/Soul or Rap Album of the Year Award” as well as the Award for Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist at the American Music Awards. His final studio album was called “The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory” and released posthumously under Tupac’s new stage name “Makaveli”. The writing, recording and production of the album took 7 days to complete. In addition to his music career, Tupac appeared in several films such as “Nothing but Trouble”, “Juice”, “Poetic Justice”, “Above the Rim”, “Bullet”, “Gridlock’d” and Gang “Related”.

Tupac was involved in countless legal brawls. East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry, becoming involved in conflicts with other rappers, producers and record-label staff members, most notably The Notorious B.I.G. and the label Bad Boy Records. In November 1994, Tupac was himself attacked and shot 5 times at Quad Recording Studios in Manhattan. He underwent surgery and discharged himself three hours later to appear in court for a previous case. The court decided that he was guilty of first degree sexual abuse and sentenced to between 1.5 and 4.5 years in prison. He served his sentence at Clinton Correctional Facility in February 1995, and was in prison when his album “Me Against the World” reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts. He was bailed out after 9 months by Suge Knight, the CEO of Death Row Records. On September 7, 1996, Tupac was shot and fatally wounded by a member of a violent gang from California. He died 5 days later and amongst the suspects was Notorious B.I.G., who denied any knowledge of the shooting. Tupac was 25 years old at the time of his death. No arrests were made in the matter due to lack of evidence but in September 2011, Dexter Isaac admitted to the shooting.

Tupac was very well read and enjoyed the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, J. D. Salinger, Hermann Hesse, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Khalil Gibran, to name a few. His music shows the influence of these authors and his work in turn influenced countless others rappers. He has been included in several all time greatest lists such as Rolling Stone magazine’s named him No. 86 on the “100 Immortal Artists of All Time” list and 69th on the VH1 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time list. Several of his works were released posthumously and also went on to become best sellers. Tupac has album sales in excess of 75 million which make him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Even almost two decades after his death, he remains one of the most influential and talked about rappers.

Write About Tupac Shakur

Famous african americans.

