Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971 – September 13, 1996) was an American hip hop artist, poet, and actor. He is considered by many to be one of the most revolutionary, popular and legendary rappers of all time.
Shaped in the genre of Gangsta Rap, most of Tupac's songs are concerned about growing up around violence and hardships in ghettos, racial inequality, political struggles and sometimes his feuds with fellow rappers in the United States. Tupac is mostly known in the United States for his strong political, economic and racial equality messages, and his sometimes violent tendencies, factors that made him a mainstream act both in life and death.
Much of Tupac's upbringing revolved around the Black Panther philosophy. Impoverished during most of his childhood, Tupac, with his mother and half-sister, Sekyiwa (pronounced Setchua), moved between homeless shelters and cheap accommodations around New York City. As a result, he retained few friends and relied on writing poetry and diary entries to keep himself busy. At the age of 12, Shakur joined a Harlem theatre group and acted as 'Travis' in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.
In 1986, Tupac's mother brought him and his sister to live in Baltimore, Maryland. The Shakur's 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 Shakur became close friends with another student named Jada Pinkett. Even at this young age, Shakur 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. Shakur 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.
Two years later, 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. Tupac described this move from Baltimore and the arts school as "where I got off track". He showed contempt for law enforcement, being hassled occasionally for playing music loudly. In August of 1988, Shakur'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.
In December 1993, Shakur was charged with sexually abusing a woman in his hotel room. According to his account, he met a female fan at a club, Nell's, who was described to him as wanting to "more than meet [him]". She allegedly gave him oral sex on the dance floor before Shakur took her back to his hotel room. The next night, she visited him before he was set to do a show and was giving him a massage in a hotel room. Some friends who were with him that night interrupted the couple, wanting to enjoy the woman's attentions themselves. Shakur claimed to have left the room disgusted and went to take a nap. The girl, disagreeing with his account, accused him of encouraging the three men, pulling her hair, and sodomy. On February 7, 1995, Shakur was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for sexual assault, though he vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
Shakur was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 7, 1996 after attending the boxing match between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon. He died in the University Medical Center hospital six days later from the four gunshot wounds.
Tupac was hit four times, twice in the chest, and in his arm and thigh, while Suge was scratched by a piece of flying glass (while later claiming in an interview he had a bullet stuck in his head). Tupac then survived on life support for 7 days, dying on September 13, 1996 at 4:03 PM. After his death, Shakur was cremated, and his mother reportedly spread his ashes in L.A., saying that Tupac would want to be in the city he loved best.
