Tupac Shakur

Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971 - September 13, 1996) was an American rapper and actor who sold many records. Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide as of 2010. Shakur began his career as a roadie, backup dancer, and MC for the alternative hip hop group Digital Underground as "MC New York", eventually branching off as a solo artist.

He was born in East Harlem, New York. Tupac lived in California from age 17. Tupac went to Baltimore school for Arts, where he found it interesting to read Shakespeare's poems which he got very affected by the beauty of rhyming, choosing the word and expression. Later in his music career, this experience in school becomes his personality of his own music style. He was the son of Afeni Shakur, who was a member of the Black Panther party. She had just been released from jail a month before his birth. His family was struggling with poverty. They moved homes often, sometimes they even had to stay in shelters.

On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot several times in a drive-by shooting at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas, Nevada. He died six days later at the Southern Nevada University Medical Center.

He was also called 2Pac, Pac, Makaveli and also called himself The Don Killuminati. He also holds the Guinness World Record for the highest selling rap/hip hop artist, selling 165 million worldwide and 43 million in the US alone. Shakur was convicted of assault and sexual assault in separate incidents.

His work of music had very big influences on the Hip-Hop/Rap industry in the US and is still loved by lots of people around the world.

Shakur acted in eight films.

Singles

 * A Did not chart on the Hot 100 or Hot R&B/Hip-Hop charts (Billboard rules at the time prevented album cuts from charting). Chart peak listed here represents Hot 100 Airplay and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay charts data.
 * 1 Double-A-Side in the U.S.

Murder
On September 7, 1996, American rapper Tupac Shakur was wounded in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. Someone in a Cadillac car drove up to his car and shot him four times. He died in a hospital on September 13. The public never found out who killed him.

Shakur's friend from Death Row Records, Marion "Suge" Knight, was in the car with Shakur, but survived the shooting.

In 2002, reporter Chuck Phillips wrote in the Los Angeles Times that another rapper called Biggie Smalls (The Notorious B.I.G.) could have paid members of the Crips street gang to kill Shakur and that he could have given them the gun.

Other websites

 * 2Pac Legacy (official website)
 * Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation for the Arts
 * Tupac Legacy Tour
 * pacside
 * Tupac Nation