Birth Name : Lesane Parish Crooks
Birth Date : June 16, 1971
Birth Place : East Harlem, New York, USA
Type: Signed Artist
Genre: HipHop
Record Label: Interscope
Claim To Fame :Album "2Pacalypse
Now" (1991)
Brief Profile
Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971-September 13, 1996),
also known by his stage names, Makaveli and 2Pac, was an
American hip-hop artist, poet and actor. He is listed in the
Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling rap/hip-
hop artist ever, having sold over 75 million albums
worldwide, including 44.5 million sales in the United States
alone. He has had 17 top ten singles in the United States.
Historical Background
A highly celebrated actor and rapper, the late
Tupac Amaru Shakur was born Lesane Parish
Crooks in Brooklyn, New York City, on June
16, 1971, to Afeni Shakur, a member of the
Black Panthers. Serving jail time on bombing
charges while pregnant with Tupac, she faced a
possible sentence of up to three hundred years
in prison, but was released one month before
Tupac was born as she acted as her own
attorney. About his biological father Tupac
said, "I never knew where my father was or
who my father was for sure." His step father
Metulu, to his knowing, was a drug dealer and
was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List, whom
he said was not always around to give him the
discipline he needed. Impoverished during
most of his childhood, Afeni took him and his
half-sister Sekyiwa moving around to homeless
shelters and various places around New York
City. Such condition caused Tupac retained
few friends and relied on writing poetry and
diary entries to keep himself busy. At the age
of 12 he joined a Harlem theatre group and
acted as Travis in Lorraine Hansberry's "A
Raisin in the Sun." One year later, in 1984
Tupac's ...
mother brought him and his sister to live in
Baltimore, Maryland, and lived in the infamous
neighborhood, Roland Park, in East Baltimore
where Tupac was intensely despised because of
his looks, name, and lack of trendy
fashionwear of the 80s. Even so he made a few
friends while staying there and attended Roland
Park Middle School. The following years he
spent his time studied at Paul Lawrence Dunbar
High, where for his sophomore year he was
accepted to the Baltimore School for the Arts.
It was there where Tupac for the very first time
in his life "loved his classes" and had the
opportunity to study theater, ballet, and other
arts.
Nurturing his love to literature from his peers,
Tupac gained the respect of Baltimore kids by
acting like a tough guy and tried to write his
first rap there 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, his mother Afeni
found it difficult to get a job, which he
personally assumed as a result of her active
involvement in Black Panthers, that she once
again moved the family to live with a family
friend in Marin City, California.
There Tupac soon moved in with a neighbor
and started selling drugs and hustling on the
street, but also made friends who helped spark
his interest in rap music. He made friends with
Ray Luv, and with a mutual friend named DJ
Dize, with both he started a rap group called
Strictly Dope. Their recordings under the name
"Tupac Shakur: The Lost Tapes" were released
in 2001 and was immediately followed by
neighborhood performances that obviously
brought Tupac the more than enough applaud
to land an audition with Shock G of Digital
Underground. Supported by the group'
members, in 1990 he began his career as a back
up dancer for Digital Underground, a Northern
California rap group best known for their P-
Funk inspired sex songs. In the near future,
Tupac began rapping with the group before he
at the end left it to pursue a solo career and
released his EP "Digital Undreground" debut,
after which he signed to Interscope Records
and released his first solo album entitled
"2Pacalypse Now" in 1991. This album quickly
made Tupac the most controversial rapper in
hip-hop as he got a public admonishment by
Vice President ...
Dan Quayle for his music had clearly
encouraged and or caused the shooting of a
Texas police officer. Moreover, the album also
set the tone for the singer's soon-to-be platinum
formula: a mix of hardcore, gun toting,
misogynist, Thug Life anthems, and a tender,
caring, troubled side that exposed the light side
of Tupac's darker image.
Even so, "2Pacalypse Now" album had quickly
went gold thanks to the hit singles "Trapped"
and "Brenda's Got a Baby," as well as a high-
profile, seemingly self-portraying appearance
Tupac did in "Juice," a hit movie that opened to
gunfire in theaters and censorship of the movie
poster. To support his fame, in 1993 Tupac
outed his follow up album to the previous one
titled "Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.," which was
a hardcore masterpiece that responded to the
controversies surrounding him and featured
appearances by the other two most
controversial West Coast rappers, Ice-T and Ice
Cube. Just like the first, this album was also
very success and became a platinum, peaking
at number four on the R&B charts and
launching the Top Ten R&B hit singles "I Get
Around" and "Keep Ya Head Up," which
peaked at number 11 and 12, respectively, on
the pop charts. That same year, the singer also co-
stared with Janet Jackson in John Singleton's
"Poetic Justice," which further increasing his
celebrity, and performed in "Above The Rim,"
a basketball movie with a soundtrack produced
by former N.W.A. rapper, and current A-list
rap producer Dr. Dre. Far off the success,
fame, and popularity, throughout much of 1993
and 1994 Tuapc was in and out of jail on
various charges. He was arrested in a variety of
incidents including an assault and a rape
charge, and was shot and wounded while
recording tracks in the studio. In the midst of
all this, he did able to record and release his
third album "Me Against The World" (1995),
which debuted at No. 1, went platinum, and
established Tupac as one of the most popular
and commercially successful rappers to emerge
in the '90s. Thus, he was listed as the most
successful gangsta rapper in 'The Guinness
Book Of World Records'.
Released from the prison, he signed to Death
Row Records and spent months in the studio
recording his double album opus, the first of its
kind in rap, "All Eyez On Me" (1996). This
was Tupac's fourth solo album, in which
contained his duet with Dr. Dre titled "California Love"
and guest turns by Snoop Doggy Dogg, George
Clinton, Roger Troutman and Method Man.
This album, too, became a hit and sold for
more than six million copies. Out of his spotted
life, Tupac had ever dated Jada Pinkett Smith,
engaged to Kidada Jones, and married with
Keisha Morris on April 29, 1995, but annuled
it in 1996. Back to his music career, Tupac
began devoting more time to his acting career,
starring in the films Bullet, Gridlock'd, and
Gang Related. Besides, he also made numerous
guest appearances on other rappers' records and
recorded a pseudo-follow up entitled "The Don
Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory" before he was
gunned down in Las Vegas in 1996. It was on
September 7, 1996, at the peak of his career,
Tupac was shot by unknown muggers while
riding in a car in Las Vegas and died six days
later (Friday September 13th) in a hospital
without ever regaining consciousness. Tupac's
death certainly became a jolt to the rap
community and heated up the already steaming
East vs. West rivalry. Commenting his death,
many people believed it was arranged by rival
label Bad Boy and their main players Sean "Puffy" Combs and rapper
Notorious B.I.G., who was later gunned down
himself in Los Angeles. Those theories
remained rumors in the already legendary,
iconoclastic story of Tupac Shakur.
Before the time he died, Tupac had recorded so
much materials that more of his albums have
been released since his death than were while
he was alive. His rest posthumous albums
include R U Still Down? (Remember Me?),
Lost Tapes 1989, One Million Strong, Still I
Rise, Rose That Grew From Concrete, Until
The End Of Time, and 2002's Better Dayz,
along with his one disc, were all released under
the Makave, thanks to his mother who wants to
keep his memory and music alive. However, in
2007 his mother faced the lawsuit from singer
Esther Williams who claimed that Tupac had
stolen her lyrics. Tupac's "Late Night' was
spotted by Williams to have similar lyrics to
her 1976 single "Last Night Changed It All".
Standing against this charge were Tupac's
mother and Universal Music Group as the
label.
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