COLEGIUL NAȚIONAL „NICOLAE BĂLCESCU” BRĂILA

ATESTAT DE COMPETENȚĂ LINGVISTICĂ

LIMBA ENGLEZĂ
Clasa a XII-a C

Profesor coordonator:
Mocanu Luminița
Candidat:
FloreaAlexandru

Brăila, 2019

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 The Notorious Tupac Shakur – Table of Contents
 Front Page...........................................................................................................................1
 Title Page ............................................................................................................................2
 Table of Contents ...............................................................................................................3
 Introduction ........................................................................................................................4
 About Hip Hop ...................................................................................................................5
Chapter 1: The Life of Tupac Amaru Shakur ............................................................................7
 About His Mother and Father ..........................................................................................7
 Other Relatives ...................................................................................................................7
 About Tupac Shakur - Childhood ....................................................................................8
 Photo: Young Tupac Shakur .........................................................................................10
 Legal Issues .......................................................................................................................13
 Photo: Tupac and his mother ........................................................................................15
Chapter 2: The Career of Tupac Amaru Shakur .....................................................................16
 Music .................................................................................................................................16
 Beginnings and rise to fame ............................................................................................17
 Acting and rise to prominence ........................................................................................19
 Final Recordings ..............................................................................................................20
 Discography ......................................................................................................................21
 Photo: Tupac and Suge Knight ......................................................................................22
 Acting ................................................................................................................................23
 Documentaries and Series About Tupac........................................................................23
Chapter 3: The End of His Story ................................................................................................24
 The Wicked Night ............................................................................................................24
 Photo: The last photo of Tupac being alive ...................................................................26
 Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls ...................................................................................27
 His Legacy.........................................................................................................................28
 Quotes about Tupac .........................................................................................................29
 Photo: Statue of Tupac Shakur ......................................................................................30
 Bibliography .....................................................................................................................32

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 Introduction
Ever since I was 12 years old I’ve met this kind of music named hip hop which attracted me very
much because as a kid I was thinking that is a cool kind of music, so I’ve been started listening
to it more and more often. With the passing of time I understood that hip hop is a lot more than
cool music, I understood that every cool romanian song that I used to listen was sharing a
message to the listener and that it was more complex that I ever thought regarding it’s history
and what it includes. It influenced me in many ways, including helping me to see the reality of
the world with my own eyes or teaching me that the single right way to live is by my own
principles and ideals.
Furthermore, at one point it was clear to me that romanian hip hop was taken over from artists
from United States of America that invented it many years before it’s debut in Romania. Turning
into a teenager, my passion for hip hop music evolved and I’ve started listening to the american
artists more often that I was listening to the romanian ones. This way I found out about many
foreign rappers and some bands that I liked. The history of this culture made me more and more
curious by every single thing that I was finding out. I’ve read and I’ve watched movies and series
about the past of the artists whose music I love so much. I was very fascinated about their life
style, about their attitude, about how they used to dress, about their decisions or their acts, even
if some of them were not so right.
After listening to some artists I discovered one whom I liked more than any other before or after
him. His stage name was 2Pac and his real name was Tupac Amaru Shakur. Since then I keep
listening to his songs and I never get bored. I was fascinated about his attitude towards the
surrounding world and about his thoughts and ideas. His lyrics sais everything about him and
despite his dark childhood or his wrong decisions we all can say that he was a good person with
moral values to be envied. Afterall he was right when he said that “Only God can judge me”.

“Never surrender, it’s all about the faith you got; don’t ever stop, just
push it ‘till you hit the top and if you drop, at least you know you gave
your all to be true to you, that way you can never fail.”
– Tupac Shakur

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 About HipHop
Hiphop is a cultural movement that attained widespread popularity in the 1980s and ’90s; also
the backing music for rap, the musical style incorporating rhythmic and/or rhyming speech
became the movement’s most lasting and influential art form.
Although widely considered a synonym for rap music, the term hip-hop refers to
acomplex culturecomprising four elements: deejaying, or “turntabling”; rapping, also known as
“MCing” or “rhyming”; graffiti painting, also known as “graf” or “writing”; and “B-boying,”
which encompasses hip-hop dance, style, and attitude, along with the sort of virile body language
that philosopher Cornel Westdescribed as “postural semantics.” (A fifth element, “knowledge of
self/consciousness,” is sometimes added to the list of hip-hop elements, particularly by socially
conscious hip-hop artists and scholars.) Hip-hop originated in the predominantly African
American economically depressed South Bronx section of New York City in the late 1970s. As
the hip-hop movement began at society’s margins, its origins are shrouded in myth, enigma, and
obfuscation.
The beginnings of the dancing, rapping, and deejaying
components of hip-hop were bound together by the
shared environment in which these art forms evolved. The
first major hiphop deejay was DJ Kool Herc (Clive
Campbell), an 18-year-old immigrant who introduced the
huge sound systems of his native Jamaica to inner-city
parties. Using two turntables, he melded percussive
fragments from older records with popular dance songs to
create a continuous flow of music. Kool Herc and other
pioneering hip-hop deejays such as Grand Wizard Theodore,
Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash isolated and
extended the break beat (the part of a dance record where all
sounds but the drums drop out), stimulating improvisational
dancing. Contests developed in which the best dancers
created break dancing, a style with a repertoire of acrobatic
and occasionally airborne moves, including gravity-defying
headspins and backspins.
Rap first came to national prominence in the United States with the release of the Sugarhill
Gang’s song “Rapper’s Delight” (1979) on the independent African American-owned
label Sugar Hill. Within weeks of its release, it had become a chart-topping phenomenon and
given its name to a new genreof pop music. The major pioneers of rapping were Grandmaster
Flash and the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow, and the Cold Crush Brothers, whose Grandmaster Caz
is controversially considered by some to be the true author of some of the strongest lyrics in
“Rapper’s Delight.” These early MCs and deejays constituted rap’s old school.

