On June 16, 1971, in the Bronx, New York, female black panther Afeni Shakur gave birth to her son, Tupac Amaru, just two months after getting out of prison. She knew that his father was either Billy Garland or a guy known as ’Legs’, but she didn’t know which one it was. As a child, Tupac shakur’s family moved around a lot, with him, his mother and his sister going from Brooklyn, NY to Baltimore, MD, where Tupac attended The Baltimore School for the Performing Arts. His teachers were impressed and he showed huge potential. However, the family then moved to Oakland, CA, where Tupac got into rap.

Under the name ’MC New York’, Tupac worked around the Bay Area with a group called the Bay Area MCs. However, for Tupac to be recognised all over the USA, he needed to appear in along with a famous group, he starred in the song and video of ’Same Song’, from Digital Underground’s ’This is an EP Release’. The rhyme on that song alone earned Tupac a record deal on Interscope. A year after ’Same Song’, in 1991, Tupac released his debut LP, ’2Pacalypse Now’. It wasn’t a completely revolutionary album, but tracks like ’Brenda’s got a Baby’ were very original, with a completely different theme to most rap songs out then, more sensitive than the majority of them. Around that time Tupac also made his first movie, ’Juice’. 2Pac showed he could do more than just rhyme, with a great performance as Bishop, who has the ’don’t give a fuck’ attitude that 2pac was later said to be endorsing.

In October of 1991, Tupac got into trouble with the law for the first time. He claimed that police officers assaulted him for jaywalking, and filed a $10 million lawsuit against the Oakland police force. There were more problems for ’Pac though, when a teenager claims he only killed a Texas Street Trooper because he was listening to ’2Pacalypse Now’. The then Vice-President Dan Quayle demands that the LP is withdrawn, but his pleas were ignored.

In 1993, Tupac gained more popularity by releasing his second album, ’Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.’ Although the album sold poorly to start with, once the classic party jam ’I Get Around’ and the single mothers anthem ’Keep Ya Head Up’ were released, ’Strictly ..’ went gold easily. That year tupac also made his second movie, ’Poetic Justice’. Easily the movie with the most hype (probably because it starred Janet Jackson) that Tupac appeared in, it was also one of the weakest, despite a good performance from Tupac. Legally, 1993 was probably the year when Tupac went out of control. In March, he had to serve 15 days in jail for beating video director Allen Hughes in LA. Then in April in Michigan, he had 10 days in jail for threatening a fellow rapper with a baseball bat. Then October came, and Tupac was arrested in Atlanta for shooting two off-duty cops. The charges were later dropped.

Then, in November 1993, the big charge was put on Tupac. He got charged with sexually abusing a fan in a New York hotel room, and then in the next April he was arrested for gun and marijuana possession in LA. Later, his third film ’Above The Rim’, was released, along with a great Tupac performance and a soundtrack on Death Row Records, a label ’Pac was to get much more familiar with. While awaiting the verdict for the sex charges, Tupac was shot five times in a recording studio. Until now, there is no official word on who did it, but ’Pac was sure the Notorious B.I.G. and Puffy were behind it. Then, days later, he was convicted for sexual abuse and put in prison. He was sentenced to one and a half to four and a half years in prison. With ’Pac in a jail cell, two LPs to do with him were released. The first one was by his group Thug Life, the album ’Thug Life Vol 1’, with the now infamous ’two middle fingers up’ picture of Tupac in the sleeve. the album was quite good, with okay rhymes by ’Pac, but the other members and the production was nothing to write home about.

The other album out while ’Pac was incarcerated was ’Me Against the World’. This was Tupac’s most critically acclaimed album, with some fantastic tracks on it and ’Pac’s most famous song ever, the Grammy award winning ’Dear Mama’, an ode to his mother. By October 1995, eight months after he’d been put away, Suge Knight made him an offer. Knight/Death Row would pay Tupac’s $1.4 million bail, and Tupac would sign to Death Row and become one of their soldiers. Tupac agreed, and started making rap’s first ever double-CD, ’All Eyez On Me’.

’All Eyez on Me’ broke many records. It has so far gone six times platinum, been the second best selling double-CD ever (second to the Beatles) and was hip hop’s first ever double-CD. However, the song from Tupac’s time at Death Row that caused the most fuss wasn’t even on the album. ’Hit ’Em Up’ was a diss to everyone who’d annoyed him in any way while he was in prison, which covered Biggie, Puffy, Lil’ Kim, Lil’ Caes, Junior M.A.F.I.A., Mobb Deep, Chino XL and many more. Between then and his death, Tupac made three more movies. ’Gridlock’d’ along with Tim Roth ; the story of two junkies trying to kick their habit. ’Bullet’ starred Mickey Rourke, but it has yet to be released in the UK so I don’t know anything else about it. And ’Gang Related’ which was his final film, which also starred Jim Belushi and was a tale of crooked detectives.

The last event in Tupac’s life. On Saturday, September 7th, Tupac and Suge Knight drove off to a club after the Mike Tyson fight against Bruce Seldon. A white Cadillac pulled up alongside their black BMW, and fired 12 shots in the car. Four hit Tupac in the chest, while Suge was only grazed by bullet fragments and glass. They rushed to the University Medical Centre, where they took Tupac to the Trauma Intensive Care Unit. There was a lot of internal bleeding, and a big struggle to keep Tupac alive. At least three operations were performed, and his right lung was removed. But despite all of their efforts, on Friday 13th of September, 1996, Tupac Amaru Shakur was pronounced dead.

Since his death, four more official Tupac albums have been released. Under the alias Makaveli, he released ’The Don Killuminati ... The Seven Day Theory,’ easily his angriest album ever, with rage and loads of dissing on all of the tracks. Some people say it’s his best ever, some say it’s his worst ever, it received very mixed opinions.

His mother, Afeni, set up her own record label, Amaru Records, for the other album. Called ’R U Still Down’, it is less of an album, more a compilation of tracks that had never seen the light of day before. Although the lyrics and rhymes are good, some of the beats are a bit weak and the whole thing sounds pretty disjointed. However, it’s good to hear new (to the public) 2Pac material.In 1998, a greatest hits album was released featuring four brilliant new ’Pac tracks. And to date, only one more album related to Pac has been officially released, that being ’Still I Rise’(released in 2000) which is a collaborative effort with The Outlawz. An album inspired by Tupac’s poetry was released on November 21st, 2000 entitled ’The Rose That Grew From Concrete,’ it featured a host of well known artists adapting his poetry into music.

The loss of Tupac has left an empty void. It was a pointless tragic event and should have never happened. R.I.P. Tupac Amaru Shakur