Afeni named Tupac for global revolutionaries, not a block alone
Tupac Shakur (1971–1996), also 2Pac and Makaveli, was born in East Harlem to Black Panther parents and raised by mother Afeni, who wanted a name tied to indigenous revolutionaries worldwide. After a 1988 Bay Area move, his debut made him a defining 1990s rapper and actor before his September 1996 death.
Legal crises and an November 1994 studio-lobby shooting that left him wounded five times preceded eight months in prison. Posthumous Greatest Hits (1998) joined a tiny set of U. S. Diamond-certified hip-hop albums.
Born on 16 June 1971 in East Harlem, he was registered as Parish Lesane Crooks and later renamed after Túpac Amaru II. Both parents had been Black Panthers, as had his stepfather Mutulu Shakur, his godfather Geronimo Pratt and his godmother Assata Shakur, and a month before his birth his mother was acquitted of more than 150 charges in the Panther 21 trial.
In 1984, as his mother struggled to find work and fought addiction, the family moved to Baltimore, where he transferred to the Baltimore School for the Arts and studied acting, poetry, jazz and ballet, playing Shakespeare and the Mouse King in The Nutcracker. In 1988 he moved to Marin City, California, and acted at Tamalpais High School but did not graduate. Poetry teacher Leila Steinberg became his manager in 1989 and got him to Atron Gregory, manager of Digital Underground.
He debuted as 2Pac on the group's January 1991 single Same Song, which also brought his first film credit, in Nothing but Trouble. His debut album, 2Pacalypse Now, released on 12 November 1991, tackled racism, police brutality, poverty and teenage pregnancy. In 1992 he played the villain Roland Bishop in Juice after asking to read while accompanying a friend to the audition, and Rolling Stone's Peter Travers called him the film's most magnetic figure. Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... followed in February 1993, its single I Get Around reaching number 11.
Source: Tupac Shakur