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In the mid-1980s the next wave of rappers, the new school, came to prominence. At the forefront
was Run-D.M.C., a trio of middle-class African Americans who fused rap with hard rock,
defined a new style of hip dress, and became staples on MTV as they brought rap to a
mainstream audience. Run-D.M.C. recorded for Profile, one of several new labels that took
advantage of the growing market for rap music.
The most significant response to New York hip-hop, though, came
from Los Angeles, beginning in 1989
with N.W.A.’s dynamic album Straight Outta Compton. N.W.A.
(Niggaz With Attitude) and former members of that group—Ice
Cube, Eazy E, Dr. Dre, Mc Ren, Dj Yella—led the way as West
Coast rap grew in prominence in the early 1990s. Their graphic,
frequently violent tales of real life in the inner city, as well as those
of Los Angeles rappers such as Ice-T (remembered for his 1992
single “Cop Killer”) and Snoop Dogg and of East Coast counterparts
such as Schoolly D, gave rise to the genre known as gangsta rap. As
the Los Angeles-based label Death Row Records built an empire
around Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and the charismatic, complicated
rapper-actor Tupac Shakur, it also entered into a rivalry with New York City’s Bad Boy
Records. This developed into a media-fueled hostility between East Coast and West Coast
rappers, which culminated in the still-unsolved murders of Shakur and the wildly gifted MC
known as the Notorious B.I.G.
Although long believed to be popular primarily with urban African American males, hiphop
became the best-selling genre of popular music in the United States in the late 1990s.
Its impact was global, with formidable audiences and artist pools in cities such as Paris, Tokyo,
Sydney, Cape Town, London, and Bristol, England. It also generated huge sales of products in
the fashion, liquor, electronics, and automobile industries that were popularized by hip-hop
artists on cable television stations such as MTV and The Box and in hip-hop-oriented magazines
such as The Source and Vibe.By the late 1990s hiphop was artistically dominated by the Wu-
Tang Clan, from New York City’s Staten Island, whose combination of street credibility, neo-
Islamic mysticism, and kung fu lore made them one of the most complex groups in the history of
rap.

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 Chapter 1: The Life of Tupac Amaru Shakur
About His Mother and Father
The mother of Tupac was borned on January 10, 1947 under the name of Alice Faye Williams in
Lumberton, North Carolina. She was an American activist and a businesswoman. In 1968, at the
age of twenty-one she changed her name to Afeni Shakur. At that time she was living in New
York where she joined the Black Panther Party, when she met Tupac’s biological father, Billy
Garland.The Black Panther Party was an African Americanrevolutionary party, founded in 1966
in Oakland, California, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose was to
patrol African American neighbourhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality.
In April 1969, Afeni Shakur was arrested on
charges of conspiring with other Black Panther
members to carry out bombings in New York.
With bail set at $100,000 each for the 21 suspects,
the Black Panthers decided to raise bail money
first for Joseph and Shakur so that those two
could work on raising bail for the others. Shakur
had been effective in raising bail funds for jailed
Panthers. After reading Fidel Castro's History
Will Absolve Me,
Shakur chose to represent herself in court, telling other accused
Panthers that if they were convicted, they would be the ones
serving jail time, not the lawyers. Pregnant while on trial and
facing a 300-year prison sentence, Shakur interviewed witnesses
and argued in court.She and the others in the "Panther 21" were
acquitted in May 1971 after an eight-month trial.Her son, Lesane
Parish Crooks, was born on June 16, 1971. Her marriage fell apart
when her husband, Lumumuba Shakur, discovered that he is not
his son. The following year, in 1972, Lesane Parish was renamed
Tupac Amaru Shakur.Afeni Shakur died on May 2, 2016 of a
heart attack.
Billy Garland, his biological father, had very little contact with his son growing up, only getting
in touch with Tupac when he became famous. Growing up, Tupac believed that his father was
dead or simply had no desire to see him, which was detailed in many of his songs. Billy Garland
passed away in 1999.

Other Relatives
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Afeni Shakur was married twice. Her first husband was Lumumuba Shakur, with who she had
no children. They were married since 1968 but they divorced in 1971. Lumumuba was found
dead in the same year. Her second husband was Mutulu Shakur, Lumumuba’s adopted brother, a
black revolutionary and trained acupuncturist, Mutulu married Afeni following Lumumba's death.
He shared a close bond with Pac, and together they wrote the famous 'Code Of Thug Life', a set
of rules discouraging unprovoked violence between gangs. Mutulu is currently incarcerated for
conspiring against the government. Mutulu had a son, Mopreme „Komani” Shakur, and he was
the Tupac’s stepbrother.
Sekyiwa shared the same mother as Pac and grew up with him in Harlem, New York.
Although Tupac referenced her in some of his songs - using the nickname 'Set' - Sekyiwa
remains private about her life with her beloved brother, admitting she used to keep her surname a
secret to hide her identity.

About Tupac Shakur – Childhood

June 16, 1971 – Lesane Parish Crooks was borned in East Harlem,
New York City. One year later he became Tupac Amaru Shakur.
His mother renamed him after Túpac Amaru II, the 18-th century
Peruvian revolutionary, who was executed after leading an
indigenous uprising against Spanish rule. It is very interesting that
Tupac in Peruvian translation actually means „Shining Serpent”. The
last name, Shakur, means „thankful to God” in Arabic.
Tupac was born a fighter.
„It’s funny, because I never believed he would live. Every five years,
I’d bejust amazed that he made it to five, that he made it to 10, that
he made it to 15. I had a million miscarriages, you know.This child
stayed in my womb through the worst possible conditions. I had to get a court order to get an
egg to eat every day. I had to get a court order to get a glass of milk every day – You know what
I’m saying? I lost weight, but hegained weight. He was born one month and three days after we
[Panther 21 members] were acquitted. I had not been able to carry a child. This child comes and
hangs on and really fights for his life.” – Afeni Shakur told in an interview.
After his mother was found not guilty, she went on the speakers circuit to talk about her
experiences. But her celebrity was short-lived; Afeni found herself back on the welfare rolls,
living in the ghetto. She settled with her baby boy in the Bronx. Two years later she gave birth to
Tupac’s half-sister Sekyiwa Shakur
Afeni and her two children eventually moved to Harlem to live with Afeni’s new lover, Legs, in
homeless shelters and with friends and relatives. Legs, once linked to New York drug lord Nicky
Barnes, was jailed for credit-card fraud and died in prison at 41 from a crack-induced heart
attack. Legs, Tupac later said, was the man who taught him about being a thug, an aspect of Legs’
personality Tupac said he admired. He was also the only father Tupac ever knew, and now he
was gone. “I couldn’t even cry” Tupac told writer Kevin Powell. “I felt I needed a daddy to show

