If you don't know who Tupac was, then this is the page for you to read before you progress to the rest of the site. Here I will give a general overview of who Tupac was, and some links that you can follow to get more detailed information about him. Who was Tupac? Tupac Amaru Shakur was a rapper who also acted in several films. He made seven official solo albums, as well as contributing songs to his film soundtracks and featuring on other artists' tracks. You can see the albums from the Lyrics page. What was his background? I suggest that you read the Timeline page for a basic outline of his life, but in short he was born in 1971. His mother was a member of the Black Panther group, which campaigned for black women's rights in America. His real father left his mother at an early age, and so he knew his Stepfather Mutulu Shakur better. Mutulu was always in jail however, so you could say that Tupac did not have a very good upbringing. His rap career started out with a group called Digital Underground, and then he went solo with his first album, 2Pacalypse Now. So who is Makaveli, then? Makaveli was the name under which one of Tupac's last albums was released. He was still the same rapper, but just with a different alias. This was released after his death, and is considered to be one of his greatest albums. Tell me about Tupac in jail... Tupac was sent to jail after being convicted of the sexual abuse of a woman he met at a nightclub. The jail was called Riker's Island. He was bailed out by the MD of Death Row Records, Marion 'Suge' (pronouned like the 'sug' in sugar) Knight, for $1.4m. This was done in exchange for a three-album deal with Death Row. What is Death Row Records? Death Row was a record company which was known for its manager's violence and its 'true' gangsta rappers. Other rappers on the label in the past and present have included Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dr Dre, Daz Dillinger and Soopafly. Death Row became one of the biggest and most successful labels in rap history, but many say that it has fallen now that Snoop and Dre have left it. Suge Knight was jailed over a year ago for violating his probation, and he has been forbidden from having any conbtact with the label. He may be released next week (I am writing this on the 20th September, 1998). For more information, read the About Suge Knight article. So where is Tupac now? Tupac has died (although many theorists believe that he is still alive). He passed away in hospital on Friday 13th September, 1996. For more information, check out the Details of Tupac's Death link down the left side of your screen. How could he be alive? There are many theories, because Tupac left many 'clues' in a lot of his material. People believe that his death could have been faked. There are several pages dedicated to theories on this site. Here are the most relevant. The My Theory page discusses my views on why Tupac is dead, and who had him killed. The Is Tupac Alive? page gives reasons why Tupac could still be alive, and the About Blac Haze page gives information about the new artist, Blac Haze, who some people consider to be Tupac returned to the world of rap. What's next? Tupac has a lot of unreleased material, so dozens of new albums could be made and released. There are several legal battles going on at the moment as to who has the rights to this material - the battles are between Death Row and Tupac's mother, Afeni Shakur. Even if any new material was released, it would be a long time coming, and then there would be another long wait for any more to be released. So do not expect too much - there may only be a trickle of new songs.BoNeThuGSoLjAh@aol.com