Tupac Shakur

Tupac Shakur is one of the most well known and highly regarded rappers of all time, with many finding him to be the greatest of all time. However, most don’t know that his rise to fame and upbringing that made him the man he was. He is infamous for representing the west coast, but Shakur was actually born in Harlem, New York in 1971. Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, was a member of the Black Panthers and was an activist in New York who worked on gaining bail money for African American convicts. She and eight other Panthers were tried for bombing charges while pregnant with Tupac. Shortly after being found not guilty for the charges, Tupac was born, and the two remained in Harlem until 1984, when the two, along with Tupac’s half-sister, moved to Baltimore. Tupac would enroll in the Baltimore School for the Arts, which was where he initially got into poetry. In 1988, the Shakur family moved to Marin City, were Tupac’s image started to form. He was introduced to the California gang culture and started selling drugs which at the same time his mother got addicted to crack.

Tupac would end up straying from the streets as he started to develop his poetry and start to write hip hop. This would cause him to meet Leila Steinberg, who would be Tupac’s first manager and would connect Shakur with Digital Underground, a popular rap group from Oakland. He started as a road dancer for the group, but once he got on the microphone, they brought him on as an MC. Tupac’s first recording debut was called Same Song, which released in 1990. His unique flow would prompt him to release his first solo album, 2pacalypse Now, and was acclaimed for its political messaging similar to other rap in the 1990s. Tupac’s vocal position on police brutality and civil rights was shown in his trail and accusation aginst two white off duty cops in Atlanta. The case was portrayed as a violent offense but was later revealed that the officers were intoxicated and Tupac was only acting in self-defense. Shakur’s career also transcended music, he was also an actor in movies such as Juice and Poetic Justice. As his music career grew, 2Pac signed to Suge Knight’s Death Row Records and released what was regarded as his most successful album, All Eyez on Me. However, no legal issues or arguments with other rappers would prepare the world for his sudden death in 1996. While driving back from Mike Tyson v. Bruce Seldon, Tupac and Suge Knight were shot at, hitting Tupac, and killing him one week later.

The impact of Tupac Shakur’s career still lives on today. With hip-hop being the top music genre in the US today, it is an undisputed fact that Shakur’s music is responsible for the growth of rap music as a whole and helped cast the mold for today's artists.




Sources:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/afeni-shakur-mother-of-tupac-shakur-and-activist-dead-at-69-64694/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tupac-Shakur

https://www.biography.com/musician/tupac-shakur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Tupac_Shakur

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1976425/who-killed-tupac-shakur-biggie-conspiracy-theories/