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me the ropes, and I didn’t have one.” When Tupac was 10 years old, a minister asked him what
he wanted to be when he grew up. “A revolutionary” was his answer, because that was all he had
ever known. When Tupac was 12, something happened that would change his life. Afeni sent
him to a Harlem theater group. He was a natural on stage. At 13, he played the role of Travis in
A Raisin in the Sun at the famous Apollo Theater for a Jesse Jackson fundraiser. Tupac loved the
limelight and enjoyed performing; through acting, he felt he could become someone worthy of
respect. It changed the direction of his life and eventually got him out of the ghetto. In 1986
when Tupac was 15, Afeni moved her family to Baltimore, Maryland. There, Tupac entered the
prestigious Baltimore High School for the Arts, after his mother talked the school into taking him.
It marked another major turning point; this time it meant going to a school far removed from the
ghetto. While there, Tupac thrived, starring in several productions. He also started dealing with
rap. Besides music, Tupac studied ballet, poetry, and acting. It was at the Baltimore school that
he began calling himself an “artist.” His classmates and teachers considered him talented. The
thug in his personality hadn’t emerged yet—at least he wasn’t showing it. Life at home, however,
was still a hand-to-mouth existence. Afeni often didn’t have the money to pay her utility bills
and the electricity in their apartment was shut off most of the time. When that happened, Tupac,
always the avid reader, studied outside by the light of the street lamps. He stayed at Baltimore
High School for the Arts for two years. He told Kevin Powell, “That school was the freest I ever
felt.”
When a neighborhood boy was killed in a gang shooting during Tupac’s junior year, 1988, Afeni
put her kids on a Greyhound bus to spend the summer with a family friend who lived in Marin
City, California. It turned out to be an area cops called the “Jungle,” a small ghetto just below
pricey hillside homes across the bay from San Francisco in affluent Marin County. Afeni didn’t
realize she was sending her kids to another gang-infested ghetto—the same as, or worse than,
what they’d lived in for most of their lives. A few months later, after her friend called and said
she was going into an alcohol rehabilitation center, Afeni joined her children in California,
moving with them into a low-income federal housing project, the worst in the area. The family
lived in the heart of the Jungle, in Building 89, Unit 1. Surrounded by neighborhood drug dealers,
Afeni soon took on a cocaine habit. Tupac, a skinny teenager, was taunted by the street drug
dealers from whom his mother bought crack cocaine to feed her worsening habit. Tupac said:
“Everybody else’s mother was just a regular mother, but my mother was Afeni—you know what
I’m saying? My mother had a strong reputation”. Still, Tupac felt he could no longer handle his
mother’s crack habit. He moved out of her apartment and into an abandoned housing unit with a
group of boys. They later formed the singing group One Nation Emcees.

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10
 Young Tupac Shakur

Even though he was a good student with a high grade-point average, Tupac eventually dropped
out of high school at age seventeen and, to survive, worked odd jobs, one at a pizza parlor. He
also sold crack on the street to get by. Tupac remembered crying a lot while he was growing up.
Because his family had moved around so much, often to homeless shelters, he never felt like he
fit in anywhere. He led a lonely existence. He didn’t have any long-term friends and felt
pressured to reinvent himself each time his family moved into a new neighborhood. He felt
vulnerable living in the ghetto. He told writer William Shaw he didn’t have decent clothes and
went to school “in the same things every day, holes in my jeans. You don’t want to be Tupac”.
It was in the Bay Area, San Francisco that Tupac got into hip-hop music. He started writing
poetry, then turned his poems into songs. He called himself MC New York. When he wasn’t
writing lyrics, Tupac spent his spare time reading. He couldn’t get enough of books, movies, and
music. He was hungry for knowledge. It was there that he came into his own with his rap style,
where he rhymed straight and to the point, where his lyrics became direct, where he learned not
to pretend to be someone or something he wasn’t. His family was still poor, still living in the
ghetto; he admitted it and wasn’t ashamed of it—keepin’ it real, as he would often say. In 1986,
Tupac and his friends in the Jungle formed a rap group and named it Two From the Crew. Their
theme song and what would later become Tupac’s anthem was titled “Thug Life,” so named
because people in the neighborhood referred to the teenagers as young thugs. Tupac said his
music showed how he and others like him lived. The lyrics about violence involving police, for
example, were based on actual stories of what young black men faced in the ghetto. His thug-life
image, for which he later became famous, was born. “You were just giving truth to the music”,
Tupac later said. “Being in Marin City was like a small town, so it taught me to be more
straightforward with my style. Instead of being so metaphorical with the rhyme, I was
encouraged to go straight at it and hit it dead on and not waste time trying to cover things. In
Marin City, everything was straightforward. Poverty was straightforward. There was no way to
say ‘I’m poor,’ but to say ‘I’m poor.’” He would not be poor much longer.
As he grew up, Tupac’s head was clean shaven, his muscular
frame covered in tattoos. He was handsome, with boyish good
looks and an engaging smile and manner. He had a sauntering but
determined walk, a hard stare, but soft eyes and long eyelashes—
a look decidely different from other rappers.
Over the years, Tupac had accumulated more than a dozen tattoos,
although some were said to be temporary. The one on his left
forearm said, “OUTLAW.” On his left upper arm, there was
Jesus’ head on a burning cross with the words, “Only God can
judge me.” Also on his left upper arm was written, “Trust

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Nobody.” On his right upper arm was the word “HEARTLESS” etched above a bloody skull and
crossbones, underneath which was written, in small print, “My only fear of death is coming back
reincarnated.” On his left shoulder was the head of a black panther.
Revealing his street allegiances, on his right forearm, in old English lettering, was the word
“Notorious”; on the back of his right forearm was “MOB”; and on his right shoulder was the
word “westside.” Etched on the right side of his neck was “Makaveli,” the moniker he used
while performing with the Outlawz; on the back of his neck, the word “Playaz”. On his back was
a large cross and, inside it, “Exodus 18.11.” (The Biblical passage reads, “Now I know that the
Lord is greater than all gods: For in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.”)
He also had the image of an AK-47 fully automatic assault weapon tattooed on his left upper
chest just below a scar from a bullet wound. The tattoo splashed across Tupac’s lower chest said
“THUG LIFE” with a bullet in place of the letter “I.” Above that was “50 NIGGAZ” positioned
atop the rifle. This tattoo symbolized a black confederation among the 50 U.S. states. And
splashing the word “Nigga” across his chest, he believed, would advertise it as an acronym,
which he said meant “Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.” “2PAC,” his stage name,
was tattooed above his left breast. On his right upper chest was “2DIE4” below the profile of a
woman’s face: Some say it was Nefertiti, an Egyptian queen whose name means “The Beautiful
One is Come”; others believe it was a portrait of his mother. The images tattooed on his body
represented the things Tupac held sacred.
Tupac also adorned himself with jewelry. He had a
particular penchant for gold. Besides the solid-gold
chains around his neck and diamond and gold rings
on the fingers of both hands, he wore diamond studs
in his nose and ears and an 18-karat-gold Rolex
watch on his right wrist. Tupac wore jewelry like
medals, badges of honor. Even the lyrics of Tupac’s
–favorite passage, a borrowed poem, became a
reality for him. To his director in his first movie,
Juice, he recited Robert Frost’s poem “Nothing
Gold Can Stay.” It read: “Nature’s first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaves a flower;
but only so an hour. Leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden
sank to grief, so dawn goes down today. Nothing
gold can stay.” (Tupac, who was an avid reader, often quoted passages from a book or lines from
a poem or lyrics from a song. His friends were used to it. He’d done it since he was a boy.)
Shakur's music and philosophy are rooted in many American, African-American, and
world entities, including the Black Panther Party, black nationalism, egalitarianism, and liberty.
Shakur's love of theater and Shakespeare also influenced his work. A student of the Baltimore
School for the Arts where he studied theater, Shakur understood the Shakespearean psychology
of inter-gang wars and inter-cultural conflict.
During a 1995 interview, Shakur said:

