Loading...
2pac
Tupac Amaru Shakur
DOB: June 16, 1971 - Brooklyn, NY
DOD: September 13, 1996 - Las Vegas, NV
Measurements: 5'9" 165 lbs.
Divorced: Keisha Morris
Engaged: Kidada Jones
Occupation: Rapper / Actor / Poet
Fav. Food: Fried Chicken Wings with Hot Sauce
Fav. Drink: Orange Pop
Fav. Colors: Black and Gold
Zodiac Sign: Gemini
Mother: Alice Fay Williams aka Afeni Shakur
Father: William Garland
Stepfather: Jeral Wayne Williams aka Mutulu Shakur
Half Sister: Sekyiwa Shakur
Stepbrother: Maurice Harding (Mopreme - Thug Life)
Godfather: Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt
Music Groups: Born Busy, One Nation Emcees, Two From The Crew, Strictly Dope, Digital Underground, Thug Life, Outlaw Immortalz/Outlawz
Aliases: MC New York, 2Pac, Makaveli (the don)
On June 16, 1971, Tupac (born Lesane Parish Crooks) was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was named after an Inca Indian revolutionary: Tupac Amaru means "shining serpent", and Shakur is arabic for "thankful to God". Tupac was the son of the politcal activist Alice Faye Williams (Afeni Shakur). She was a member if the Black Panther Party. Tupac grew up without knowing that his biological father was still alive. Afeni moves in with Mutulu Shakur who becomes Tupac's stepfather and confidant for the rest of his life. Tupac accepted him as a father figure.
In 1981 Tupac's stepfather Mutulu is accused of planning and executing the "Brinks robbery", where two New York policemen and a Brinks guard were killed. Mutulu goes underground for several years, maintaining his innocence.
At the age of 12 Tupac found a passion for acting and writing poetry. Afeni enrolls him in a Harlem theater group. Tupac plays Travis in 'A Raisin the Sun' as his first performance.
In 1986 Mutulu is arrested, convicted and now serves a 60-year penalty. He still denice his involment with the holdup. While looking for a better life, Tupac and his family moves to Baltimore, MD, where he attended at the Baltimore School for the Performing Arts. There he meets Jada Pinkett who becomes a close friend of Pac's. Tupac left a lasting impression on his teachers and was showing tremendous potential. He goes under the alias "MC New York" and writes his first rap wich is about gun control, inspired after the death of a close friend.
Unfortunately, Tupac was unable to continue his training, and moved with his family to Marin City (The Jungle), California. He has been quoted saying "Leaving that school affected me so much, I see as the point where I got off track". The man side began to come out of Tupac as he now began to hang with the wrong crowd.
Tupac changed out his alias MC New York with a new one, 2Pac. He rapped with Ray Luv in a group called "Strictly Dope". They perform in small shows for people around the neighborhood. Tupac auditions for Greg Jacobs (Shock G) of the group Digital Underground. Tupac joins the group as a roadie, dancer and as a rapper. He toured with Digital Underground, instead of waiting around for them to get back in town to work on his album, he preferred to travel with them to kill time. He appeared on several songs with Digital Underground including "Same Song", "DFLO Shuffle", and "Wassup Wit Tha Luv".
Shortly thereafter, Tupac's first album was realeased. "2pacalypse Now" was in the shelves on November 12, 1991, when Tupac was 20 years of age. The album did all right and he became recognised in the music industry, and even by members of the government. Ronald Ray Howard, aged 19, shoots a Texas trooper. His attorney claims that the album "2pacalypse Now", wich was in Howard's tape deck, incited him to kill. Following an altercation between Tupac and some old acquaintances at a Marin City outdoor festival, a 6 year old boy is shot in the head and killed by a stray bullet that allegedly came from Pac's gun. Tupac is sued by the parrents of the boy and in 1996 agrees on a settlement. Vice President Dan Quayle blasted Pac by saying "2pacalypse Now has no place in our society". Tupac debuted at the silver-screen the same year. The movie is called "Juice". Tupac was applaued for his portrayal of "Bishop". The only bad thing about this movie is that many people thought that Pac lived like the man he played. The famous quote "I am crazy, and i don't give a f-ck", was taken from this movie.
