Tupac Shakur Biography

Tupac Shakur was one of the world’s fastest-rising rappers before his murder by gunfire in 1996. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has called him “the definitive hip-hop anti-hero.”

Tupac Shakur started out as a member of the hip-hop group Digital Underground, whose 1990 album featured the hits “Humpty Dance” and “Doowutchyalike.” He began his solo career in 1991, when his debut album 2Pacalypse Now propelled him to stardom. The album marked him out as one of the better-known practitioners of gangsta rap: “Rap music with lyrics explicitly portraying the violence and drug use of urban gang life,” as defined by Merriam-Webster.

Shakur followed it up with the album Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z… in 1993. His appearances in movies such as Juice (1992) and Poetic Justice (1993) helped him to cross into mainstream fame; he became known widely by his stage name of 2Pac.

He also made headlines over a string of run-ins with the law, and in 1994 he was robbed and shot five times. In 1995 he served nine months in a New York prison after being convicted of sexual assault stemming from a hotel room incident in 1993. Still, he bounced back with the successful albums Me Against The World (1995) and All Eyez on Me (1996).

Embroiled in a complicated feud with fellow gangsta rappers, Tupac Shakur was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas on September 13, 1996. No one has ever been charged with the killing. Tupac’s last album, The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, was released after his death late in 1996, under his stage alias of Makaveli. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.