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“I love Shakespeare. He wrote some of the rawest stories, man. I mean look at Romeo and Juliet.
That's some serious ghetto thing. You got this guy Romeo from the Bloods who falls for Juliet, a
female from the Crips, and everybody in both gangs is against them. So they have to sneak out
and they end up dead for nothing. Real tragic stuff. And look how Shakespeare busts it up
with Macbeth. He creates a tale about this king's wife who convinces a happy man to chase after
her and kill her husband so he can take over the country. After he commits the murder, the dude
starts having delusions just like in a Scarface song. “

Legal Issues
Every Life Story Has a Bad Part Too
“I think I’m a natural-born leader. I know how to bow down to authority
if it’s authority that I respect.”
In October 1991, Shakur filed a $10-million civil suit against the Oakland Police Department,
alleging that the police brutally beat him for jaywalking. Shakur received approximately $43,000
in settlement money, much of which went to pay his lawyer.
On August 22, 1992, in Marin City, Shakur performed at an
outdoor festival and stayed for an hour afterward signing
autographs and pictures. A confrontation occurred and
Shakur drew a legally registered Colt Mustang, and
allegedly dropped it. As it was picked up by a member of
his entourage, a bullet was discharged. About 100 yards
(90 m) away, Qa'id Walker-Teal, a 6-year-old boy, was
riding his bicycle at a school playground nearby when he
was fatally struck by a bullet in the forehead, killing him.
Although the police matched the bullet to a .38-caliber
pistol registered to Shakur, and although his stepbrother,
Maurice Harding, was initially arrested on suspicion of
firing the weapon, no charges were filed. Marin County
prosecutors have said they were stymied by a lack of
witnesses. In 1995, a wrongful death suit was brought
against Shakur by Qa'id's mother. The defense attorney
acknowledged that the bullet that killed Qa'id was traced by authorities to a gun registered to
Shakur. The suit was dropped when Shakur agreed to pay a $300,000–$500,000 settlement to the
parents.
On April 5, 1993, Shakur was charged with one count of felonious assault. He was accused of
attempting to hit rapper Chauncey Wynn from the group M.A.D. with a baseball bat at a concert
at Michigan State University. The incident reportedly began when Shakur became angry and
threw a microphone. Shakur pleaded guilty on September 14, 1994, to a misdemeanor in
exchange for the dismissal of the felonious-assault charge. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail,
20 of which were suspended, and ordered to perform 35 hours of community service.

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In October 1993, in Atlanta, two brothers and off-duty police officers, Mark and Scott Whitwell,
were with their wives celebrating Mrs. Whitwell's passing of the state bar examination. The
officers were drunk and in possession of stolen guns. As they crossed the street, a car with
Shakur inside passed them or "almost struck them". The Whitwells argued with the driver,
Shakur, and the other passengers, who were joined by a second passing car. Shakur shot one
officer in theback and the other in the leg, back, or abdomen, according to varying news reports.
Mark Whitwell was charged with firing at Shakur's car and later lying to the police during the
investigation. Shakur was charged with the shooting. Prosecutors dropped all charges against the
parties.
In November 1993, Shakur and others were charged with sexual assaulting a woman in a hotel
room. Shakur denied the charges. According to Shakur, he had prior relations days earlier with
the woman that were consensual. The complainant claimed sexual assault after her second visit
to Shakur's hotel room; she alleged that Shakur and his entourage raped her. At trial, Shakur was
convicted of first-degree sexual abuse, and acquitted of the weapons and sodomycharges.
In early 1994, Shakur was found guilty of assaulting Allen Hughes, co-director of Menace II
Society; he served 15 days in jail. The previous year, Shakur had boasted during an appearance
on Yo! MTV Raps that he had "beat up the director of Menace II Society", the line later being
used against him in court.
On the night of November 30, 1994, the day before the verdict in his sexual abuse trial was to be
announced, Shakur was robbed and shot five times by three men in the lobby of Quad Recording
Studios in Manhattan. Shakur said that he believed the robbery was simply a setup for the attack,
wondering why they would take jewelry and leave his Rolex watch. Three hours after surgery for
his wounds, Shakur checked out of the Bellevue Hospital Center against doctor's orders. In the
day that followed, he entered the courthouse in a wheelchair in the verdict hearing for his sexual
abuse trial. He was found guilty of three counts of molestation and found not guilty of six other
charges, including sodomy, stemming from his 1993 arrest.

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“I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing:through every
dark night, there’s a bright day after that. So no matter how hard it get,
stick your chest out, keep your head up and handle it.”

