Tupac Shakur Biography. Early life. Way to success. Albums and singles. Personal life.

Who is Tupac Shakur?

Tupac Shakur was an American rapper and actor who embodied the gangsta rap aesthetic of the 1990s and who, after his death, became an icon symbolizing noble struggle. To date, he has sold 75 million albums, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. A sensitive, talented and troubled man beyond his years, Tupac was shot in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996 and died six days later. His murder was never solved. Tupac began his music career as a rebel with the goal of expressing the suffering and injustice experienced by many African Americans. His ability to do this made him a spokesman not only for his own generation, but for those who follow as they continue to face the same struggle for equality. In life, his biggest battle was sometimes with himself. As fate led him toward the nihilism of gangsta rap and into the arms of controversial Death Row Records impresario Suge Knight, the lines between Shakur's art and his life became increasingly blurred—with tragic consequences.

The beginning of the work of Tupac Shakur

In 1990, Tupac, mastering rap, began performing with a group from California, Digital Underground, whose performances included dance, multimedia, visual shows and a specific style of existence. The track of this group “Same Song” is recognized as the first in the singer’s career.

Young Tupac Shakur

At the same time, he was busy creating his own musical compositions. 1991 was marked by the release of his debut creation “2Pacalypse Now” (similar to the film “Apocalypse Now”). Along with sensual female motifs, in particular in the single “Brenda's Got A Baby”, it contained not always censored lyrics about the existence of those who found themselves on the margins of society, which caused rejection and indignation from the authorities, but the album subsequently gained gold status.

In 1992, the rapper made his film debut. He appeared in the film "Authority", where he played a gangster committing arbitrariness and lawlessness. According to those around him, later he allegedly began to identify himself with him. On the way to the height of his popularity, the rapper actually led a life of crime and periodically found himself behind bars for short periods of time. During the same period, Tupac released his second studio disc, Strictly 4 My NIGGAZ, which sold more than one million copies and made him a star.

Tupac Shakur - Only God Can Judge Me In 1993, a film with Shakur's participation, Poetic Justice, was released, which became a hit. This film about love and violence also starred Janet Jackson, who was allegedly wary of the young talent and demanded that Puck first undergo an HIV test. He agreed to do this, but only if the script included his sex with the singer. It can be noted that the singer’s creative collection also included a film, a cult favorite for basketball fans, “Above the Ring.”

Early life

LeSane Parish Crooks (Tupac Amaru Shakur) was born on June 16, 1971 in Harlem, New York. His mother, Afeni, raised two children on her own and struggled with poverty. The family often moved from house to house, sometimes staying in shelters.

They moved to Baltimore, where Tupac attended the prestigious Baltimore School of the Arts, where he felt “the freest of all.”

After joining the Black Panther Party, his mother changed her name to Tupac Amaru, a Peruvian revolutionary killed by the Spanish. Tupac later took his last name from his sister Sekiah's father, another Panther named Mutulu Shakur.

Tupac's mother, Alice Faye Williams, was the daughter of a North Carolina maid and a high school dropout. She became pregnant with Tupac in 1970 while out on bail after being accused of plotting to start a race war. Afeni was acquitted the following year after successfully defending herself in court, demonstrating the gift of oratory that her son would inherit. She changed her name to Afeni Shakur after becoming active in the Black Panther Party. Afeni died in May 2016 at the age of 69.

Tupac's father, Billy Garland, was also a Panther, but lost contact with Afeni when Tupac was five years old. The rapper won't see his father again until he turns 23. “I spent my whole life thinking my father was dead,” he told writer Kevin Powell in a 1996 interview with Vibe magazine. “I felt like I needed a dad to show me the ropes, and I didn’t have one.”

Afeni gave birth to a daughter, Sekiah, two years after Tupac. However, Sekiya's father, Mutulu Shakur, did not stick around either.

Tupac met actress Jada Pinkett Smith in high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts in Maryland. She had a cameo in his video for the song "Strictly 4 My Niggaz".

Pinkett Smith was featured in the 2021 Tupac film All Eyez on Me. She later told reporters that she was a drug dealer when she met Tupac, and that she found the film's "reimagining" of their relationship "very painful." “It wasn't just about, oh, you have this sweet girl and this cool guy, they must have been into it... It was about survival, and it was always about survival between us,” she said.