A year later, 1993, Tupac Released, "Strictly 4 my NIGGAZ" with the guest appearances of Ice Cube, Ice T, Digital Underground, and featured hits like "I get around", and "Keep Your Head Up". He is nominated for an American Music Award as best new rapper/hip-hop artist. Tupac was sentenced for ten days in jail after threatening a local rapper with a baseball bat during a concert. He also fought with a limo driver after the driver accused him of using drugs in the car. Tupac was arrested but the charges later dropped. Tupac stared in the John Singleton movie "Poetic Jusctice" featuring Janet Jackson. Tupac was arrested the same year for allegedly shooting two armed, off-duty police officers who were harassing a black motorist. The police officers gun where stolen from the evidence locker. All charges against Pac eventually dropped. A 19 year old woman accuses Pac and three of his friends for sodomizing and sexually abusing her. John Singleton was forced by Columbia Pictures to drop Tupac from the cast of his upcoming movie "Higher Learning". Tupac is sentenced to fifteen days in jail after knocking out director Allen Hughes. Pac had recently been dropped from the film "Menace II Society".
In 1994 Tupac stars in the film "Above the Rim". A popular song from the soundtrack is "Pour Out a Little Liquor", recorded by Tupac's new group called Thug Life. Thug Life included Pac's stepbrother Mopreme. Other members are Big Syke, Macadoshis, Yanni and the Rated R. Two Milwaukee teens murder a police officer citing Tupac's "Souljah's Story" from his debute album "2pacalypse Now", as inspiration. Tupac was also shot 5 times and robbed for $40,000 worth of jewelry in the lobby of a Times Square recording studio. While in the hospital, Tupac meats his biological father Billy Garland, whom he belived to be dead, for the first time. Tupac checks himself out of the hospital less than three hours after the surgery. He was concerned for his safety. The case remains unsolved. Tupac is in the middle of a trial for sex and weapons charges. He shows up at the courtroom in a wheelchair, and is acquitted of all sodomy and wheapons charges, but is found guilty of sexual abuse.
In 1995, Tupac sentenced up to four and a hald year in prison. He immediately begins to serve his time at New York's Riker's Island Penitentiary. While in jail, his third album "Me Agains The World" debutes as #1 on the Billboard charts. The album goes platinum in seven months. This is the first and only time an incarranated man had #1 album in the country. Pac kept himself busy in jail by reading, mainly by the author Niccolo Machiavelli, whom he got his alias, Makaveli from. From jail, Tupac marries Keisha Morris, his longtime girlfriend. The marrige is annulled shortly thereafter. After eight long months in jail, he made bail at one million dollars. Suge Knight CEO of Death Row Records paid the bill and had been trying to sign Tupac to Death Row in the past but Pac was loyal to Interscope. Tupac signed to Death Row. He intended to bring Thug Life with him but some members didn't want to go to Death Row, as Suge Knight was very notorious. When Tupac was still in prison he was already recruiting new members for his new rap group named Outlawz three members from Thug Life joined the Outlawz, Himself, Big Syke and Komani. While new comers Hussein Fatal, Khadafi, Napoleon, Kastro, EDI, Storm also made up the Outlawz.
Tupac quickly released his most popular album "All Eyez On Me". The album was the first two-CD hip-hop LP ever released, and reached number 1 on the charts. Death Row and Bad Boy employees rumble after the Soul Train Awards in LA. Words are exchanged and a gun is pulled.
Nothing could have stopped this man, he was on top of the world making movies and receiving good reviews and getting better acting jobs. Three days after he finished making "All Eyez On Me" Tupac began work on Makaveli: The Don Killuminati". Tupac never lived to see the album being put out. He died due to gunshot wounds. He and Suge Knight were attending the Mike Tyson Vs Bruce Seldom fight at the MGM Grand In Las Vegas, Nevada on the September the 7th, 1996. After the fight in the lobby, one of the staff from Death Row spotted Orlando Anderson. He was a crip who stole one of Death Row's chains. They attacked him and then stormed out of the MGM. Pulling up to an intersection, Tupac and his entourage were on their way to a charity concert at Death Row Records Club 662. When, suddenly, a car pulled up to the right of them. The men got out of the car and unloaded their guns into the car Tupac and Suge were in. Tupac lived in the hospital for seven days before dying to his wounds. Out of all the people there only one came forward who was the member of the Outlawz, his name was Kadafi. He also died, on the night of a Tyson match, he was shot, by Napoleon's cousin in the head apparently they were both drugged up and it was accidental.
