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Tupac Shakur

Tupac Amaru Shakur made five studio albums in five years and has had roughly thirty years of posthumous releases, films, holograms and academic study built on top of them. He is the most written-about rapper in history and one of the hardest to summarise, because the political writer and the combatant were the same person.

Early life and origins

Shakur was born in East Harlem, New York, to Afeni Shakur, a Black Panther who defended herself successfully in a major conspiracy trial while pregnant with him. He trained at the Baltimore School for the Arts, studying acting, poetry and ballet, before the family moved to Marin County in Northern California. That combination of formal arts training and radical politics explains more about his writing than any other biographical fact.

Early career with Digital Underground

He joined Digital Underground as a dancer and roadie, appearing on "Same Song", and released 2Pacalypse Now in 1991. It was pointedly political and drew condemnation from the sitting vice president. Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. broadened his audience, and Me Against the World arrived while he was in prison, becoming the first album to top the chart while its artist was incarcerated.

Death Row and All Eyez on Me

Suge Knight posted his bail and signed him to Death Row. All Eyez on Me followed in 1996, a double album that is both his most commercially successful and his least political, and the period produced the escalating public conflict with Bad Boy Records and the Notorious B.I.G. He was shot in Las Vegas in September 1996 and died six days later, aged 25. The case has never been resolved.

What Tupac is known for musically

Emotional range. He could write "Brenda's Got a Baby" and "Dear Mama" and then record something purely combative, and he committed to both fully. His delivery carries an urgency that survives poor audio quality and thirty years of distance, which is why the records still land on listeners born after his death.

Acting and legacy

He gave genuinely good performances in Juice, Poetic Justice and Above the Rim, and was regarded by directors as a serious actor rather than a rapper trying films.

Album discography

2Pacalypse Now (1991), Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. (1993), Me Against the World (1995), All Eyez on Me (1996) and The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996), released weeks after his death under the name Makaveli. A large volume of posthumous material has followed, of varying quality and authorisation.

Notable songs

"Dear Mama", "Changes", "California Love", "Keep Ya Head Up", "Hit 'Em Up" and "Brenda's Got a Baby". The gap between the tenderness of the first few and the ferocity of "Hit 'Em Up" is the whole argument about him in one tracklist.

Influence and legacy

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 7 April 2017, the first solo hip-hop artist to enter it and elected in his first year of eligibility, with Snoop Dogg giving the induction. He is studied in universities, quoted by politicians, and remains a commercial force three decades after his death. His influence is less technical than emotional: he established that a rapper could be openly vulnerable without losing credibility, which is the single most important precondition for most of what rap became afterwards.

Frequently asked

Where is Tupac Shakur from?

Shakur was born in East Harlem, New York, to Afeni Shakur, a Black Panther who defended herself successfully in a major conspiracy trial while pregnant with him. He trained at the Baltimore School for the Arts, studying acting, poetry and ballet, before the family moved to Marin County in Northern California.

How did Tupac Shakur get started in rap?

He joined Digital Underground as a dancer and roadie, appearing on "Same Song", and released 2Pacalypse Now in 1991. It was pointedly political and drew condemnation from the sitting vice president. Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.

What happened to Tupac Shakur?

Suge Knight posted his bail and signed him to Death Row. All Eyez on Me followed in 1996, a double album that is both his most commercially successful and his least political, and the period produced the escalating public conflict with Bad Boy Records and the Notorious B.I.G.

What albums has Tupac Shakur released?

2Pacalypse Now (1991), Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. (1993), Me Against the World (1995), All Eyez on Me (1996) and The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (1996), released weeks after his death under the name Makaveli. A large volume of posthumous material has followed, of varying quality and authorisation.