Tupac and his mother,

15
 Afeni Shakur

Chapter 2: The Career of Tupac Shakur

“The only thing that comes to a sleeping man is dreams.”
Music
Tupac was seventeen when Public Enemy
(american hip hop group) released the
albums„Yo! Bum Rush the Show” and „Bring the
Noise” and L.L. Cool J. (american hip hop
recording artist) released the albums „Radio” and
„Bigger and Deffer”and made their impact. The
advent of rap was an undeniable cultural
landmark – a break-through. Rap’s witty plain-
talk on the darkest, deadliest urban woes was that
Tupac called „representing the real”. To young
audiences alienated from mainstream, rap was
simply a depiction of the life they knew. A drama
student could intuit the relation between this pop
revolution and the historical importance of theater.
Both arts forms demonstrated ingenuity in
adressing listeners, using words and music as
their means. Tupac admired hip hop because, like
Black theater, it did not seek to please the
sophisticated and the snobbish. It was unique in
its lack of an authoritarian’s voice. It stood for
good times, being alive, for doing all the things
your parents told you not to. Tupac and his friends thrilled to L.L. Cool J.’s „I’m Bad” for the
way it struck a tone that was neither for or against established morality, but simply against
following anyone else’s rules.
„Yeah, we didn’t have any lights at home in my house. No lights, no electricity, and „I’m Bad”
by L.L.Cool J. came out and i had batteries in my radio. I heard it for the first time and i was
writing rhymes by candlelight and I knew I was gonna be a rapper”said Tupac.
Tupac’s rap vocation came as a part of the intensified growth spurt that many contemporary
teens were experiencing. The mainstream rarely recognized or tried to make sense of the drugs

16
and violence sweeping the inner cities. It would take a cultural revolution like hip hop with black
kids putting their daily lives into thei own words and music, to express this disturbing new
reality.
„That school was saving me, you know what I’m sayin’? I was writing poetry, and I
became known as MC New York because I was rapping and then I was doing the acting thing.”
said Tupac referring to Baltimore Hightschool.

Those first years of Tupac’s Northern California sojourn came down to scrounging for a living,
hustling, selling drugs – even fighting with Afeni. Tupac watched a frightening cloud of despair
settle over his mother – the same mood of desolation that seemed to be suffocating the West
Coast community he was just discovering. As the only male in the household, driven by an
itching aspiration toward manhood, Tupac was a turmoil. It wasn’t long before he left home to
move in with a new friend in the neighborhood.
„They said he hit bottom. He was constantly looking for a place to stay and something to
eat. It seemed nobody liked him in those days, except for his mother...”

 1987–93: Beginnings and rise to fame

Staying swift, Tupac began a moral juggling act; he sold drugs and wrote poetry. With visions of
L.L. Cool J. still in his head, Tupac saw in hiphop his dream of personal salvation. Leile
Steinberg, the retired dancer and singer from Sonoma Country who eventually became Tupac’s
first manager, recalled their first meeting:
„He had a real difficult living situation in Marin City and I always had the household that
anybody that needed a spot or whatever, come through. And so, I was teaching arts in local
school programs, and `Pac did some of his poetry and rapped for me. And i thought he was
probably the most brilliant young poet, rapper, whatever, I’d ever heard.”
Tupac circled around Marin City rap culture
seeking a resolution to his poorlessness. Ray Luv was
another ambitious young man. Soon Tupac and Luv were
part of the short-lived sig-member group, Stricly Dope,
performing at local clubs and house parties, struggling to
produce a demo that could lead to a record deal. When
they announced plans to go proffesional, Tupac and Luv
turned to Steinberg, asking her to manage them. Not
feeling up to it, she tuerned them down but Tupac
insisted:„I already see it. You would be the best
manager”. And he was right. It was Steinberg who
introduced Tupac and Luv to her friend, Atron Gregory,
who had started his own record label, TNT, featuring a
local rap group, Digital Underground.

17
„I had a party at my house, and I made a video...It was like the video of the artists I finally
decided I was going to represent. So I made this video and sent it to Atron. He said „I don’t
know, you have to take them to Shock G from Digital, and he’ll tell me if he thinkgs Tupac’s that
tight.”
But Strictly Dope wasn’t working out. Luv’s father didn’t want him to continue with the group,
so Steinberg drove Tupac to Starlight Studios to meet Digital’s leader, Shook G. After spending
a year trying to convince Bay Area music dreamers to bet on Tupac, Steinberg finally got an
audience. „Tupac floored Shock G. Completely. He was so tight”. Steinberg begged Shock G to
let Tupac work with Digital Underground. „And that’s how it got started”.
With this new impetus, Tupac hooked up again with Luv and Stricly Dope had a brief
resurgence. It lasted long enough for the duo to sign up with TNT and record some tracks under
Shock G’s supervision. „That whole album is finished. That’s an album that’s never been
released. It’s Tupac’s first album, as a member of Stricly Dope. Atron owns the masters and
holds the rights to the first album. Maybe one day he’ll put it out”.
Luv’s father finally persuaded his son to quit. With his showbiz prospects back on the shelf,
Tupac’s thoughts turned to education. „I used to pull `Pac in, I would have him help do my work
in schools,” Steinberg told 4080 magazine. „He always had this commitment to edcation. And I
was working on curriculums. I always felt that if the curriculums were differend and people of
color were represented in schools, all people of all colors, then we’d have a different society.
And he always supported that.”.

Tupac & Leila Steinberg - 1994

His professional entertainment career took off in the early 1990s when he debuted in Digital
Underground's "Same Song" from the soundtrack to the 1991 film Nothing but Trouble; Shakur
also appeared with the group in the film. The song was later released as the lead song of the
Digital Underground extended play (EP) This Is an EP Release, the follow-up to their debut hit

18
album. Shakur appeared in the accompanying music video. After his rap debut, he performed
with Digital Underground again, on the album Sons of the P. Shakur went on to feature Shock G
and Money-B from Digital Underground in his track "I Get Around", which ranked #11 on the
U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
On August 15, 1991 Tupac signed contract between TNT and InterscopeRecords. Later that year
Tupac released his first album, 2Pacalypse Now.
In November 1991, Shakur released his debut solo album, 2Pacalypse Now. Though the album
did not generate any hit singles, 2Pacalypse Now has been acclaimed by many critics and fans
for its underground feel, with many rappers such as Nas, Eminem, Game, and Talib
Kweli having pointed to it as inspiration.
2Pacalypse Now generated significant controversy for
numerous reasons. The songs "Trapped" and "Brenda's Got a
Baby" were widely noted both for their poetic qualities and
their strong critiques of unjust social policies. This
album was certified Gold by the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA) in 1995. On MTV's Greatest
Rappers of All Time list, 2Pacalypse Now was listed as one
of 2Pac's "certified classic" albums.
Dan Quayle (the vice president of USA on that
time) criticized the album after a Texas youth's defense
attorney claimed he was influenced by 2Pacalypse Now and
its theme of police brutality before shooting a state trooper.
Quayle said, "There's no reason for a record like this to be released. It has no place in our
society." Shakur stated that he felt he had been misunderstood. He said, "I started out saying I
was down for the young black male, you know, and that was gonna be my thang," Shakur said. "I
just wanted to rap about things that affected young black males. When I said that, I didn't know
that I was gonna tie myself down to just take all the blunts and hits for all the young black males,
to be the media's kicking post for young black males. I just figured since I lived that life I could
do that, I could rap about that.
His second studio album, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z..., was released in February 1993. The
album did better than its predecessor both critically and commercially, debuting at number 24 on
the Billboard 200. The album contains many tracks emphasizing Shakur's political and social
views, and there are noticeable differences in production from his first effort. While 2Pacalypse
Now had an indie-rap-oriented sound, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z... is generally considered
Shakur's "breakout" album. It spawned the hits "Keep Ya Head Up" and "I Get Around", and
reached platinum status.