Murder of Tupac Shakur: who killed?

Chuck Phillips, a journalist for a famous newspaper called the Los Angeles Times, is sure that he knows about the mysterious murder of gangsta rapper 2Pac. He says Shakur was shot by Orlando Anderson, who wanted revenge for a fight at the MGM Grand Hotel. The journalist also notes that the murder weapon was provided by Christopher Wallace himself, an East Coast rapper under the nickname Notorious BIG

That day, after Orlando Anderson was beaten by the Makaveli gang, he went to help with the elder, where during the meeting it was decided to destroy Shakur and make good money on it. The thing is that on the same day Notorious BIG himself was in Los Angeles. Having learned about the conflict, the king of the West Side offered a million dollars for the murder of Tupac Shakur and promised to provide his weapon for this - Makaveli was shot with Notorious’s pistol.

An hour later the mission was completed. Biggie Smalls awarded the bandits the first payment of fifty thousand dollars. Nothing is known about how Notorius paid further. In 1997, the same fate awaited him: he was shot dead in his own car under almost similar circumstances. In 1998, Orlando Anderson himself was killed in the same way.

Moving to California

Tupac's Baltimore neighborhood was plagued by crime, so the family moved to Marine City, California. In 1997, Robert Sam Anison published a full posthumous profile of Tupac for Vanity Fair. It was in Marin City that Afeni succumbed to drug addiction, a drug that her son Tupac sold on the same streets where his mother bought her supplies.

Tupac's love of hip-hop would steer him away from a life of crime (at least for a while). At age 17, in the spring of 1989, he met an older white woman, Leila Steinberg, in a park. They started talking about Winnie Mandela. Steinberg later recalled "a young man with fan-shaped eyelashes, brimming with charisma and the most infectious laugh." By the time they met, Tupac was obsessed with writing poetry and convinced Steinberg, who had no experience in the music industry, to become his manager.

Steinberg eventually managed to get Tupac in front of music manager Atron Gregory, who got him a gig in 1990 as a roadie and dancer for the hip-hop group Digital Underground. He soon stepped up to the microphone, making his recording debut in 1991 on the same song that accompanied the soundtrack of the Dan Aykroyd comedy Nothing But Trouble. Tupac also appeared on the Digital Underground album Sons of the P in October of the same year. After Steinberg replaced Gregory as the band's manager, he gave Tupac a deal with Interscope Records. A month after Sons of the P hit stores, 2Pacalypse Now, Tupac's debut album as a solo artist, arrived.

Tupac often complained that he was not understood. “Not everything in life is beautiful,” he told journalist Chuck Phillips. “There’s a lot of murder and drugs there.” For me, the perfect album speaks of difficult, fun and caring. … What worries me is that a lot of the sensitive things I write just go unnoticed.”

In August 1992, Tupac was attacked by jealous young men in Marine City. He grabbed his gun, but dropped it in the struggle. Someone picked it up, the gun went off, and 6-year-old bystander, Caid Walker-Teal, fell dead. Although Tupac was not charged in Walker-Teal's death, he was reportedly inconsolable. (In 1995, Walker-Teal's family filed a civil suit against Tupac, but settled out of court after an unnamed record company offered compensation of between $300,000 and $500,000.)

In October 1993, Tupac shot two white police officers in Atlanta—one in the stomach and one in the buttocks—after an argument. However, the charges were dropped after it was revealed in court that the officers were drunk, initiated the incident, and that one of the officers threatened Tupac with a stolen gun. This incident illustrated the misrepresentation of African-American men and the treatment of them by some police officers that Tupac addressed in his music. What was portrayed as armed "gangster" behavior by a lawless man turned out to be an act of self-defense by a young man in fear for his life. All the while, Tupac's star continued to rise. Tupac actually went to jail for 15 days in 1994 for assaulting director Allen Hughes, who fired him from the filming of Public Menace II for subversion.

Criminal gangs of American hip-hop

By that time, a confrontation had developed in American hip-hop between schools from the west and east coasts. Let's take into account that we are not talking about refined teenagers, but about young black guys who grew up among killers, dealers and criminal gangs, pumped up with hatred for their past, present and future. Therefore, the word “war” should not mean mutual insults on Instagram, which did not exist then, but real military operations.

