Tupac was born 16:th of June in 1971 in Bronx, New York. His mother,
Afeni Shakur, was in jail while she was pregnant,
but she got out one month before the birth. At first Tupac was
named Lesane Crooks, but then it was changed to Tupac
Amaru Shakur. He is named after an Inca chief, Tupac Amaru means
”shining serpent” referring to wisdom and
courage. Shakur is Arabic for ”thankful to God”.
Before Tupac was born Afeni joined the New York Panthers in
1968. It was a political party fighting for blacks right in
the society. In April 1969 she and 20 other members were arrested
and charged with numerous felonies, including conspiracy
to bomb several public areas. While Afeni was out on bail she
courted two men, Legs and Billy. She had previously been
married to Lumumba Shakur, a member of the party and one of the 20
arrested. When he She had previously been
found out she was pregnant, he divorced her, because he remained incarcerated.
When Tupac was born, Afeni was scared that they would take him
away from her. The doctor took the baby right
to Afeni’s sister, so she could identify him later and tell Afeni that
it was really her child.
Tupac’s family moved between Bronx and Harlem a lot, sometimes
living in homeless shelters.
When Tupac was 12, Afeni enrolled him in the 127:th Street Ensemble,
a theater group in Harlem. In his first performance
Tupac played Travis in ”A Raisin In The Sun”.
Tupac claimed that Legs was his father, and Legs came to live
with the family in the early 1980s and introduced Afeni
to crack. Legs got into prison and by the time he was out, Afeni, tired
of the hard times in New York, had moved her family
to Baltimore. By the time she called back to New York to let Legs know
about her move, he died from a crackinduced heart
attack at 41. Tupac took that very hard, because Legs was like a father
for him and he thought that a mother couldn’t teach
a son how to be a man. Baltimore was although the first place Tupac
began to feel an identity of his own. He wrote his first
rap there and his name was MC New York. He auditioned
and was accepted by the Baltimore School for the Arts, where
he finally felt in touch with himself, and with a different reality.
That was the first time he saw that there were white people who
he could get along with.
At the age of 17, after his junior year, Tupac moved with his
family to Marin City, California. He never finished high school.
Shortly after arriving in Marin City, he moved in with a neighbor.
Tupac started selling dope and became the running joke in
the area. After a while Tupac auditioned for Shock-G, the leader of
Digital Underground, and was hired as a roadie and a
sort of dancer. When Digital Underground got popular, Tupac found himself
touring the States and Japan.
While Tupac was touring he called his homies in Marin City and
they told him that Afeni was buying dope from somebody.
He started blocking her out of his mind, he said, he lost respect for
her.
Afeni moved back to New York, eventually she “gave up” her drug
addiction, and started working for 2Pacalypse Entertainment.
Tupac’s first solo-album was released in 1991 and the name was
“2PACalypse Now”. And in 1992 he took part in his first
movie Juice. In October 1993 Tupac was arrested for allegedly shooting
two white off-duty police officers. He was charged
with two counts of aggravated assault and released on bail. A few weeks
later he was charged with sexual assault, he was
sentenced to 9 months in jail. One month after the release in November
1994 he got robbed and got shot five times, but he left
the hospital less then 24 hours after the shooting. Tupac claims that
it wasn’t a random robbery but planned.
In February 1995 he was sentenced to 4 ½ years in jail
for sexual charges, but after 8 month he was released. Suge Knight,
the executive producer of Death Row Records, picked him up and Tupac
signed a deal. Suge Knight was sympathizing with the Bloods.
On the evening 7:th of September 1996, Tupac was on a boxing
match to see Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon. After that he got
into a fight with a young black man ( a member of the Los Angeles crips
), but security stopped it. Then Tupac left the Hotel with
the Hotel with the Death Row entourage and they stopped by the Luxor
Hotel and proceeded to Suge Knight’s house.
Suge Knight and Tupac rode in a black BMW and on Flamingo
Road a white Cadillac rolled up to the passenger side. According
to a witness, two men got out of the Cadillac and fired 13 rounds at
the BMW from less than 13 feet away. Tupac sat on the passenger
side so he got hit four times, with two deadly wounds to his chest.
According to the witness, Tupac tried to jump into the back seat
of the car as he got shot.
Suge Knight got minor wounds to his head, and made a U-turn
and raced west to Las Vegas Boulevard, made a left turn and came
to a stop near the intersection of Harmon Avenue. Police and an ambulance
arrived and took Tupac and Suge Knight to the University
Medical Center and under the upcoming days Tupac undergoes two operations.
At 4:03 PM on Friday the 13:th of September Tupac
Amaru Shakur died from his injuries.
During his whole life he released 8 CD’s and three of them were released after his death:
1991-2PACalypse Now
1993-Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z
1994-Thug Life
1995-Me Against The World
1996-All Eyes On Me
1996-The Don Killuminati-The 7 Day Theory
1997-R U Still Down (remember me)
1998-In His Own Words
And these are the films he has taken part in:
1992-Juice
1993-Poetic Justice
1994-Above the Rim
1995-Bullet
1996-Gang Related
1996-Gridlock’d
