2Pac

2Pac biography

Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971 - September 13, 1996), known by his stage names 2Pac, Pac, and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide as of 2007, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. Rolling Stone Magazine named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time. The themes of most of Tupac's songs are the violence and hardship in inner cities, racism, social problems, and conflicts with other rappers during the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry. Shakur began his career as a roadie, backup dancer, and MC for the alternative hip hop group Digital Underground.

Both of his parents and several other family members were members of the Black Panthers, and Tupac made reference to the organization in the song "Changes". Shakur was involved in a West-coast East-coast rivalry after a major feud with East-coast rappers, producers and record-label members of staff.

On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was taken to the University Medical Center, where he died six days later.

Tupac Amaru Shakur was born on the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City. He was named after Tíºpac Amaru II, a Peruvian revolutionary who led an indigenous uprising against Spain and was subsequently executed. His mother, Afeni Shakur, and his father, Billy Garland, were active members of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s; he was born just one month after his mother's acquittal on more than 150 charges of "Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks" in the New York Panther 21 court case.

Although unconfirmed by the Shakur family, several sources (including the official coroner's report) list his birth name as Lesane Parish Crooks. This name was supposedly entered on the birth certificate because Afeni feared her enemies would attack her son, and disguised his true identity using a different last name. She changed it later, following her separation from Garland and marriage to Mutulu Shakur. Struggle and incarceration surrounded Shakur from an early age. His godfather, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a high ranking Black Panther, was convicted of murdering a school teacher during a 1968 robbery, although his sentence was later overturned. His stepfather, Mutulu, spent four years at large on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list beginning in 1982. Mutulu was wanted in part for having helped his sister Assata Shakur (also known as Joanne Chesimard) to escape from a penitentiary in New Jersey, where she had been incarcerated for shooting a state trooper to death in 1973. Mutulu was caught in 1986 and imprisoned for the robbery of a Brinks armored truck in which two police officers and a guard were killed. Shakur had a half-sister, Sekyiwa, two years his junior, and an older stepbrother, Mopreme "Komani" Shakur, who appeared on many of his recordings.

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