 1993–95: Acting and rise to prominence

In late 1993, Shakur formed the group Thug Life with a number of his friends,
including Big Syke (Tyruss Himes), Macadoshis (Diron Rivers), his stepbrother Mopreme
Shakur, and the Rated R (Walter Burns). The group released their only album Thug Life:

19
Volume 1 on September 26, 1994, which went gold. As a result of criticism of gangsta rap at the
time, the original version of the album was scrapped and re-recorded with many of the original
songs being cut. The album contains ten tracks because Interscope Records felt many of the other
recorded songs were too controversial to release. Although the original version of the album was
not completed, Shakur performed the planned first single from the album, "Out on Bail" at the
1994 Source Awards.
Shakur's third album, Me Against the World, was released in March 1995 and was very well-
received, with many calling it the magnum opus of his career. It is considered one of the greatest
and most influential hip-hop albums of all time.Me Against the World won best rap album at the
1996 Soul Train Music Awards. "Dear Mama" was released as the album's first single in
February 1995, along with the track "Old School".It would become the album's most successful
single, topping the Hot Rap Singles chart and peaking at the ninth spot on the Billboard Hot
100.The single was certified platinum in July 1995, and later placed at #51 on the year-end charts.
The second single, "So Many Tears", was released in June, four months after the first
single.[51]The single would reach number six on the Hot Rap Singles chart, and number 44 on
the Billboard Hot 100. "Temptations", released in August, was the third and final single from the
album; it would be the least successful of the three released, but still did fairly well on the charts,
reaching number 68 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 35 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles &
Tracks, and number 13 on the Hot Rap Singles charts.

 1995–96: Final recordings

In October 1995, Shakur was released from prison after serving nine months of a sentence for
sexual assault and formed a new group called Outlaw Immortalz. Shakur joined the Death Row
label, under which he released the single "California Love".
On February 13, 1996, Shakur released his fourth solo
album, All Eyez on Me. This double album was the first
and second of his three-album commitment to Death
Row Records. It sold more than nine million
copies. The album is frequently recognized as one of
the crowning achievements of 1990s rap music. Steve
Huey of AllMusic stated that "despite some undeniable
filler, it is easily the best production 2Pac's ever had on
record". It was certified 5× platinum after just two
months in April 1996 and 9× platinum in 1998. The
album featured the Billboard Hot 100 number one
singles "How Do U Want It" and "California Love". It
featured five singles in all, the most of any 2Pac album.
Shakur continued his recordings despite increasing problems at the Death Row label. Dr. Dre left
his post as in-house producer to form his own label, Aftermath. Shakur continued to produce
hundreds of tracks during his time at Death Row, most of which would be released on his

20
posthumous albums Still I Rise, Until the End of Time, Better Dayz, Loyal to the
Game and Pac's Life.
The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, commonly shortened to The 7 Day Theory, is Shakur's
fifth and final studio album and was released under his new stage name Makaveli. The album
was completely finished in a total of seven days during the month of August 1996. The lyrics
were written and recorded in three days and mixing took an additional four days. In 2005,
Year Name Sales
1991 2Pacalypse Now US: 923,455
1993 Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z… US: 1,639,584
1995 Me Against The World US: 3,524,567
1996 All Eyez on me US: 5,000,000
1996 The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory US: 5,000,000
MTV.com ranked The 7 Day Theory at #9 on their greatest hip hop albums of all-time list and, in
2006, recognized it as a classic. The emotion and anger showcased on the album have been
admired by a large part of the hip hop community.

Discography
“I just don’t know how to deal with so many people giving me that much
affection. I never had that in my life.”
 Studio albums

 Posthumous studio albums

Year Name Sales

1997 R U Still Down? (Remember me) US: 2,166,177
2001 Until the End of Time US: 2,220,589
2002 Better Dayz US: 1,765,598
2004 Loyal to the Game US: 1,204,124
2006 Pac’s Life US: 500,000

 Colaboration albums (1)

 Live albums (2)
 Compilation albums (10)
 Remix albums (2)

21
 Video albums (1)
 Soundtrack albums (1)

29,235,000 albums sold in the USA

75,000,000 records sold worldwide

22
 Tupac and Suge Knight (CEO of Deathrow
records)

Acting
In addition to his endeavors in the music industry, Shakur acted in films. Before his rap career
took off, Tupac was theater trained. He could quote Shakespeare and was involved in
productions. He made his first film appearance in Nothing but Trouble (1991). His first starring
role was in the 1992 film Juice. He played Roland Bishop, a violent member of the Wrecking
Crew, for which he was hailed by Rolling Stone's Peter Travers as "the film's most magnetic
figure". He then continued in Poetic Justice (1993 and the
basketball drama Above the Rim (1994). After his death, three
more completed movies featuring Tupac
werereleased: Bullet (1996),Gridlock'd(1997),and Gang
Related (1997).
Shakur had been slated to star in the 1993 Hughes brothers'
film Menace II Society but was replaced by Larenz Tate after
assaulting Allen Hughes as a result of a quarrel. Shakur
reportedly wanted another type of role, but Hughes would not
conform to his wishes, leading to the altercation between the pair
which, according to Tyrin Turner, also led members of Shakur's
entourage to become physically aggressive toward Hughes. In
2013, Hughes said Shakur would have outshone the other actors
had he been in the film, "because he was bigger than the movie."
Hughes' comments were seen as validation that he had forgiven
the rapper since the incident. Larenz Tate, who had several
rehearsals with Shakur before his part was recast, recalled Shakur
being close to the Hughes brothers but that his actions were the
result of "creative differences".
Director John Singleton mentioned that he wrote the script for his film Baby Boy with
Shakur in mind for the lead role. It was eventually filmed with Tyrese Gibson in his place and
released in 2001, five years after Shakur's death. The film features a mural of Shakur in the
protagonist's bedroom, as well as featuring the song "Hail Mary" in the film's score.Tupac made
his appearancein 10 movies by the time he was 25 years old.