Tupac never stopped working in the studio, Suge Knight told Michael Harris (this was said in DVD "Welcome To Death Row", Harris funded death row records) that "I don't need anyone on Death Row.. Except Tupac.. He is amazing, he never stops working.. he doesn't care about woman, or parties he just wants to work", that is why there are hundreds of unreleased material, which some of it has been released. Two movies he made also were released after he died. There are also loads of Tupac tribute songs, as Tupac touched so many lives he could feel peoples pain, someone once said that "The amazing thing about Tupac.. is he could take his and other peoples sufferings and word it into lyrics", there has also been Tupac Tribute DVD'S and videos.
Tupac Shakur will go down in history as the rapper who always lived up to his wild reputation. He rapped of gunfights, rough sex, gang rivalries and "Thug Life," and was arrested, jailed, shot and later killed over these very issues. Always known as a gifted rapper and a brilliant lyricist, Tupac was often touted as being the Marvin Gaye of hip-hop, complex and talented, but a "Trouble Man" to the core. He parlayed his music career into a successful film career and was one of the hardest working men in show biz, churning out five albums, five films and numerous guest appearances in just under five years. Tupac lead a full life and accomplished a great deal before his murder in 1996.
Born in jail and raised in Oakland, Calif. by a former member of the Black Panthers, Tupac began his career as a back up dancer for Digital Underground, a Northern California rap group best known for their P-Funk inspired sex songs. Soon, the charismatic Tupac began rapping in the group and left to pursue a solo career. His brilliant 1991 debut, 2Pacalypse Now, featuring "Brenda's Having A Baby," was released to parental uproar, threats of censorship and a slew of controversies. The shooting of a Texas police officer to his music and a public admonishment by Vice President Dan Quayle, quickly made Tupac the most controversial rapper in hip-hop. The album set the tone for Tupac's soon-to-be platinum formula: a mix of hardcore, gun toting, misogynist, Thug Life anthems, and a tender, caring, troubled side that exposed the light side of Tupac's darker image. He also began a successful acting career with the equally controversial film Juice, a movie that opened to gunfire in theaters and censorship of the movie poster. Tupac followed up his debut with the powerful Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., a hardcore masterpiece that responded to the controversies surrounding him and featured appearances by the other two most controversial West Coast rappers, Ice-T and Ice Cube. It also spawned two breakthrough singles "Keep Ya Head Up" and "I Get Around." Tupac also starred in the Janet Jackson vehicle Poetic Justice, another glimpse into the vulnerable side of this multi-faceted artist and Above The Rim, a basketball movie with a soundtrack produced by former N.W.A. rapper, and current A-list rap producer Dr. Dre. However, a slew of controversy ensued when Tupac was arrested in a variety of incidents including an assault and a rape charge, and was shot and wounded while recording tracks in the studio. Tupac recorded his next record, Me Against The World, for Dre's Death Row Records, but found himself in prison when it was released. Featuring the hit single "Dear Mama," Me Against The World was a moodier, more introspective album, finding Tupac looking and sounding less like a thug and more like the sensitive man he claimed to have become. Once out of prison, the freshly energized rapper spent months in the studio recording his double album opus, the first of its kind in hip-hop, All Eyez On Me , which featured a duet with Dr. Dre titled "California Love" and guest turns by Snoop Doggy Dogg, George Clinton, Roger Troutman and Method Man. He also managed to shoot two more films (Gridlock'd and Gang Related), make numerous guest appearances on other rappers' records and record a pseudo-follow up entitled The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory before he was gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996. He death was a major blow to the rap community and heated up the already steaming East vs. West rivalry. Many people believed his death was orchestrated by rival label Bad Boy and their main players Sean "Puffy" Combs and rapper Notorious B.I.G., who was later gunned down himself in Los Angeles. These theories remained rumors in the already legendary, iconoclastic story of Tupac Shakur.
Tupac recorded so much material before he died that more Tupac albums have been released since his death that were released while he was alive, thanks to his mother Afeni Shakur's efforts to keep his memory and music alive. These posthumous albums include R U Still Down? (Remember Me?), Lost Tapes 1989, One Million Strong, Still I Rise, Rose That Grew From Concrete, Until The End Of Time, and 2002's Better Dayz, along with his one disc released under the Makaveli alias, Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory. A prophetic and prolific artist to say the least, Tupac led a career of constant controversy, but one also filled with many accomplishments and achievements. He is considered a hero to some, a martyr to others, and a legend by all.
![]()
|
![]()
2pac
|