Biography:
Tupac Shakur (a.k.a. 2Pac) was among the most dynamic, influential, and self-destructive rappers of the '90s. And true to his appropriately titled 1995 chart-topping album, Me Against the World, Tupac Shakur attempted to define himself as a performer amidst numerous criminal charges and convictions. His husky voice described the rapper's stark contradictions, preaching misogyny and strong women, street wisdom and the violence of his "thug life" - words he had tattooed across his torso. The critical and commercial success of his music (as well as an acclaimed acting career) was continually overshadowed by his legal entanglements, which began only after he became a recording artist. In the life of this alternately acclaimed and vilified gangsta rapper, art and reality became tragically blurred, culminating in his 1996 murder in Las Vegas.
Shakur was the son of Black Panther Party members Billy Garland and Afeni Shakur (Shakur is Arabic for thankful to God), who was in jail (and later acquitted) on bombing charges while pregnant with him. Sometime after his birth, he was named Tupac Amaru, for an Incan chief whose name translates as shining serpent. Shakur spent his earliest years in the Bronx and Harlem, and at age 13 made his acting debut in a production of A Raisin in the Sun at an Apollo Theatre benefit for Jesse Jacksons 1984 presidential campaign. He spent the rest of his childhood moving around the country with his mother. He attended the Baltimore School of the Arts before dropping out and settling, at the age of 17, in Marin County, California. The rapper then successfully auditioned to become a dancer and roadie for the rap group Digital Underground and simultaneously worked relentlessly on his own material. He appeared on that groups This Is an E.P. Release EP (1990) and Sons of the P (1991). In 1991 he signed with Interscope and released the album 2pacalypse Now (#64 pop, #13 R&B, 1992), a musical mixture of inner-city portraiture and messages of racial strength. An underground hit, the album spawned the single Brendas Got a Baby (#23 R&B).
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