Documentaries and SeriesAbout Tupac

23
 1997: Tupac Shakur: Thug Immortal
 1997: Tupac Shakur Words Never
Die
 2001: Tupac Shakur: Before I
Wake…
 2001: Welcome to Deathrow
 2002: Tupac Shakur: Thug Angel
 2002: Biggie & Tupac
 2002: Tha Westside
 2003: 2pac 4 Ever
 2003: Tupac: Resurrection
24
 2004: Tupac vs.
 2004: Tupac: The Hip Hop Genius
 2006: So Many Years, So Many
Tears
 2015: Murder Rap: Inside the Biggie
and Tupac Murders
 2017: Who Killed Tupac?
 2017: Who Shot Biggie & Tupac?
 2018: Unsolved: Murders of Biggie
and Tupac
 Chapter 3: The End of His Story
„My mama always used to tell me: If you can't find somethin' to live for,
you best find somethin' to die for.”
The Wicked Night
Big names! Big cars! Big Jewelry! Big events!
That’s the way it was on the night of September 7, 1996.
Tupac was riding high on the 3 milion copy sales of his
latest album, All Eyez on Me. He attended the Bruce
Seldon vs. Mike Tyson boxing match with Suge Knight,
the head of Death Row Records, at the MGM Grand in
Las Vegas. After leaving the match, one of Suge Knight's
associates, Travon "Tray" spotted Orlando "Baby Lane"
Anderson, a Crips gang member,
from Compton, California, in the MGM Grand lobby.
Earlier that year, in May 1996, Anderson and a group of
Southside Crips had robbed Lane in a Foot Locker store.
Lane told Tupac, and Shakur attacked Orlando Anderson.
Shakur asked him if he was from the "South" (South Side
Compton Crips), and punched him in the face, knocking
Anderson to the ground. Shakur and Knight's entourage, some known as Bloods gang members,
assisted in assaulting Anderson. The fight was captured on the hotel's video surveillance. It was
broken up by hotel security.
The power and clout of Death Row Records had seemingly ensured his future and he was
headed with Dearhrow CEO, Suge Knight, to stage a highly publicized anti-gang youth event at
Knight’s Club 662. Riding in the passenger seat of a BMW 750 black sedan with an entourage of
ten cars behind him, Tupac might have felt like he owned the night. At 11:00–11:05 p.m. Shakur
and Knight were halted on Las Vegas Boulevard by officers from the Las Vegas Metropolitan
Police Department Bike Patrol for playing the car stereo too loudly and not having license plates.
The plates were found in the trunk of Knight's car; the party was released a few minutes later
without being cited. At 11:10 p.m. while they were stopped at a red light at the intersection of
East Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in front of the Maxim Hotel, a vehicle occupied by two
women pulled up on their left side. Shakur, who was talking through the window of
his BMW sedan, exchanged words with the two women, and invited them to go to Club 662.
At 11:15 p.m. a white, four-door, late-model Cadillac pulled up to Knight's right side, rolled
down a window, and rapidly fired gunshots at Shakur. He was hit four times, twice in the chest,
once in the arm, once in the thigh. One of the bullets went into Shakur's right lung. Knight was
hit in the head by fragmentation. Bodyguard Frank Alexander stated that when he was about to
ride along with Shakur in Knight's car, Shakur asked him to drive Jones's car instead (the so-
called fiancé of Tupac), in case they needed additional vehicles from Club 662 back to the hotel.
The bodyguard reported in his documentary, Before I Wake, that shortly after the assault, one of

25
the convoy's cars followed the assailant but he never heard from the occupants. Yaki Kadafi was
riding in the car behind Shakur with bodyguards at the time of the shooting, and along with
members of the Death Row entourage, refused to cooperate with officers.
Despite the vehicle having a flat tire and Knight's
injuries, he was able to drive Shakur and himself mile
from the site, to Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon
Avenue. They were pulled over by the Bike Patrol, who
alerted paramedics through radio. After arriving on the
scene, police and paramedics took Knight and Shakur to
the University Medical Center of Southern
Nevada. According to an interview with the music
video director Gobi Rahimi, while at the hospital, he
received news from a Death Row marketing employee
that the shooters had called the record label and
threatened Shakur. Gobi told the Las Vegas police, but
said they claimed to be understaffed. No attackers came
to the hospital. Shakur said he was dying while being
carried into the emergency department. At the hospital,
Shakur was heavily sedated, was placed on life
support machines, and was ultimately put under a barbiturate-induced coma after repeatedly
trying to get out of bed. He was visited by Jones and regained consciousness when she
played Don McLean's "Vincent" on the CD player next to his bed. According to Jones, Shakur
moaned and his eyes were filled with "mucus and swollen." Jones told Shakur that she loved him.
Knight was released from the hospital the day following the shooting on September 8, but did
not speak until September 11. He told officers he "heard something, but saw nothing" the night
of the shooting. A spokesman for the officers said Knight's statement did nothing to help the
investigation.Officers at the time of Shakur's hospitalization reported having no leads. Sergeant
Kevin Manning said during the week that officers did not receive "a whole lot of cooperation"
from Shakur's entourage. Rahimi and members of Shakur's group Outlawz guarded Shakur while
he stayed in the hospital due to their fear that whoever shot Shakur "was gonna come finish him
off". Rahimi mentioned the possibility that Outlawz brought weapons with them.While in
the critical care unit, on the afternoon of Friday, September 13, 1996, Shakur died of respiratory
failure that led to cardiac arrest after the removal of his right lung. Doctors supposedly attempted
to revive him, but could not stop the hemorrhaging. His mother, Afeni, made the decision to
cease medical treatment. He was pronounced dead at 4:03 pm.
„The doctor came out and said that Tupac had stopped breathing. Three times. And they had
revived him three times. And that every time they revived him, he just went back. And i asked
them to leave him alone and to let him go. I really felt it was important for Tupac, who fought so
hard to have a free spirit. I thought it was important for his spirit to be allowed to be free.”–
Afeni