The creative part of the confrontation in the east was the responsibility of The Notorious BIG (backed by the still living Puff Daddy ), in the west - Tupac Shakur, who in his travels through the old days reached from New York to California. The names of the participants in the two camps are well known even to those who have never understood the American underground. Snoop Dogg supported Tupac, Jay-Z and Lil' Kim were on the other side.

The conflict moved from the recording studios to the streets, and then back to the recording studios: Tupac was attacked while mixing the album in New York, and shootings at unification parties complemented the picture. In the background, clashes took place across the country between the two most powerful criminal groups in the country - the Bloods and the Crips (they are still strong and still numerous).

Tupac vs Notorious BIG

There were even more problems before Tupac released his third album. In November 1994, he was shot multiple times in the lobby of Manhattan's Quad recording studio by two young black men. Tupac believed his rap rival Notorious BIG was behind the shooting, for which no one was ever charged. (Notorious BIG has always denied knowing anything).

In June 1996, Tupac released the diss track "Hit 'Em Up" aimed at Notorious B.I.G. and his Bad Boy Records label boss Sean Combs, increasing tensions between East and West Coast rap. Their rivalry was quickly becoming hip-hop's most famous drama. Three months later, Tupac was killed.

Don't confuse the shores

In 1993, Tupac's second album brought him money in addition to fame. Despite the title Strictly 4 My NIGGAZ... (“Only for my N.E.G.R.O.V...”), the album sold well among the white population of the United States - people far from life in the ghetto were attracted by the romance of the gangster areas told in the poetic language of Shakur.

East and West Coast - in hip-hop, artists from New York and its boroughs (Brooklyn, Harlem) and Los Angeles (Compton, Inglewood), respectively, define themselves into groupings based on the geography of their creativity.

By recording in Los Angeles, Shakur automatically became a West Coast rapper. But in 1993 there was no tension with eastern competitors. The main rapper of the East was considered Notorious BIG, nicknamed Biggie Smalls (in the world Christopher Wallace). Biggie was a great friend of Tupac - the couple often performed together, gave joint interviews and even relaxed in clubs.

The rappers were born less than a year apart, but there was a huge creative gap between them. While Tupac was studying poetry, young Biggie was selling crack on the streets. Shakur read real poetic rap and played with meanings in the lyrics, and Smalls said things directly, without beating or hinting.

The greats #2pac #Biggie pic.twitter.com/mV4iCptbvh
— b o8 (@HighAceZ) August 18, 2016

But there could only be one king of American hip-hop. And both artists guessed about this. The two coasts could not coexist peacefully; someone had to strike the first blow in order to remain on the pedestal in splendid isolation.

Joining "Joining Death"

While Tupac was in prison on rape charges, he was visited by Suge Knight, the notorious boss of Death Row records. Knight offered to post the $1.3 million bail Tupac needed to be released pending his appeal. The condition was that Tupac join Joining Death. Tupac duly signed. He was released from the maximum security Dannemora prison in New York in October 1995.

At the same time he was glorifying the criminal lifestyle for Joining Death, Tupac was funding a youth risk center, funding South Central sports teams, establishing a helpline for young people with problems - all of which was noted in Robert Sam Anson's Vanity article Fair", published after Tupac's death.

Tupac Shakur: cause of death

The cause of Tupac Shakur's death was several gunshot wounds, but why and at whose will the shots were fired, the answer to this question has not yet been found.

After the attempt was made on the rapper’s life, he remained conscious for a long time and was confident that he would survive, as had already happened two years before this attempt.

Then, in 1994, Tupac and his friends, at the invitation of rapper Lil' Shawn, arrived at a recording studio, where they were attacked by three unknown men demanding to hand over their valuables. Shakura, who did not obey the order to lie on the floor, was shot with a pistol, and then beaten.

The criminals fled after removing Tupac's gold jewelry, but he managed to survive. After that incident, Shakur apparently believed in his invulnerability, but this time everything ended tragically. Of the thirteen bullets fired towards Tupac, four reached their target - two bullets hit the chest, one in the arm, one in the thigh.

Already in the hospital, being connected to a machine that artificially supports life, and injected with strong painkillers, the rapper tried several times to get out of bed. Doctors put Shakura into an artificial coma, but all their efforts were in vain.