• Jesse Jackson
• Jesse Jackson Jr.
• Jesse Owens
• Jessye Norman
• Jimi Hendrix
• Joe Frazier
• John Coltrane
• John Lee Hooker
• Johnnie Cochran
• Josephine Baker
• Josh Gibson
• Julian Bond
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
• Karl Malone
• Kimora Lee Simmons
• Kirby Puckett
• Kobe Bryant
• Langston Hughes
• Larry Holmes
• Latrell Sprewell
• Laurence Fishburne
• Lauryn Hill
• Lawrence Taylor
• LeBron James
• Leon Spinks
• Lester Young
• LeVar Burton
• Lorraine Hansberry
• Louis Armstrong
• Louis Farrakhan
• Luther Vandross
• Madame C.J. Walker
• Mae Jemison
• Mahalia Jackson
• Marcus Garvey
• Marian Anderson
• Marian Wright Edelman
• Marion Jones
• Martin Lawrence
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Marvelous Marvin Hagler
• Marvin Gaye
• Mary J. Blige
• Mary McLeod Bethune
• Maya Angelou
• Medgar Evers
• Michael Jackson
• Michael Jordan
• Michael Sam
• Michelle Obama
• Miles Davis
• Missy Elliott
• Morgan Freeman
• Moses Malone
• Muddy Waters
• Muhammad Ali
• Nat King Cole
• Natalie Cole
• Nina Simone
• O.J. Simpson
• Octavia Butler
• Octavia Spencer
• Oprah Winfrey
• Oscar Robertson
• Ossie Davis
• Otis Redding
• Ozzie Smith
• Patrick Ewing
• Paul Laurence Dunbar
• Paul Robeson
• Percy Julian
• Pernell Whitaker
• Queen Latifah
• Quincy Jones
• Quvenzhané Wallis
• Ralph Ellison
• Reggie Jackson
• Reggie White
• Richard Pryor
• Richard Wright
• Rickey Henderson
• Romare Bearden
• Roy Jones Jr.
• Ruby Bridges
• Sammy Davis Jr.
• Sarah Vaughan
• Satchel Paige
• Scatman Crothers
• Scott Joplin
• Scottie Pippen
• Serena Williams
• Shaquille O'Neal
• Sheryl Swoopes
• Sidney Poitier
• Smokey Robinson
• Sojourner Truth
• Sonny Liston
• Steve McNair
• Stevie Wonder
• Stokely Carmichael
• Sugar Ray Leonard
• Sugar Ray Robinson
• Tavis Smiley
• Teddy Pendergrass
• Terrence Howard
• Thandie Newton
• The Notorious B.I.G.
• Thelonious Monk
• Thomas Hearns
• Thurgood Marshall
• Thurman Thomas
• Tiger Woods
• Tina Turner
• Toni Morrison
• Tony Dorsett
• Tyler Perry
• Vanessa Williams
• Venus Williams
• Ving Rhames
• Viola Davis
• W. E. B. Du Bois
• Walt Frazier
• Walter Payton
• Warren Moon
• Wesley Snipes
• Whitney Houston
• Whoopi Goldberg
• Willie Mays
• Wilma Rudolph
• Wilt Chamberlain
• Wynton Marsalis
• Zora Neale Hurston
• A. Philip Randolph
• Aaron Neville
• Al Sharpton
• Alfre Woodard
• Alice Walker
• Althea Gibson
• Alvin Ailey
• Andre Braugher
• Andrew Young
• Angela Bassett
• Angela Davis
• Aretha Franklin
• Arthur Ashe
• Avery Brooks
• Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• Barack Obama
• Barbara Jordan
• Barry Bonds
• Barry Sanders
• Bayard Rustin
• Benjamin Banneker
• Berry Gordy
• Bessie Coleman
• Bessie Smith
• Betty Shabazz
• Bill Russell
• Billie Holiday
• Bobby Seale
• Booker T. Washington
• Brandy Norwood
• Busta Rhymes
• Cab Calloway
• Carl Weathers
• Carmelo Anthony
• Cassandra Wilson
• Cecil Fielder
• Chamillionaire
• Charles Rangel
• Charlie Ward
• Chris Tucker
• Chuck Berry
• Cicely Tyson
• Clarence Thomas
• Claudette Colvin
• Colin Powell
• Condoleezza Rice
• Coretta Scott King
• Cornel West
• Count Basie
• Cris Carter
• Crispus Attucks
• DaMarcus Beasley
• Damon Wayans
• Danny Glover
• Darius Rucker
• David Robinson
• Deacon Jones
• Debbie Allen
• Deion Sanders
• Denmark Vesey
• Dennis Rodman
• Denzel Washington
• Derek Jeter
• Derek Walcott
• Diahann Carroll
• Dinah Washington
• Dizzy Gillespie
• Dominique Dawes
• Dominique Wilkins
• Don Cheadle
• Dorothy Dandridge
• Duke Ellington
• Dwyane Wade
• Earl Campbell
• Eartha Kitt
• Eddie Murphy
• Elgin Baylor
• Elijah Muhammad
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
• Emmett Till
• Emmitt Smith
• Eric Dickerson
• Eric Holder
• Eriq La Salle
• Ernie Banks
• Ernie Davis
• Esther Rolle
• Evander Holyfield
• Flip Wilson
• Florence Griffith Joyner
• Floyd Patterson
• Forest Whitaker
• Franco Harris
• Frank Robinson
• Frank Thomas
• Fred Williamson
• Frederick Douglass
• Gabourey Sidibe
• Gale Sayers
• Gary Coleman
• George Clinton
• George Foreman
• George Gervin
• George Washington Carver
• Gloria Reuben
• Gordon Parks
• Gregory Hines
• Gwendolyn Brooks
• Hakeem Olajuwon
• Halle Berry
• Harriet Tubman
• Harry Belafonte
• Hattie McDaniel
• Henry Louis Gates
• Herbie Hancock
• Herman Cain
• Herschel Walker
• Howlin' Wolf
• Huey P. Newton
• Isaac Hayes
• Isiah Thomas
• Jackie Joyner-Kersee
• Jackie Robinson
• Jacob Lawrence
• Jada Pinkett-Smith
• James Baldwin
• James Brown
• James Earl Jones
• James Meredith
• James Weldon Johnson
• Jayson Williams
• Jean-Michel Basquiat
• Jennifer Hudson
• Museum Dedicated to African American History and Culture is Set to Open in 2016
• 6 Must-See Malcolm X Posters
• Scholarships for African Americans – Black Scholarships
• African-American Civil Rights Movement
• African Americans in WW2
• African American History
• Top 10 Most Famous Black Actors of All Time
• Top 10 Richest African Americans

• Discography
• Music Videos

POET. ACTOR. Rapper. Activist. REVOLUTIONARY.

Tupac Shakur is one of the greatest and most controversial artists of all time. More than a quarter of a century after his tragic death in 1996 at the age of just twenty-five, he continues to be one of the most misunderstood, complicated and prolific figures in modern history. Shakur’s message has continued to resonate throughout the world as his loyal and adoring fan base continues to treasure the timeless messages that he incorporated into his poetry and his music. 

With over 75 million records sold worldwide, both 1996’s All Eyez on Me and his Greatest Hits collection have been certified diamond, surpassing the ten-million mark and placing them among the top-selling albums of all time.In April of 2017, Tupac was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, making him the first solo hip-hop artist to be recognized for inclusion in his first eligible year. Tupac also found success and critical acclaim as an actor, starring in films like  Juice ,  Poetic Justice ,  Above The Rim ,  Gridlock’d , and  Gang Related . 

As Tupac’s life and legacy continues to impact, influence and transcend cultures throughout the world. In 2015, the GRAMMY Museum opened Tupac’s first museum exhibit, All Eyez on Me: The Writings of Tupac. In 2022,  Tupac Shakur: Wake Me When I’m Free , a fully immersive, thought-provoking museum experience that explored the life and legacy of the acclaimed artist and activist opened in Los Angeles, CA. In 2023, FX released  Dear Mama : a multi-part docu series on Tupac and his mother Afeni, garnering the “most watched” docuseries in the network’s history.