26
One year after the shooting, Sgt. Kevin Manning, who headed the investigation, told Las Vegas
Sun investigative reporter Cathy Scott that Shakur's murder "may never be solved". The case
slowed early in the investigation, he said, as few new clues came in and witnesses clammed up.
He stated the investigation was at a standstill.
In 2002, the Los Angeles Times published a two-part story by Chuck Philips, titled "Who Killed
Tupac Shakur?" based on a year-long investigation. Philips reported that "the shooting was
carried out by a Compton gang called the Southside Crips to avenge the beating of one of its
members by Shakur a few hours earlier. Orlando Anderson, the Crip whom Shakur had attacked,
fired the fatal shots. Las Vegas police considered Anderson as a suspect and interviewed him
only once, briefly. Anderson was killed nearly two years later in an unrelated gang shooting."
Philips's article also implicated East Coast rappers, including The Notorious B.I.G., Tupac's rival
at the time, and several New York criminals. At the time of the shooting, an entourage of around
ten automobiles were following Knight and Shakur's vehicle. The year following the shooting,
Knight stated that he did not know who had shot Shakur but would never tell officers if he did.
“I wish I had 5 seconds in the ring with Tupac’s killer” – Mike Tyson

The last photo of Tupac being alive

27
 Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls
Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls and the Notorious B.I.G., lived a short life. He was 24
years old when he was gunned down in 1997 in Los Angeles, a murder that has never been
solved. Smalls was from New York and had almost single-handedly reinvented East Coast hip
hop — overtaken in the early 1990s by the West Coast sound of Dr. Dre and Death Row Records.
With his clear, powerful baritone, effortless flow on the mic and willingness to address the
vulnerability, as well as the harshness, of the hustler lifestyle, Smalls swung the spotlight back
towards New York and his label home, Bad Boy Records. He styled himself as a gangster and
although he was no angel, in reality he was more of a performer than a hardened criminal. In this
regard, he was similar to Tupac Shakur, his one-time friend turned bitter rival — a contest that
spiraled horrifyingly out of control leaving neither man alive to tell the tale.
Tupac and Biggie first encountered each other in 1993, in Los Angeles. There on business, the
Brooklyn-bred rapper Biggie asked a local drug dealer to introduce him to Tupac, who invited
Biggie and his party to his house.
Biggie is famous for being one of the most influential and greatest Hip-Hop figure of all time. He
started his career during 1992 after being signed on to Bad Boy Records. He quickly grew with
the help of his new found friend Tupac Shakur.
After the release of Biggie’s "Who Shot Ya?", which Shakur interpreted as a diss song mocking
his robbery/shooting, 2Pac appeared on numerous tracks aiming threatening or antagonistic
insults at Biggie, Bad Boy as a label, and anyone affiliated with them from late 1995 to 1996.
Examples include the songs "Against All Odds", "Bomb First (My Second Reply)" and "Hit 'Em
Up". During this time the media became heavily involved and dubbed the rivalry a coastal rap
war, reporting on it continually. This caused fans from both scenes to take sides.
Six months after Tupac's death, on March 9, 1997, The Notorious B.I.G. was killed in a drive-by
shooting by an unknown assailant in Los Angeles, California.

28
 His Legacy
Kendrick Lamar is an American rapper from Compton,
California, regarded as one of the most skillful and
successful hip hop artists of the new generation. He was
born in 17 June, 1987, the year when Tupac was just making
his debut in the world of hip hop.
Kendrick Lamar was finally home from a late night in the
studio. So late, that he couldn’t make it to his room. He
walked in the door and minutes later passed out on his
mom’s couch. He was 21 at the time, still living at home.
That night he remembers being delirious with sleep when a
silhouette appeared. It was Tupac.
He’d had relatives visit him in dreams before, but this was
something else. Lamar had been talking to his mom just a
day or two earlier when she told him that his birthday was
right around the dead rapper’s. Different years, but similar
dates. “I never knew that” he remembers thinking.
And then Tupac spoke.

“He basically said keep doing what you’re doing and don’t let my music die. That scared me,”
Lamar later said in an interview. And later in another, “It can make you go nuts. Hearing
somebody that you looked up to for years saying, ’Don’t let the music die.’ Hearing it clear as
day. Clear as day. Like he’s right there."

On September 13, 2015 it was marked the 19th anniversary of Tupac Shakur’s death. In his
memory, Kendrick Lamar has penned a poignant letter that’s being featured on 2pac.com.

"I was 8 years old when I first saw you. I couldn't describe how I felt at that moment. So
many different emotions. Full of excitement. Full of joy and eagerness. 20 years later I
understand exactly what that feeling was.
INSPIRED.
The people that you touched on that small intersection changed lives forever. I told myself I
wanted to be a voice for man one day. Whoever knew I was speaking out loud for u to
listen.
Thank you.
K.L.”

29
At his peak, Mike Tyson was the most intimidating men on the
entire planet, but talking about his friend Tupac Shakur caused
Iron Mike to break down to tears. While reminiscing about the
life and death of the iconic rapper, Tyson got emotional during
a radio interview:

“It’s very difficult to talk about him, he was

just a young kid, and he wanted to be great –
and then that happened.”

“He was taking things further than a lot of rappers at the

time, pushing it to the next level as far as giving feeling to
his words and his music” – Eminem

“Tupac was just so passionate about what he believes in

and not afraid to say anything.” – J Cole

“Tupac inspired me just the simple way of how he put his

words together, you really felt them, you felt the passion
behind them. You actually felt his words. That’s
something that I was inspired to put in my music.” –
Kendrick Lamar

30
Statue of Tupac In Stone Mountain, Georgia

31
Rest in peace

32
 Bibliography
 2pac.com
 2paclegacy.net/tupac-shakur-biography/
 biography.com/people/tupac-shakur-206528
 britannica.com/art/hip-hop
 britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-Party
 blackpast.org/aah/shakur-tupac-1971-1996
 businessinsider.com/tupac-life-story-death-2016-9
 capitalxtra.com/features/lists/tupac-family-tree-facts/
 discogs.com/artist/100752-2Pac
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afeni_Shakur
 genius.com/2pac-2pacs-tattoos-annotated
 hiphopdx.com/news/id.40775/title.tupacs-secret-work-with-the-bloods-the-crips
 independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tupac-shakurs-15-most-memorable-quotes-
on-poverty-shakespeare-hip-hop-and-race-10324592.html
 nndb.com/people/548/000024476/
 theconversation.com/in-tupacs-life-the-struggles-and-triumphs-of-a-generation-79266
 www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_l0wCMxaOg

 Scott, Cathy– The Killing of Tupac Shakur

 White, Arnold– Rebel for the hell of it : the life of Tupac Shakur
 Tupac Shakur: Ressurrection

33