After Tupac Shakur died, his close friends couldn’t believe it, one of whom was the owner of the Death Row Records label, Suge Knight.

They were driving from a club where they had come to watch the fight between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon, when a Cadillac pulled alongside their car and shots were fired from the window. No one could guess who shot the rapper, and the answer to this question has not yet been found.

There are many assumptions and versions about who and why made an attempt on the famous rapper’s life, but none of them has yet become the main one in the search for the causes of Tupac Shakur’s death.

According to some, the rapper became a victim of revenge from one of the gangs, with the leader of which Shakur had a fight shortly before the incident. They also said that he was retaliated against by supporters of another hip-hop artist, Biggie Smalls, with whom Tupac openly feuded.

When Tupac died, a version arose that the criminals were not targeting him at all, but his companion, Suge Knight, the owner of Death Row Records, whose assassination attempt was made by his wife in order to take over the label. One way or another, the crime has not yet been solved, and by whose will Tupac Shakur died remains unknown.

Songs and albums

Tupac released a total of 11 platinum albums: four during his career, with another seven released posthumously. To date, Tupac has sold more than 75 million records worldwide. As of September 2021, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) named Tupac the 44th best-selling artist of all time based on album sales and streaming metrics.

"2Pacalypse Now"

Tupac's first album as a solo artist was 2Pacalypse Now. Although it didn't produce any hits, it sold a respectable 500,000 copies and established Tupac as an uncompromising social commentator with songs like "Brenda's Got a Baby"—which chronicled a teenage mother's fall into poverty—and "Soulja's Story," which controversially about the “explosion” of a policeman and the “fall of a policeman.” The song was cited as the motive for the murder of a police officer by a teenage carjacker named Ronald Ray Howard and was condemned by then-US Vice President Dan Quayle. “There is absolutely no reason to publish such a recording,” Quayle said. “She has no place in our society.” With these words, Tupac's notoriety was guaranteed.

"Strictly 4 My Niggaz"

Tupac's second album, Strictly 4 My Niggaz, was released in February 1993. It continued in the same socially conscious vein as his debut. On the gold-selling single "Keep Ya Head Up," he empathized with "my sisters on welfare," urging them to "please don't cry, dry your eyes, never give up."

The album includes recordings from Tupac's half-brother, Moprem. Mopreme became a member of the hip-hop group Thug Life, which was founded by Tupac and which released the album Thug Life: Volume 1 in 1994.

"Me Against the World"

When Tupac's third solo album was released on March 14, 1995, he was in prison. Its title, “Me Against the World,” could not have been more appropriate. It peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and is considered by many to be his magnum opus—"largely a work of pain, anger and searing despair," wrote Rolling Stone's Cheo H. Cocker.

But there was also vulnerability—lead single “Dear Mama” was a tear-jerking tribute to his mother Afeni, which peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1995.

"All Eyez on Me"

Tupac's debut for Death Row, the double album All Eyez on Me, was released in February 1996. When his new hip-hop group, the Outlawz, made their album debut, "All Eyez on Me" was an unapologetic celebration of the gangster lifestyle, eschewing socially conscious lyrics in favor of gangsta-funk hedonism and menace.

Dr. Dre, who pioneered g-funk with N.W.A., produced the album's first single, "California Love", which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remains Tupac's best-known song. The third single from the album, "How Do You Want It", also peaked at No. 1. Within two months of its release, "All Eyez on Me" was certified five times double platinum. It will eventually become a certified diamond.

"How Do U Want It"

Released as a single in June 1996, "How Do You Want It" was better known for its B-track "Hit 'Em Up", which aired Tupac's West Coast feud with East Coast rivals Bad Boy. In the rousing song, Tupac spat venom at artists such as Biggie Smalls, Lil' Kim, Junior M.A.F.I.A. and Prodigy Mobb Deep.

"Don Killuminati: The Seven Day Theory"

Tupac's fifth album, Don Killuminati: The Seven Day Theory, was released in November 1996, just eight weeks after his death. It also reached No. 1 on the charts. Tupac recorded a total of six studio albums, released posthumously, until Pac's Life in 2006.

