TUPAC AMARU SHAKOUR (1971-1996)
R . I . P .
REST IN PEACE
DURING his short life, Tupac Amaru Shakur (a.k.a. 2Pac)
became a living symbol of his generation's frustration
and rage. As a rapper, his songs often detailed the
misery, desperation, and violence of ghetto life. As a
personality, he easily embodied the false bravado and
urban nonchalance that reflected a tough, unforgiving
upbringing. As an actor, he was good-looking and
charismatic, and his appearances in five feature films
suggested he had great potential on the big screen in a
variety of personas. But Shakur never had time to realize
any of these embodiments. On September 7, 1996, he was
gunned down in a drive-by shooting on a neon-lit gambling
strip in downtown Las Vegas. He died six days later as a
result of those wounds. He was twenty-five. The case is
still unsolved. The son of political activists Afeni
Shakur and Billy Garland, Tupac Shakur grew up a troubled
and precocious child. His home life was unstable, and he
ended up moving from one inner-city community to another.
Because of that instability, Shakur sought to assert
himself through gangs. By the time he was twenty, Shakur
had been arrested eight times, even serving eight months
in prison after being convicted of sexual abuse. In
addition, he was the subject of two wrongful-death
lawsuits, one involving a six-year-old boy who was killed
after getting caught in gang-war crossfire between
Shakur's gang and a rival group. In the late eighties,
Shakur teamed up with Humpty-Hump (a.k.a. Eddie Humphrey,
a.k.a. Gregory "Shock-G" Jacobs) and other
Oakland-based rappers to create Digital Underground, a
band intent on massive bass beats and frenetic,
Parliament-Funkadelic-style rhythms. In 1990, the group
released its debut and best album, Sex Packets, a
pulsating testament to the boogie power of hip-hop,
featuring two classic tracks, "Humpty Dance"
and "Doowutchyalike." After an EP of re-mixes
in
1991, D.U. released Sons of the P and, the following
year, The Body-Hat Syndrome, all on Tommy Boy Records. In
1992, Shakur entered a most fruitful five-year period. He
broke free of D.U. and made his solo debut, 2Pacalypse
now, a gangsta rap document that put him in the
notorious, high-speed lane to stardom. That same year he
starred in Juice, an acclaimed low-budget film about
gangs which saw some Hollywood success. In 1993, he
recorded and released Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., an
album that found Shakur crossing over to the pop charts.
Unfortunately, he also found himself on police blotters,
when allegations of a violent attack on an off-duty
police officer and sexual misconduct arose. The same
year, Shakur played a single father and Janet Jackson's
love interest in the John Singleton film Poetic Justice.
In November of 1994, he was shot five times during a
robbery in which thieves made off with $40,000 worth of
his jewelry. Shakur miraculously recovered from his
injuries to produce his most impressive artistic
accomplishments, including 1995's Me Against the World,
which sold two million copies, and the double-CD All Eyez
on Me, which sold nearly three million. As his career arc
began a steep rise toward fame and fortune, Shakur was
shot (most say suspiciously) and killed after watching a
Mike Tyson fight with Death Row Records president Marion
"Suge" Knight. Though his death was a jolt to
his fans and the music community, Shakur himself often
said that he expected he'd die by the sword before he
reached thirty.
Following his passing, Shakur's label released an
album, The Don Killuminati, under the pseudonym "Makaveli."
The cover depicted Shakur nailed to a cross under a crown
of thorns, with a map of the country's major gang areas
superimposed on it. In January of 1997, Gramercy Pictures
released Gridlock'd, a film in which Shakur played the
role of a drug addict to mostly good reviews. His final
film, Gang Related, is due to be released in 1997, and
Death Row is said to have several unreleased recordings
in the vaults for potential future release
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