Tupac Shakur was born in New York City to Afeni Shakur, a member of the Black Panthers . Serving jail time on bombing charges while pregnant with Tupac, she faced three hundred years [sic]. Acting as her own attorney, she beat the charges and was released one month before Tupac was to be born.

Shakur said "I never knew where my father was or who my father was for sure." His godfather, Geronimo Pratt, was also a high-ranking Panther. His step-father, Mutulu, was a drug dealer who, Shakur said, wasn't always around to give him the discipline he needed.

Much of Tupac's upbringing revolved around the Black Panther philosophy. Impoverished during most of his childhood, Tupac, with his mother and half-sister, moved around to homeless shelters and various places to stay around New York City. As a result, he retained few friends and relied on writing poetry and diary entries to keep himself busy. At the age of 12, Shakur joined a Harlem theatre group and acted as Travis in Raisin in the Sun .

At fifteen, he and his mother moved to Baltimore, Maryland , where he was accepted to the Baltimore School for the Arts . Tupac "loved [his] classes" and had the opportunity to study theater, ballet, and other arts. Even at this age, Shakur was outspoken on the subject of racial equality . His teachers remembered him as being a very gifted student. He was an avid reader, delving into books about eastern religions , and even entire encyclopedia sets. He gained the respect of Baltimore kids by acting like a tough guy. Shakur composed his first rap in Baltimore under the name "MC New York". The song was about gun control , and was inspired by the killing of one of his close friends.

Two years later, Afeni sent Tupac to live with a family friend in Marin City, California . Tupac describes this move away from Baltimore and the arts school as "where I got off track". He displayed a strong contempt for law enforcement , and was hassled occasionally for playing music loudly. In August of 1988 Shakur's stepfather Mutulu was sentenced to sixty years in prison for armed robbery after being on the FBI 's Ten Most Wanted list for several years.

Shakur soon moved in with a neighbor and started selling drugs and hustling on the street, but he also made friends who helped spark his interest in rap music. He made friends with Ray Luv , and together they started a rap group called Strictly Dope. Their neighborhood shows brought Tupac enough acclaim to land an audition with Shock G. of Digital Underground.

In 1990 Shakur joined as a second-string rapper and dancer for Digital Underground . While his rapping ability progressed quickly, his early lyrics were unremarkable and he was viewed ambivalently for his tendency to act like a diva and for his occasionally violent personality. Shakur made his first appearance on a record on the Digital Underground release This is an EP in 1991 , and then in the Digital Underground's Sons of the P .

In late 1991 , a 20-year old Shakur rose to stardom with his acclaimed album 2Pacalypse Now . Although produced with the help of his Digital Underground crew, the intent of the album was to showcase his individual talent. Tupac drew acclaim for his ability to mix tracks with powerful individual messages exemplifying respect for single black mothers such as "Brenda's got a Baby" and "Single Black Mutha". Many of the songs dealt with the issues of racism and life in the ghetto .

The album was a popular word-of-mouth success, achieving gold status , with Brenda's Got a Baby making it to the R&B Top 30. While Shakur claimed ( http://www.alleyezonme.com/interviews/5.phtml ) his album was aimed at the problems facing young black males, it was also filled with images of violence by and against police. 2Pacalypse Now quickly attracted public criticism, especially after a young man who killed a Texas Trooper claiming he was inspired by the album. Former Vice President Dan Quayle , as part of his zealous push for morals, publicly denounced the album as having "no place in our society".

Along with Shakur's rise to fame came a series of altercations with the law that further complicated his public image. Before he started his recording career, Tupac had no criminal record. In Oakland in October of 1991, Tupac was stopped by two officers for allegedly jaywalking. When he told the police "fuck y'all," he was choked, beaten, and had his head smashed on the pavement. He subsequently raised a ten milllion dollar lawsuit against the Oakland police department, which was eventually settled for $42,000.

Then, in 1992, he was arrested after being in a fight at the Marin City Outdoor Festival that culminated in a six year-old boy being killed by a stray bullet; the charges against him were dropped after Shakur settled with the boy's parents.

In October 1993 , Shakur came upon two off-duty police officers whom he perceived as harassing a black motorist on the side of the road in Atlanta. Shakur got into a fight with them, and shot both officers (one in the leg, one in the buttocks). He faced serious charges until it was discovered that both officers were intoxicated during the incident and were using weapons stolen out of an evidence locker. The charges against Shakur were dismissed.

Shakur's next album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z achieved platinum status and included the hit singles I Get Around and Keep Ya Head Up , songs that exemplified Tupac's description of himself as both a passionate thug and a caring figure. Keep Ya Head Up was especially noted for its message of respect to young black women, and criticism of men for disrespecting them.