Wife and girlfriend

Tupac married Keisha Morris in 1995 while he was still in prison; the couple had met a few months earlier at a nightclub when Morris was 20 and Tupac was 21. Their marriage was dissolved five months after Tupac's release from prison, in October 1995; the couple remained friends until his death. Shortly after his marriage to Morris ended, Tupac began dating Kidada Jones. They met at a club when Tupac apologized for insulting her father, Quincy Jones, for only dating white women. Jones was in Las Vegas with Tupac the night he was shot.

How did the rapper Tupac die?

On September 7, 1996, Shakur and his friend and producer Suge Knight drove their black BMW to Las Vegas for a boxing match between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon.

After the fight, which ended with the expected victory of “Iron Mike,” on the way to the nightclub, Tupac’s car, driven by Suge, was fired upon by unknown persons from a passing Cadillac car nearby. It was a real attempt on the life of a gangsta rap icon. Shakur was hit by 4 bullets, and Knight escaped with light abrasions from glass fragments. After the ambulance arrived, the rapper was immediately hospitalized. For six days, Shakur was in serious condition and subsequently died on September 13.

Death

Tupac died in Las Vegas on September 13, 1996 from gunshot wounds received six days earlier. His murder remains unsolved. On September 7, Tupac was in Las Vegas with Knight to watch Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand Hotel. After a fight, a brawl broke out between a member of the Crips gang and Tupac. The car in which Tupac was riding with Knight stopped at a red light, a man got out of another car and fired 13 shots, hitting Tupac in the arm, pelvis and chest. He later died in hospital. His girlfriend Kidada and mother Afeni were with him in his last days. Tupac's body was cremated. Members of his old band, the Outlawz, made the controversial claim that they smoked some of his ashes in honor of him. His mother announced she would scatter her son's ashes in Soweto, South Africa, "the homeland of his ancestors," on the 10th anniversary of his murder. She later changed the date to June 16, 1997—Tupac's 26th birthday and also the anniversary of the 1976 Soweto uprising.

On March 9, 1997, six months after Tupac's death, Biggie Smalls was killed in a shooting in Los Angeles; his murder was also never solved.

Tupac died from gunshot wounds in 1996. However, conspiracy theories have raged since Tupac was shot as his murder was never solved. Fans speculated that Tupac faked his death. On his album Life Goes On, Tupac rapped about his funeral; his song "I Ain't Mad at Cha" was released two days after his death. Since his death, there have been several reports of potential "sightings" of Tupac, including in 2012 by Kim Kardashian.

Is Tupac still alive?

While many musicians who died young have been theorized to still be alive, no fan is more diligent than Tupac V. Elvis may get more references in pop culture, but theories about Presley are still alive. usually tongue in cheek. Shakur fans tend to be dead serious, and what's more, their reasons aren't entirely ridiculous, which would make them much easier to dismiss. Instead, they have a lot of supposed evidence that really makes you think.

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Letter from Tupac to Madonna

While serving time in prison, Tupac wrote a letter to Madonna in which he broke off his relationship with the pop star because of her race. The letter, dated January 15, 1995 at 4:30 a.m., was verified for authenticity by news outlets including Rolling Stone. In July 2017, Tupac's letter to Madonna was put up for auction and was expected to fetch $100,000. In 2021, Madonna sued the art consultant and online auction house behind the auction to stop the sale. The judge dismissed her claim, citing the release Madonna signed in 2004. Madonna lost her appeal at the Court of Appeal in June 2019. The letter was put up for auction in July 2021. The letter explains why Tupac ended their relationship. "Being seen with a black man will in no way jeopardize your career - if anything, it will make you seem much more open and exciting," he wrote. “But for me, at least in my previous perception, I felt that because of my 'image' I would be letting down half the people who made me who I thought I was. I never meant to hurt you." Tupac also apologized. “As you said, I have not been the kind of friend that I know I am capable of being,” he said, adding that he had “grown both spiritually and mentally” and was no longer “a young man with limited experience with an extremely famous sex symbol."

On November 21, 2021, A&E aired the six-part biography Presents: Who Killed Tupac?, which followed civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump as he investigated the key theories behind Tupac's 1996 murder.

On April 7, 2021, Tupac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, one of music's highest honors—a fitting inclusion for a rapper many have called the greatest of all time.