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Gangsta rap star Tupac ("2 Pac") Amaru Shakur was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1971 to a mother and father who were active in the Black Panthers. He grew up in Baltimore, Md., where as a teenager he attended the Baltimore School for the Performing Arts; Tupac's family later relocated to Oakland, Calif., where he spent much of his time on the street before hooking up with the rap group Digital Underground in the early 1990s as a dancer and later a guest rapper. In 1992 Tupac released his solo debut album, 2Pacalypse Now, which soon went gold thanks to the hit singles "Trapped" and "Brenda's Got A Baby," as well as a high-profile appearance by Tupac himself in the hit movie Juice. His 1993 follow-up, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., reached No. 4 and quickly went platinum, spawning the Top 10 hits "I Get Around" and "Keep Ya Head Up." That same year Tupac co-starred in the popular movie Poetic Justice, which further increased his celebrity. Throughout much of 1993 and 1994 Shakur was in and out of jail on various charges, despite the fact that he had no criminal record before becoming a rapper; he was also injured after being shot, allegedly by robbers, while visiting New York City. Despite losing a case and being sentenced to prison, Tupac was thrilled that his 1995 follow-up, Me Against the World, debuted at No. 1, establishing him as one of the most popular rappers of the 1990s. Within a year he was paroled and signed to Death Row Records, for whom he recorded his best-selling effort to date, 1996's All Eyez on Me, a double album that has sold more than six million copies. In time, Tupac began concentrating more on acting than on rapping, starring in the films Bullet and Gridlock'd. And then, shockingly, on September 13, 1996 Tupac was shot by unknown assailants while riding in a car in Las Vegas on the way to a charity event. He died six days later in a hospital without ever having regained consciousness. Though his death brought renewed attention to inner city violence, corruption in the rap music industry, and East Coast/West Coast rap feuds, his shooting remains a mystery, its motive the subject of much speculation by fans and industry insiders. |
