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Tupac Shaku
Tupac Shakur
Background
information
Also known as
2Pac, Makaveli
Born
June 16, 1971
New York City, New York, USA
Origin
Los Angeles, California, United States
Died
September 13, 1996 (aged 25)
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Genre(s)
Hip hop
Occupation(s)
Rapper, actor, producer, poet, screenwriter, activist
Years active
1991 – 1996
Label(s)
Interscope, Out Da Gutta, Death Row, Makaveli, Amaru
Associated
acts
Outlawz, Thug Life, Digital Underground
Website
www.2paclegacy.com
Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names: 2Pac, Makaveli, or simply Pac, was an American artist renowned for his rap music, movie roles, poetry, and his social activism. He is recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records as the best selling hip-hop artist, with over seventy-five million albums sold worldwide<1> including over fifty million in the United States alone. Most of Shakur''s songs are about growing up around violence and hardship in ghettos, racism, problems in society, and sometimes qualms with other fellow rappers. Shakur''s work is known for advocating political, economic, social, and racial equality as well as his raw descriptions of violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and conflicts with the law. Many fans, critics, and industry insiders rank him as the greatest rapper ever.<2><3>
In 1990, Shakur was a roadie and backup dancer for the alternative rap group Digital Underground. Shakur''s debut album, 2Pacalypse Now, gained critical recognition and backlash for its controversial lyrics. Shakur became the target of lawsuits and experienced other legal problems. Later, Shakur was shot five times in a recording studio lobby in Manhattan and was robbed. Following the incident, Shakur grew suspicious that other figures in the rap industry had prior knowledge of the shooting and did not warn him; the controversy would help spark the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry. After serving eleven months of his sentence, Shakur was released from prison on an appeal financed by Marion "Suge" Knight, the CEO of Death Row Records. In exchange for Suge''s assistance, Shakur agreed to release three records under the Death Row label. Shakur''s fifth album, the first double-disc release in hip hop history All Eyez on Me, counted as two albums. On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, and died six days later of respiratory failure and cardiac arrest at University Medical Center, Las Vegas.
Contents
1 Biography
1.1 Early life
1.2 Early career
1.3 Acting career
1.4 Thug Life
1.5 Legal issues
1.6 November 1994 shooting
1.7 Prison sentence
1.8 Life on Death Row
1.8.1 Makaveli
1.9 September 1996 shooting
2 Style and influences
3 Legacy
4 Records
5 Awards
6 Discography
6.1 Studio albums
6.2 Posthumous studio albums
6.3 Top 10 Billboard singles
7 Filmography
8 Documentaries
9 Biographical books
10 Poetry books
11 References
12 External links
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Biography
Early life
Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City.<4> He was named after Túpac Amaru II, an Incan revolutionary who led a Peruvian uprising against Spain and was subsequently sentenced to death. "Shakur" comes from the Arabic word thankful (to God). His mother, Afeni Shakur, was an active member of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s; Shakur 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.<5officially unconfirmed by the Shakur family,<6> several sources list his birth name as either "Parish Lesane Crooks"<7><8> or "Lesane Parish Crooks".<9> Afeni supposedly feared her enemies would attack her son, and disguised their relation using a different last name, only to change it three months<7> or a year<10> later, following her marriage to Mutulu Shakur.
Struggle and incarceration surrounded Tupac from an early age. Shakur''s godfather, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a high ranking Black Panther, was 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, when Tupac was a pre-teen. Mutulu was wanted in part for having helped his sister Assata Shakur, Tupac''s godmother, to escape from prison in New Jersey, where she had been incarcerated for allegedly shooting a state trooper to death in 1973. Mutulu was caught in 1986 and imprisoned for an attempted robbery of a Brinks armored car in which two police officers and a guard were killed.<11> Tupac had a half-sister, Sekyiwa, two years his junior, and an older step-brother, 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 1984, his family relocated to Baltimore,<12> After completing his sophomore year at Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School he transferred to the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied acting, poetry, and jazz. He performed in Shakespeare plays and in the role of the Mouse King in The Nutcracker.<11> Tupac, accompanied by one of his friends, Dana "Mouse" Smith, as his beatbox, won most of the many rap competitions that he participated in and was considered to be the best rapper in his school.<13> Although he lacked trendy clothing, he was one of the most popular kids in his school because of his sense of humor, superior rapping skills, and ability to mix in with all crowds.<13> He developed a close friendship with a young Jada Pinkett (later Jada Pinkett Smith) that lasted until Shakur''s death. In the documentary Tupac: Resurrection, Shakur says, "Jada is my heart. She will be my friend for my whole life," and Smith calls Shakur "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 Smith called "The Tears in Cupid''s Eyes".
In June 1988, Shakur and his family moved once again, this time to Marin City, California, where he attended Tamalpais High School. He joined the Ensemble Theater Company (ETC) to pursue his career in entertainment. His mother''s crack addiction led him to move into Leila Steinberg''s home with his friend Ray Luv at the age of seventeen. Leila Steinberg acted as a literary mentor to Shakur, an avid reader. Steinberg has kept copies of the books that Tupac 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.<14> Most of these books were read before the age of twenty.<15> It has been claimed that Shakur 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.<16> In 1989, Leila Steinberg organized a concert with Shakur''s group, Strictly Dope. The concert lead to him being signed with Atron Gregory who set him up with Digital Underground. In 1990, he was hired as a back-up dancer and roadie for up-and-c
Published: August 06, 2007