Tupac formed the group Thug Life with a few of his friends, including Big Syke, Macadoshis, his half-brother Mopreme, and Rated R. The group released their first album Thug Life: Volume 1 on Interscope in 1995 with moderate success, and were hailed as "socially conscious rappers". The group's lyrical strength undoubtedly lay primarily with Tupac, and the group has had little success after his death. One of Tupac's many tatoos was "THUGLIFE" across his abdomen.

In December, Tupac Shakur was charged with sexually abusing a woman in his hotel room. According to his account, he met a female fan at a club, Nell's, who was described to him as wanting to "more than meet [him]". She allegedly gave him a blowjob on the dance floor before Shakur took her back to his hotel room. The next night, she visited him before he was set to do a show, and was giving him a massage in a hotel room. Some friends who were with him that night interrupted the couple, wanting to enjoy the woman's attentions themselves. Shakur claimed to have left the room disgusted, and went to take a nap. The girl, disagreeing with his account, accused him of encouraging the three men, pulling her hair, and sodomy . On February 7 , 1995 , Shakur was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for the sexual assault charges, though he vehemently denied any wrongdoing.

Shortly before his verdict was announced, in an apparent robbery attempt outside a music studio in New York, Shakur was shot five times. Tupac recalled the circumstances in an interview shortly afterwards with Vibe . He was with his close friend Stretch, manager Freddie Moore, and one other friend on the night of November 30 , 1994 .

They arrived at a studio so Shakur could do some recordings for an acquaintance, Booker, whom he didn't quite trust. When they got to the studio, Tupac was suspicious of two black men in their thirties, both dressed in army fatigues, because neither of them seemed to acknowledge his presence. He noted that he was less wary of them than he should have been because he "had just finished smoking chronic ". Shakur simply assumed they must be security for Biggie, whom he was still friends with at the time.

The two men, who Shakur described as looking like they were from New York, came at him with identical 9mm handguns , and forced him and his friends to the floor. Their aggression was focused almost exclusively on Tupac, although they did threaten to shoot Stretch as well. Tupac alone was shot, a total of five times while he played dead on the ground, and also robbed of thousands of dollars of gold jewelry he was wearing.

He was dragged into an elevator and taken upstairs to safety, where his then-friends Biggie , Puffy , Little Caesar , and others were waiting. Shakur described his friends as acting very strange, almost surprised at his being alive. His first words after realizing how severe his wounds were, having been shot in the head and testicles , were "Oh shit. Roll me some weed."

Miraculously, he survived, and left the hospital a few days afterwards against doctor's orders because he was feeling harassed by phone calls and the doctors. He showed up in court soon afterwards in a wheelchair to face his verdict in the sexual assault case.

Shakur began serving his prison sentence later that February. Soon after, his multi-platinum album Me Against the World was released. Shakur has the distinction of being the only artist with an album at #1 on the charts while serving a prison sentence. From jail, he married his long-time girlfriend, Keisha Morris. He also had time to pursue reading, delving into the works of Niccolo Machiavelli , and even wrote a screenplay titled Live 2 Tell while incarcerated.

In October, after almost eight months in prison, Shakur was released on parole largely with the help of the head of Death Row Records , Suge Knight . Suge posted a $1.4 million bail for Shakur, and in exchange Shakur was obliged to release three albums under Death Row. The singer was unrepentant and grew even more embittered against the authorities, which showed in his music.

Immediately after his release from prison, Shakur began work on his next album. In 1996 , he released his fourth solo album, All Eyez on Me . It was the first double-disc of original material in hip-hop history. It went on to sell more than 9 million copies, and is considered by many to be among the best albums in the genre.

He continued his prolific recordings, despite the impending troubles at Death Row as Dr. Dre left his post as house producer and Suge Knight became more involved in illegal activites.

Shakur's last album created while alive was The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory . Released two months after his death, this album was portentous and dark, and predicted his own death in many songs. The entire album is said to have been created in only seven days, and one of the more popular songs off this album, "Hail Mary", was reportedly made in only thirty minutes. The album has sold over five million copies.

At the time of his death, Tupac was also building on his acting career. John Singleton wrote the film Baby Boy with Shakur in mind for the leading role, but Shakur died before it was made. It was eventually filmed with Tyrese Gibson in his place, and released in 2001 , five years after Shakur's death. From 1991 - 1996 , Shakur acted in 7 films, including the critically acclaimed Juice , Poetic Justice with Janet Jackson , and Gridlock'd with Tim Roth . He had also been slated to star in the Hughes brothers' " Menace II Society ", but was replaced by Larenz Tate after assaulting the directors.

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